Annas

• Annas

190:3.3As a re­sult of send­ing out the mes­sen­gers dur­ing the mid­forenoon and from the un­con­scious leak­age of in­ti­ma­tions con­cern­ing this ap­pear­ance of Je­sus at Joseph’s house, word be­gan to come to the rulers of the Jews dur­ing the early evening that it was be­ing re­ported about the city that Je­sus had risen, and that many per­sons were claim­ing to have seen him. The San­hedrists were thor­oughly aroused by these ru­mors. Af­ter a hasty con­sul­ta­tion with An­nas, Cai­a­phas called a meet­ing of the San­hedrin to con­vene at eight o’clock that evening. It was at this meet­ing that ac­tion was taken to throw out of the syn­a­gogues any per­son who made men­tion of Je­sus’ res­ur­rec­tion. It was even sug­gested that any­one claim­ing to have seen him should be put to death; this pro­posal, how­ever, did not come to a vote since the meet­ing broke up in con­fu­sion bor­der­ing on ac­tual panic. They had dared to think they were through with Je­sus. They were about to dis­cover that their real trou­ble with the man of Naz­a­reth had just be­gun.

184:1.6The kindly man­ner in which Je­sus spoke to An­nas al­most be­wil­dered him. But he had al­ready de­ter­mined in his mind that Je­sus must ei­ther leave Pales­tine or die; so he sum­moned up his cour­age and asked: “Just what is it you are try­ing to teach the peo­ple? What do you claim to be?” Je­sus an­swered: “You know full well that I have spo­ken openly to the world. I have taught in the syn­a­gogues and many times in the tem­ple, where all the Jews and many of the gen­tiles have heard me. In se­cret I have spo­ken noth­ing; why, then, do you ask me about my teach­ing? Why do you not sum­mon those who have heard me and in­quire of them? Be­hold, all Je­ru­sa­lem has heard that which I have spo­ken even if you have not your­self heard these teach­ings.” But be­fore An­nas could make re­ply, the chief stew­ard of the palace, who was stand­ing near, struck Je­sus in the face with his hand, say­ing, “How dare you an­swer the high priest with such words?” An­nas spoke no words of re­buke to his stew­ard, but Je­sus ad­dressed him, say­ing, “My friend, if I have spo­ken evil, bear wit­ness against the evil; but if I have spo­ken the truth, why, then, should you smite me?”

186:2.5Je­sus had ac­quired that type of hu­man char­ac­ter which could pre­serve its com­po­sure and as­sert its dig­nity in the face of con­tin­ued and gra­tu­itous in­sult. He could not be in­tim­i­dated. When first as­saulted by the ser­vant of An­nas, he had only sug­gested the pro­pri­ety of call­ing wit­nesses who might duly tes­tify against him.

129:1.5Zeb­e­dee’s wife, Sa­lome, was a rel­a­tive of An­nas, one­time high priest at Je­ru­sa­lem and still the most in­flu­en­tial of the Sad­ducean group, hav­ing been de­posed only eight years pre­vi­ously. Sa­lome be­came a great ad­mirer of Je­sus. She loved him as she loved her own sons, James, John, and David, while her four daugh­ters looked upon Je­sus as their el­der brother. Je­sus of­ten went out fish­ing with James, John, and David, and they learned that he was an ex­pe­ri­enced fish­er­man as well as an ex­pert boat­builder.

142:0.2The first day in Je­ru­sa­lem Je­sus called upon his friend of for­mer years, An­nas, the one­time high priest and rel­a­tive of Sa­lome, Zeb­e­dee’s wife. An­nas had been hear­ing about Je­sus and his teach­ings, and when Je­sus called at the high priest’s home, he was re­ceived with much re­serve. When Je­sus per­ceived An­nas’s cold­ness, he took im­me­di­ate leave, say­ing as he de­parted: “Fear is man’s chief en­slaver and pride his great weak­ness; will you be­tray your­self into bond­age to both of these de­stroy­ers of joy and lib­erty?” But An­nas made no re­ply. The Mas­ter did not again see An­nas un­til the time when he sat with his son-in-law in judg­ment on the Son of Man.

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.

184:1.4An­nas en­tered his spa­cious au­di­ence cham­ber, seated him­self in a large chair, and com­manded that Je­sus be brought be­fore him. Af­ter a few mo­ments spent in silently sur­vey­ing the Mas­ter, he said: “You re­al­ize that some­thing must be done about your teach­ing since you are dis­turb­ing the peace and or­der of our coun­try.” As An­nas looked in­quir­ingly at Je­sus, the Mas­ter looked full into his eyes but made no re­ply. Again An­nas spoke, “What are the names of your dis­ci­ples, be­sides Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, the ag­i­ta­tor?” Again Je­sus looked down upon him, but he did not an­swer.

184:1.5An­nas was con­sid­er­ably dis­turbed by Je­sus’ re­fusal to an­swer his ques­tions, so much so that he said to him: “Do you have no care as to whether I am friendly to you or not? Do you have no re­gard for the power I have in de­ter­min­ing the is­sues of your com­ing trial?” When Je­sus heard this, he said: “An­nas, you know that you could have no power over me un­less it were per­mit­ted by my Fa­ther. Some would de­stroy the Son of Man be­cause they are ig­no­rant; they know no bet­ter, but you, friend, know what you are do­ing. How can you, there­fore, re­ject the light of God?”

184:1.3When Je­sus was young, An­nas had taken a great in­ter­est in him, but now his rev­enues were threat­ened by what Je­sus had so re­cently done in driv­ing the money-chang­ers and other com­mer­cial traders out of the tem­ple. This act had aroused the en­mity of the for­mer high priest far more than had Je­sus’ teach­ings.

