SANDALS, at first, were only soles tied to the feet with strings or thongs; afterward they were covered; and at last they called even shoes sandals. When Judith went to the camp of Holofernes, she put sandals on her feet; and her sandals ravished his eyes, Judith x, 4; xvi, 9. They were a magnificent kind of buskins proper only to ladies of condition, and such as dressed themselves for admiration. But there were sandals also belonging to men, and of mean value. We read, “If the man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother; then shall his brother’s wife come unto him, in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face; and shall say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house. And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him who hath had his shoe loosed,” Deuteronomy xxv, 7. A late writer observes that the word rendered “shoe,” usually means “sandal,” that is, a mere sole fastened on the foot in a very simple manner; and that the primary and radical meaning of the word rendered face, is surface, the superficies of any thing. Hence he would submit, that the passage may be to the following purpose: The brother’s wife shall loose the sandal from off the foot of her husband’s brother; and shall spit upon its face or surface, (that is, of the shoe,) and shall say, &c. This ceremony is coincident with certain customs among the Turks. We are told that in a complaint against her own husband, for withholding himself from her intimacy, the wife when before the judge takes off her own shoe, and spits upon it; but in case of complaint against her husband’s brother, she takes off his shoe and spits upon it.
The business of untying and carrying the sandals being that of a servant, the expressions of the Baptist, “whose shoes I am not worthy to bear,” “whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose,” was an acknowledgment of his great inferiority to Christ, and that Christ was his Lord. To pull off the sandals on entering a sacred place, or the house of a person of distinction, was the usual mark of respect. They were taken care of by the attendant servant. At the doors of an Indian pagoda, there are as many sandals and slippers hung up, as there are hats in our places of worship.
SANHEDRIM, SANHEDRIN, or SYNEDRIUM, among the ancient Jews, the supreme council, or court of judicature, of that republic; in which were despatched all the great affairs both of religion and policy. The word is derived from the Greek συνέδριον, a council, assembly, or company of people sitting together; from σὺν, together, and hήδρα, a seat. Many of the learned agree, that it was instituted by Moses, Numbers xi; and consisted at first of seventy elders, who judged finally of all causes and affairs; and that they subsisted, without intermission, from Moses to Ezra, Deut. xxvii, 1; xxxi, 9; Josh. xxiv, 1, 31; Judg. ii, 7; 2 Chron. xix, 8; Ezek. viii, 11. Others will have it, that the council of seventy elders, established by Moses, was temporary, and did not hold after his death; adding, that we find no sign of any such perpetual and infallible tribunal throughout the whole Old Testament; and that the sanhedrim was first set up in the time when the Maccabees, or Asmoneans, took upon themselves the administration of the government under the title of high priests, and afterward of kings, that is, after the persecution of Antiochus. This is by far the most probable opinion. The Jews, however, contend strenuously for the antiquity of their great sanhedrim: M. Simon strengthens and defends their proofs, and M. Le Clerc attacks them. Whatever may be the origin and establishment of the sanhedrim, it is certain that it was subsisting in the time of our Saviour, since it is spoken of in the Gospels, Matt. v, 21; Mark xiii, 9; xiv, 55; xv, 1; and since Jesus Christ himself was arraigned and condemned by it; that it was held at Jerusalem; and that the decision of all the most important affairs among the Jews belonged to it. The president of this assembly was called nasi, or prince; his deputy was called abbeth-din, father of the house of judgment; and the sub-deputy was called chacan, the wise: the rest were denominated tzekanim, elders or senators. The room in which they sat was a rotunda, half of which was built without the temple, and half within; that is, one semicircle of the room was within the compass of the temple; and as it was never allowed to sit down in the temple, they tell us this part was for those who stood up; the other half, or semicircle, extended without the holy place, and here the judges sat. The nasi, or prince, sat on a throne at the end of the hall, having his deputy at his right hand, and his sub-deputy at his left; the other senators were ranged in order on each side.
The sanhedrim subsisted until the destruction of Jerusalem, but its authority was almost reduced to nothing, from the time in which the Jewish nation became subject to the Roman empire. The rabbins pretend, that the sanhedrim has always subsisted in their nation from the time of Moses to the destruction of the temple by the Romans; and they maintain that it consisted of seventy counsellors, six out of each tribe, and Moses as president; and thus the number was seventy-one: but six senators out of each tribe make the number seventy-two, which, with the president, constitute a council of seventy-three persons, and therefore it has been the opinion of some authors that this was the number of the members of the sanhedrim. As to the personal qualifications of the judges of this court, it was required that they should be of untainted birth; and they were often of the race of the priests or Levites, or of the number of inferior judges, or of the lesser sanhedrim, which consisted of twenty-three judges. They were to be skilful in the written and traditional law; and they were obliged to study magic, divination, fortune telling, physic, astrology, arithmetic, and languages. It was also required, that none of them should be eunuchs, usurers, decrepid or deformed, or gamesters; and that they should be of mature age, rich, and of good countenance and body. Thus say the rabbins.
