Ananias (High Priest)

Ananias was the high priest before whom Paul stood being charged with sedition. He ordered the temple guards to strike Paul in the mouth. Wiping the blood away, Paul angrily called him a whitewashed wall.

When these same guards informed Paul that the judge before whom he stood was the high priest, Paul pled ignorance, assuring Ananias that he was a law abiding Jew and would not have knowingly spoken ill of God's anointed man.

Paul skillfully turned the Pharisees against the Sadducees within the council causing the Pharisees to declare Paul innocent. However, Ananias was not impressed, turning him over to a prosecutor named Tertullian five days later.