Before the Sanhedrim

S. Mark xv. 1

When the irregular assembly in the house of Caiaphas broke up, our Lord was left to the tender mercies of the attendants and servants of the chief priests. We know well how contagious cruelty is, especially amongst men of a coarse nature, and we are not surprised that the unjust treatment which the Prisoner had received at the hands of Caiaphas and the priests should have been followed up by worse indignities from the menials of the Court. They knew that they had nothing to fear, and began at once to give rein to their cruel passions, and subjected their unbefriended Victim to the most shameless violence. They spat upon His face, to mark the extremity of contempt. They blindfolded His eyes, and because He refused to guess who it was that struck Him, they taunted Him with His claims to the prophetic office. But He had set His face like flint, and nothing could divert Him. The Scriptures should all be fulfilled. “I hid not My face from shame and spitting.” “He is despised and rejected of men.” “His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.” And so no utterance escaped His lips; no hand was raised against them; although a single word or the slightest movement would have sufficed to paralyse the arm of His oppressors, or throw them, like Judas and his company, prostrate on the ground.

But while all this barbarity, this work of darkness, was going on, the day dawned; and with daylight the legal Sanhedrim might open its formal session.

Where the Court was held at this time is a matter of doubt. The regular place of meeting was the “Lischath Haggazith” — or chamber of hewn stone, at the south-east corner of the Temple Mount; or perhaps at this time in “the Booths of the sons of Annas.” An expression which S. Luke uses, “they led Him up x to their council” appears to point to the former. But wherever it was, we may feel sure that no time would be lost. They had everything to fear from delay. A reaction might set in at any moment, and the turbulent Galileans were as likely as not to rise up in support of their Countryman. The citations to the commissioners had doubtless been issued immediately on the arrest, and the Court was constituted at once.

The rules which regulated the proceedings of the Sanhedrim in the ordinary exercise of its judicial functions have a special interest for us, if it be only to see how they were disregarded in connection with our Blessed Lord.

The judges were ranged in the form of a semicircle. The High Priest, or in his absence, the “Nasi” or prince, occupied the Presidential seat in the centre. A distinguished dignitary, selected for his age, and called “the Father of the council,” sat on his right hand; another, probably the most learned, entitled “the wise man,” on his left. The rest of the judges took their seats in order of precedence, an equal number on either side, while at the two extremities of the crescent sat two scribes, — one to record the verdict of acquittal, the other the sentence of condemnation, as the case might be. The prisoner, with bailiffs and officers of the Court behind him, stood immediately confronting the President.

Now, nothing could have been contrived more in the interests of the prisoner than the rules of the Court. The motto, if not written on the walls, was known and recognised by every member: “The Sanhedrim aims at saving, not destroying life.” The judges were chosen for learning, blamelessness of character, and moderation of temper; and there was one most touching and noteworthy provision — those only were qualified to adjudicate who were fathers of children. It was supposed to afford some guarantee that they would be influenced in their verdict by feelings of love and tenderness. The prisoner was held to be innocent till his guilt was proved; and each witness as he came forward to give his evidence was enjoined to speak the strict truth, lest a life should be unjustly sacrificed. Counsel was directed to watch the proceedings in behalf of the accused; and lastly, to avoid the possibility of a decision, involving fatal consequences, being given under the impulse of excitement, though a sentence of acquittal might be passed at once, no condemnation could be pronounced till a whole day had elapsed from the close of the sitting. All this shows what a parody of justice the trial of our Lord really was.

It is probable that as soon as the Court was formally opened, Caiaphas tried to get the previous verdict indorsed without any further examination of the Prisoner; but objections were raised. We know who one at least of the objectors was, viz., Joseph of Arimathsea, for we are told that he had “not consented unto their counsel and deed;” and we can well imagine that he was supported in his protest by Nicodemus.

It is quite clear that other members of the council were not satisfied with the High Priest’s assertion as to what he had elicited from the Prisoner, for they put the question themselves, saying to Him, “Art Thou the Christ? tell us.”

In a moment their reception of His doctrine from the beginning, and His recollection of the manner in which His answer to Caiaphas had been denounced, came up before Him, and with a calmness and dignity which is surprising on the lips of One Who was being tried for His life, He replied, “If I tell you, ye will not believe: and if I also ask you, ye will not answer Me, nor let Me go.” “If,” that is, “My works and My life have not taught you; if My solemn vindication of the title to which your High Priest testifies has not convinced you, what need to repeat it?” or again, “If I put a question to you to prove My claim, your lips will be closed lest your enforced admission compel you to acquit Me, which you know you are resolved under no circumstances to do.”

And then as the consciousness of His greatness came pouring in upon Him, — some sudden inspiration perhaps to strengthen Him for the approaching crisis, — He realised the whole iniquity of the trial; the priests and elders and scribes sitting before Him to administer justice as the delegates of God, and yet violating every principle of it by word and deed: and the vision of another assize flashed before His sight. He saw that which Daniel had seen by anticipation, the Ancient of Days coming to judgment, and Himself the Assessor of the Judge, and He declared to the astonished Court, “Hereafter shall the Son of Man sit on the right hand of the power of God.”

It was a direct claim to Divine honour, and though they knew what answer He would give, though some of them had seen the High Priest rend his sacerdotal robe in pious horror at the confession, they courted a repetition of the dreaded blasphemy, and with one voice, “then said they all, Art Thou then the Son of God?” Again He claimed to be One with the Father, and out of His Own mouth they condemned Him to be worthy of death.

But the Sanhedrim could give no effect to its verdict. By their own confession the Jews had lost the power of life and death -, “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.” If, however, they had resolved to take the matter into their own hands they would probably have done it with impunity, but there was one grave reason to prevent their doing so. They had condemned Jesus on a charge of blasphemy, the penalty for which was stoning. This in their eyes was too honourable a death for Him to die. Nothing would satisfy them short of crucifixion x — the Roman punishment reserved for slaves or their worst criminals. Their only course thereupon was to deliver Him up to the civil power. Its chief representative, Pontius Pilate, was then at Jerusalem. It was Passover- time, and his presence was indispensable for the good order of the populace.

The Sanhedrists went in a body with the Prisoner, hoping no doubt to overawe the Governor by their number and the weight of their office.

It was most probably as Jesus was being conducted from the council-chamber to Pilate’s residence, that Judas realised that He was sentenced to death.

Before then the next stage of the trial begins, we shall do well to see what effect it produced upon him. When once the excitement of the arrest was over, and his part had been played, he was left to his own reflections. And in the darkness of the night the awful truth of his deed of shame must have forced itself upon his conscience, and many visions have come up before him — visions of the past, so full of unspeakable love and tenderness — visions of the future, so big with doom and retribution. No doubt the Evil One buoyed him up with hopes — hopes that were only destined to mock and increase his misery. Perhaps he persuaded him that his remorse was wasted, for even at the last the Divine power might be exercised, and Jesus be saved from the hands of His enemies, and so the traitor’s act would ultimately redound to His greatness.

But now, to his unutterable dismay, he realised that Jesus was condemned, and on the point of being delivered up to the Roman Governor, and he was seized with horror. Instead however of taking the only step that could possibly have helped him, — instead of hurrying at once to his Lord, and flinging himself upon His mercy for pardon and forgiveness, — he fled to the chief priests, who had shared with him the guilt of the betrayal, and implored them to undo the awful crime. “I have sinned,” he cries, “in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.”

But he might as well have cried to the stones of the Temple, for they had no word of comfort to give him: he had accomplished their purpose, and had been paid for his work, and might take the consequences.

“Whichever way he looked was hell:
Himself was hell.”

In a wild moment of distracting frenzy his life was closed by a suicidal hand — that life of which alone it may ever be said without fear of contradiction that there is no hope. “It were good for that man if he had never been born.”

Note: The reading dirrjyayov however is adopted for avr/yayov in the Revised Version. The fact that Judas, on hearing that the sentence was pronounced, flung the money down in the Temple, seems to favour the view that the Chamber was “Haggazith,” not the “Booths.” -’ In later times his Presidency was confined to legal and ritual cases only.

Note: There is a tradition that heralds were sent forth for forty days before our Lord’s execution, inviting witnesses to speak in His favour; and finding none, they hanged Him on the eve of the Passover. This is absent from the ordinary editions of the Talmud, but is found in the unmutilated edition published at Amsterdam, 1645. Cf. Talm. Bab. Synhed. 43 a. Such a supposition, however, is contradicted by the whole proceedings at the trial.

Note: Some have thought they merely meant that it was illegal to do so at the Passover; but it is an unnatural explanation of the words. Pilate assumes that the power resides with himself. S. John xix. 10; cf. note in Westcott on S. John xviii. 31.

Note: Crucifixion was common among Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, Assyrians, and many other nations. Among the Jews there was a kind of crucifixion, in which the body was tied to a stake after death — Deut. xxi. 22, 23, — and this was held in great horror because of the saying, “He that is hanged is accursed of God.”

Note: His usual residence was at Caesarea. He had made himself so unpopular in Jerusalem by his disregard of Jewish customs and prejudices that he generally kept away from the Holy City. It is doubtful whether he resided, when at Jerusalem, in the Fortress of Antonia, or in the Herodian Palace, on the north-western corner of the Upper City. Josephus, Wars, i. 21, 1, and v. 4, 4.