The authority of the sanhedrim was very extensive. This council decided causes brought before it by appeal from inferior courts. The king, high priest, and prophets were subject to its jurisdiction. The general officers of the nation were brought before the sanhedrim. How far their right of judging in capital cases extended, and how long it continued, have been subjects of controversy. Among the rabbins it has been a generally received opinion, that about forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, their nation had been deprived of the power of life and death. And most authors assert, that this privilege was taken from them ever since Judea was made a province of the Roman empire, that is, after the banishment of Archelaus. Others, however, maintain that the Jews had still the power of life and death; but that this privilege was restricted to crimes committed against their law, and depended upon the governor’s will and pleasure. In the time of Moses, this council was held at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony. As soon as the people were in possession of the land of promise, the sanhedrim followed the tabernacle, and it continued at Jerusalem, whither it was removed, till the captivity. During the captivity it was kept at Babylon. After the return from Babylon, it remained at Jerusalem, as it is said, to the time of the sicarii or assassins; afterward it was removed to Jamnia, thence to Jericho, to Uzzah, to Sepharvaim, to Bethsamia, to Sephoris, and last of all to Tiberias, where it continued till its utter extinction. Such is the account which the Jews give of their sanhedrim. But, as stated above, much of this is disputed. Petau fixes the beginning of the sanhedrim to the period when Gabinius was governor of Judea, by whom were erected tribunals in the five cities of Judea, namely, Jerusalem, Gadara, Amathus, Jericho, and Sephoris. Grotius agrees in the date of its commencement with the rabbins, but he fixes its termination at the beginning of Herod’s reign. Basnage places it under Judas Maccabæus and his brother Jonathan. Upon the whole, it may be observed, that the origin of the sanhedrim has not been satisfactorily ascertained; and that the council of the seventy elders, established by Moses, was not what the Hebrews understood by the name of sanhedrim.
Before the death of our Saviour, two very famous rabbins had been presidents of the sanhedrim, namely Hillel and Schammai, who entertained very different opinions on several subjects, and particularly that of divorce. This gave occasion to the question which the Pharisees put to Jesus Christ upon that head, Matt. xix, 3. (See [Divorce].) Hillel had Menahem for his associate in the presidency of the sanhedrim. But the latter afterward deserted that honourable post, and joined himself with a great number of his disciples, to the party of Herod Antipas, who promoted the levying of taxes for the use of the Roman emperors with all his might. These were probably the Herodians mentioned in the Gospel, Matt. xxii, 16. To Hillel succeeded Simeon his son, who by some is supposed to have been the person who took Jesus Christ in his arms, Luke ii, 28, and publicly acknowledged him to be the Messiah. If this be the case, the Jewish sanhedrim had for president a person that was entirely disposed to embrace Christianity. Gamaliel, the son and successor of Simeon, seems to have been also of a candid disposition and character. There were several inferior sanhedrims in Palestine, all depending on the great sanhedrim at Jerusalem. The inferior sanhedrim consisted each of twenty-three persons; and there was one in each city and town. Some say, that to have a right to hold a sanhedrim, it was requisite there should be one hundred and[and] twenty inhabitants in the place. Where the inhabitants came short of the number of one hundred and twenty, they only established three judges. In the great as well as the inferior sanhedrim were two scribes; the one to write down the suffrages of those who were for condemnation, the other to take down the suffrages of those who were for absolution.
SAPPHIRE, ספיר, Exod. xxiv, 10; xxviii, 18; Job xxviii, 6, 16; Cantic. v, 14; Isa. liv, 11; Ezek. i, 26; x, 1; xxviii, 13, σάϖφειρος, Rev. xxi, 19, only. That this is the sapphire, there can be no doubt. The Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the general run of commentators, ancient and modern, agree in this. The sapphire is a pellucid gem. In its finest state it is extremely beautiful and valuable, and second only to the diamond in lustre, hardness, and value. Its proper colour is pure blue; in the choicest specimens it is of the deepest azure; and in others varies into paleness, in shades of all degrees between that and a pure crystal brightness, without the least tinge of colour, but with a lustre much superior to the crystal. The oriental sapphire is the most beautiful and valuable. It is transparent, of a fine sky colour, sometimes variegated with veins of a white sparry substance, and distinct separate spots of a gold colour. Whence it is that the prophets describe the throne of God like unto sapphire, Ezek. i, 26; x, 1. Isaiah, liv, 11, 12, prophesying the future grandeur of Jerusalem, says,
“Behold, I lay thy stones in cement of vermilion,
And thy foundations with sapphires:
And I will make thy battlements of rubies,