Before the Sanhedrin Court

184:5.1At five-thirty o’clock the court re­assem­bled, and Je­sus was led into the ad­join­ing room, where John was wait­ing. Here the Ro­man sol­dier and the tem­ple guards watched over Je­sus while the court be­gan the for­mu­la­tion of the charges which were to be pre­sented to Pi­late. An­nas made it clear to his as­so­ciates that the charge of blas­phemy would carry no weight with Pi­late. Ju­das was pres­ent dur­ing this sec­ond meet­ing of the court, but he gave no tes­ti­mony.

184:5.2This ses­sion of the court lasted only a half hour, and when they ad­journed to go be­fore Pi­late, they had drawn up the in­dict­ment of Je­sus, as be­ing wor­thy of death, un­der three heads:

184:5.31. That he was a per­verter of the Jew­ish na­tion; he de­ceived the peo­ple and in­cited them to re­bel­lion.

184:5.42. That he taught the peo­ple to refuse to pay trib­ute to Cae­sar.

184:5.53. That, by claim­ing to be a king and the founder of a new sort of king­dom, he in­cited trea­son against the em­peror.

184:5.6This en­tire pro­ce­dure was ir­reg­u­lar and wholly con­trary to the Jew­ish laws. No two wit­nesses had agreed on any mat­ter ex­cept those who tes­ti­fied re­gard­ing Je­sus’ state­ment about de­stroy­ing the tem­ple and rais­ing it again in three days. And even con­cern­ing that point, no wit­nesses spoke for the de­fense, and nei­ther was Je­sus asked to ex­plain his in­tended mean­ing.

184:5.7The only point the court could have con­sis­tently judged him on was that of blas­phemy, and that would have rested en­tirely on his own tes­ti­mony. Even con­cern­ing blas­phemy, they failed to cast a for­mal bal­lot for the death sen­tence.

184:5.8And now they pre­sumed to for­mu­late three charges, with which to go be­fore Pi­late, on which no wit­nesses had been heard, and which were agreed upon while the ac­cused pris­oner was ab­sent. When this was done, three of the Phar­isees took their leave; they wanted to see Je­sus de­stroyed, but they would not for­mu­late charges against him with­out wit­nesses and in his ab­sence.

184:5.9Je­sus did not again ap­pear be­fore the San­hedrist court. They did not want again to look upon his face as they sat in judg­ment upon his in­no­cent life. Je­sus did not know (as a man) of their for­mal charges un­til he heard them re­cited by Pi­late.

184:5.10While Je­sus was in the room with John and the guards, and while the court was in its sec­ond ses­sion, some of the women about the high priest’s palace, to­gether with their friends, came to look upon the strange pris­oner, and one of them asked him, “Are you the Mes­siah, the Son of God?” And Je­sus an­swered: “If I tell you, you will not be­lieve me; and if I ask you, you will not an­swer.”

184:5.11At six o’clock that morn­ing Je­sus was led forth from the home of Cai­a­phas to ap­pear be­fore Pi­late for con­fir­ma­tion of the sen­tence of death which this San­hedrist court had so un­justly and ir­reg­u­larly de­creed.