THE TRIAL OF JESUS CUEIST. 



4G3 



thority of the high-priest ; and the addition of a 

 Roman speira to the officers of the Temple must 

 have been procured by Jewish authority, and 

 thus tends rather to favor legality. But was ar- 

 rest before trial at all lawful by Jewish law ? It 

 seems not to have been so unless resistance or 

 escape was apprehended. In this case no escape 

 was intended, but resistance, though not intend- 

 ed, was looked for; and the lawfulness of the ar- 

 rest really turns on the question whether it was 

 to be the preface to a regular trial or not. If so, 

 the legal course after it was that followed a little 

 later by the captors of Peter and John, who 

 " put them in ward until the next day, because it 

 was now eventide." It was to be otherwise 

 here. 



An examination by night followed the arrest. 

 Jesus was first led by his armed escort to the 

 presence of Annas, by far the most influential 

 member of the Sanhedrim. For in that body 

 there now sat no less than five of his sons, all of 

 whom either had held, or were in a iew years to 

 hold, the supreme dignity of high-priest. The 

 old man had exercised that great office twenty 

 years before, and had, perhaps, in the absence 

 of the Roman governor, 1 stretched his powers, as 

 his son afterward did, to the extent of carrying 

 out capital sentences. At all events, the indig- 

 nant procurator insisted on his removal from of- 

 fice ; but, though Annas gave a formal consent, 

 he merely transferred the chair of the great 

 council to the younger members of his family. 2 

 It was now held by his energetic son-in-law Caia- 

 phas, the aged head of the house remaining, in 

 the estimation of orthodox Jews, the de jure 

 high-priest. By Annas Jesus was sent bound to 

 Caiaphas, perhaps only to another department 

 of the sacerdotal palace. But before one or 

 other of these princes of the church the accused 

 was certainly subjected to a preliminary investi- 

 gation before any witnesses were called. It is 

 extremely difficult to decide whether this exam- 

 ination by " the high-priest," recorded by John 

 alone, was made by Annas or by Caiaphas 3 — so 

 difficult, that it is fortunate that scarcely any 

 legal question turns upon the point. 4 The chief 



1 Valerius Gratus, Pilate's predecessor. See Josephus, 

 " Antiquities," xviii., 2, 1, and xx., 9, 1. 



a " Like flies on a sore " was the comment of the Em- 

 peror Tiberius on the rapid succession in which one 

 high-priest after another alighted upon Jerusalem during 

 his reign. 



3 It depends partly on whether the word anea-TeiXev, 

 in John xviii. 24, means " sent" or " had sent." See the 

 full discussion of it in Andrews's "Life of Our Lord." 



4 Dupin objects that Annas was not a magistrate, and 



result of our decision Sf it is, that, if the exam- 

 ination detailed by John took place before An- 

 nas, it was separated by an interval of place, and 

 also of time, from the subsequent proceedings 

 before Caiaphas. In that case it is more prob- 

 able that the examination of witnesses, the con- 

 fession, and condemnation, which took place be- 

 fore the younger and titular high-priest, were 

 somewhat later in the night, or even toward 

 morning, and followed the form and order of a 

 regular public trial. If, on the other hand, An- 

 nas at once sent on the prisoner to Caiaphas, 

 and if the examination recorded was by the latter, 

 it may have been immediately followed by the 

 production of witnesses, and by the adjuration 

 and condemnation ; and in this case it is likely 

 that a considerable interval succeeded these pro- 

 ceedings before a formal or public meeting of 

 council in the morning confirmed the informal 

 condemnation of the night. But the main point 

 with regard to the high-priest's examination is 

 independent of the question who the examiner 

 was. It appears in any case to have been wholly 

 illegal. In some countries — in France, for exam- 

 ple, and in Scotland — the accused is led before a 

 magistrate, and subjected to official interroga- 

 tories before he is remitted to his public trial. 

 In others, and in the Hebrew law, it is not so. 

 It was there the right of the accused to be free 

 from all such personal investigation until he was 

 brought for trial before his congregated breth- 

 ren. 1 This rule of publicity seems to have been 

 derived from principles both as to judges and 

 witnesses. " Be not a sole judge," was one of 

 the most famous aphorisms, "for there is no sole 

 judge but One." 2 Still more clear was it, not 

 from the Mishna only, but from the Pentateuch, 

 that there was to be no such thing as a sole wit- 

 ness; and that the "two or three witnesses" at 

 Whose mouth every matter must be established 

 must appear publicly to give their testimony. 3 

 Their deposition was the beginning of every pro- 

 ceeding; and, until it was publicly given against 

 a man, he was held to be, in the judgment of 

 law, not merely innocent, but scarcely accused. 

 It is this principle which gives the fullest expla- 



certainly that would add to the irregularity of interrogat- 

 ing the accused. 



1 " Un principe perpetuellement reproduit dans les 

 ecritures hebrai'ques, resume deja les deux conditions de 

 publieite et de liberte. On ne soumettait pas l'homme ac- 

 cuse a des interrogatoires occultes, oii dans son trouble 

 l'innocent pent fournir des amies mortals contre lui." — 

 Salvador's "Institutions? i., 3G6. 



2 Mishna, Pirke. Avoth, iv., 8. 



3 Deuteronomy xix. 15-18. 



