THE following short biographical sketches of about forty of the members of the Sanhedrin who tried Jesus are from a work entitled "Valeur de l'assemblée qui prononça la peine de mort contre Jésus Christ"—Lémann. The English translation, under the title "Jesus Before the Sanhedrin," is by Julius Magath, Oxford, Georgia.
Professor Magath's translation is used in this work by special permission.—The Author.
The Moral Characters of the Personages who Sat at the Trial of Christ
The members of the Sanhedrin that judged Christ were seventy-one in number, and were divided into three chambers; but we must know the names, acts, and moral characters of these judges. That such a knowledge would throw a great light on this celebrated trial can be easily understood. The characters of Caiaphas, Ananos, and Pilate are already well known to us. These stand out as the three leading figures in the drama of the Passion. But others have appeared in it; would it not be possible to produce them also before history? This task, we believe, has never yet been undertaken. It was thought that documents were wanting. But this is an error; such documents exist. We have consulted them; and in this century of historical study and research we shall draw forth from the places where they have been hidden for centuries, the majority of the judges of Christ.
Three kinds of documents have, in a particular manner, enabled us to discover the characters of these men: the books of the Evangelists, the valuable writings of Josephus the historian, and the hitherto unexplored pages of the Talmud. We shall bring to light forty of the judges, so that more than half of the Sanhedrin will appear before us; and this large majority will be sufficient to enable us to form an opinion of the moral tone of the whole assembly.
To proceed with due order, we will begin with the most important chamber—viz., the chamber of the priests.
I. The Chamber of the Priests
We use the expression "chamber of the priests." In the Gospel narrative, however, this division of the Sanhedrin bears a more imposing title. Matthew, Mark, and the other Evangelists, designate it by the following names: the council of the high priests, and the council of the princes of the priests.[185]
But we may ask, Why is this pompous name given to this chamber by the Evangelists? Is this not an error on their part? An assembly of priests seems natural, but how can there be an assembly of high priests, since according to the Mosaic institution there could be only one high priest, whose office was tenable for life. There is, however, neither an error nor an undue amplification on the part of the Gospel narrators; and we may also add here that both Talmuds positively speak of an assembly of high priests.[186] But how, then, can we account for the presence of several high priests at the same time in the Sanhedrin? Here is the explanation, to the shame of the Jewish assembly: