Before the Sanhedrin Court

184:0.1Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of An­nas had se­cretly in­structed the cap­tain of the Ro­man sol­diers to bring Je­sus im­me­di­ately to the palace of An­nas af­ter he had been ar­rested. The for­mer high priest de­sired to main­tain his pres­tige as the chief ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal au­thor­ity of the Jews. He also had an­other pur­pose in de­tain­ing Je­sus at his house for sev­eral hours, and that was to al­low time for legally call­ing to­gether the court of the San­hedrin. It was not law­ful to con­vene the San­hedrin court be­fore the time of the of­fer­ing of the morn­ing sac­ri­fice in the tem­ple, and this sac­ri­fice was of­fered about three o’clock in the morn­ing.

184:0.2An­nas knew that a court of San­hedrists was in wait­ing at the palace of his son-in-law, Cai­a­phas. Some thirty mem­bers of the San­hedrin had gath­ered at the home of the high priest by mid­night so that they would be ready to sit in judg­ment on Je­sus when he might be brought be­fore them. Only those mem­bers were as­sem­bled who were strongly and openly op­posed to Je­sus and his teach­ing since it re­quired only twenty-three to con­sti­tute a trial court.

184:0.3Je­sus spent about three hours at the palace of An­nas on Mount Oli­vet, not far from the gar­den of Geth­sem­ane, where they ar­rested him. John Zeb­e­dee was free and safe in the palace of An­nas not only be­cause of the word of the Ro­man cap­tain, but also be­cause he and his brother James were well known to the older ser­vants, hav­ing many times been guests at the palace as the for­mer high priest was a dis­tant rel­a­tive of their mother, Sa­lome.