Acts 23:5

And Paul said, I knew not, brethren, that he was high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of a ruler of thy people.

I knew not ... There is no reason whatever to accuse Paul of blindness (or near-sightedness), as some have done, or to insist that "Surely Paul would know the high priest,"[8] or that he spoke sarcastically, as if to say, "You cannot make a high priest out of contemptible material like that!"[9] For reasons cited under Acts 23:4, the view here is that Paul simply spoke the truth and that he did not know the high priest by his personal appearance, although he might indeed have known his name. Milligan, however, thought that Paul simply regarded Ananias "as a usurper."[10] Paul's admission of wrong and the citing of the scripture in Exodus 22:28 which he had inadvertently violated does not seem to allow the view that Paul would have said what he did, if he had known he was addressing the high priest. True enough, the current holder of the office was vile; but the office itself had long been accounted sacred.

Paul's understandable outrage and impromptu protest, in all probability inspired, had two very important results: (1) it prophesied the destruction of Ananias, and (2) it led Paul to see at once that there was not any possibility of justice for himself in such a tribunal. "There was no prospect before this tribunal of a fair inquiry and a just decision."[11] This accounts for the strategy Paul immediately employed in his defense.

[8] H. Leo Boles, Commentary on the Acts (Nashville: The Gospel Advocate Company, 1953), p. 363.

[9] W. R. Walker, op. cit., p. 72.

[10] Robert Milligan, Analysis of the New Testament (Cincinnati, Ohio: Bosworth, Chase and Hall, Publishers), p. 396.

[11] W. J. Conybeare, Life and Epistles of St. Paul (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, Publishers, 1966), p. 591.