183:3.10At about the time the eight apos­tles were be­ing awak­ened, those who had fled up the ravine were re­turn­ing, and they all gath­ered to­gether near the olive press to de­bate what should be done. In the mean­time, Si­mon Pe­ter and John Zeb­e­dee, who had hid­den among the olive trees, had al­ready gone on af­ter the mob of sol­diers, guards, and ser­vants, who were now lead­ing Je­sus back to Je­ru­sa­lem as they would have led a des­per­ate crim­i­nal. John fol­lowed close be­hind the mob, but Pe­ter fol­lowed afar off. Af­ter John Mark’s es­cape from the clutch of the sol­dier, he pro­vided him­self with a cloak which he found in the tent of Si­mon Pe­ter and John Zeb­e­dee. He sus­pected the guards were go­ing to take Je­sus to the home of An­nas, the high priest emer­i­tus; so he skirted around through the olive or­chards and was there ahead of the mob, hid­ing near the en­trance to the gate of the high priest’s palace.

183:5.1Be­fore they started away from the gar­den with Je­sus, a dis­pute arose be­tween the Jew­ish cap­tain of the tem­ple guards and the Ro­man cap­tain of the com­pany of sol­diers as to where they were to take Je­sus. The cap­tain of the tem­ple guards gave or­ders that he should be taken to Cai­a­phas, the act­ing high priest. The cap­tain of the Ro­man sol­diers di­rected that Je­sus be taken to the palace of An­nas, the for­mer high priest and fa­ther-in-law of Cai­a­phas. And this he did be­cause the Ro­mans were in the habit of deal­ing di­rectly with An­nas in all mat­ters hav­ing to do with the en­force­ment of the Jew­ish ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal laws. And the or­ders of the Ro­man cap­tain were obeyed; they took Je­sus to the home of An­nas for his pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion.

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.

184:1.1An­nas, en­riched by the tem­ple rev­enues, his son-in-law the act­ing high priest, and with his re­la­tions to the Ro­man au­thor­i­ties, was in­deed the most pow­er­ful sin­gle in­di­vid­ual in all Jewry. He was a suave and politic plan­ner and plot­ter. He de­sired to di­rect the mat­ter of dis­pos­ing of Je­sus; he feared to trust such an im­por­tant un­der­tak­ing wholly to his brusque and ag­gres­sive son-in-law. An­nas wanted to make sure that the Mas­ter’s trial was kept in the hands of the Sad­ducees; he feared the pos­si­ble sym­pa­thy of some of the Phar­isees, see­ing that prac­ti­cally all of those mem­bers of the San­hedrin who had es­poused the cause of Je­sus were Phar­isees.

184:1.2An­nas had not seen Je­sus for sev­eral years, not since the time when the Mas­ter called at his house and im­me­di­ately left upon ob­serv­ing his cold­ness and re­serve in re­ceiv­ing him. An­nas had thought to pre­sume on this early ac­quain­tance and thereby at­tempt to per­suade Je­sus to aban­don his claims and leave Pales­tine. He was re­luc­tant to par­tic­i­pate in the mur­der of a good man and had rea­soned that Je­sus might choose to leave the coun­try rather than to suf­fer death. But when An­nas stood be­fore the stal­wart and de­ter­mined Galilean, he knew at once that it would be use­less to make such pro­pos­als. Je­sus was even more ma­jes­tic and well poised than An­nas re­mem­bered him.

184:1.7Al­though An­nas re­gret­ted that his stew­ard had struck Je­sus, he was too proud to take no­tice of the mat­ter. In his con­fu­sion he went into an­other room, leav­ing Je­sus alone with the house­hold at­ten­dants and the tem­ple guards for al­most an hour.

184:1.8When he re­turned, go­ing up to the Mas­ter’s side, he said, “Do you claim to be the Mes­siah, the de­liv­erer of Is­rael?” Said Je­sus: “An­nas, you have known me from the times of my youth. You know that I claim to be noth­ing ex­cept that which my Fa­ther has ap­pointed, and that I have been sent to all men, gen­tile as well as Jew.” Then said An­nas: “I have been told that you have claimed to be the Mes­siah; is that true?” Je­sus looked upon An­nas but only replied, “So you have said.”

184:1.9About this time mes­sen­gers ar­rived from the palace of Cai­a­phas to in­quire what time Je­sus would be brought be­fore the court of the San­hedrin, and since it was near­ing the break of day, An­nas thought best to send Je­sus bound and in the cus­tody of the tem­ple guards to Cai­a­phas. He him­self fol­lowed af­ter them shortly.

184:2.10Pe­ter’s en­tire ex­pe­ri­ence oc­curred in the court­yard of the palace of An­nas on Mount Oli­vet. He did not fol­low Je­sus to the palace of the high priest, Cai­a­phas. That Pe­ter was brought to the re­al­iza­tion that he had re­peat­edly de­nied his Mas­ter by the crow­ing of a cock in­di­cates that this all oc­curred out­side of Je­ru­sa­lem since it was against the law to keep poul­try within the city proper.

173:1.2This sale of an­i­mals in the tem­ple pros­pered be­cause, when the wor­shiper pur­chased such an an­i­mal, al­though the price might be some­what high, no more fees had to be paid, and he could be sure the in­tended sac­ri­fice would not be re­jected on the ground of pos­sess­ing real or tech­ni­cal blem­ishes. At one time or an­other sys­tems of ex­or­bi­tant over­charge were prac­ticed upon the com­mon peo­ple, es­pe­cially dur­ing the great na­tional feasts. At one time the greedy priests went so far as to de­mand the equiv­a­lent of the value of a week’s la­bor for a pair of doves which should have been sold to the poor for a few pen­nies. The “sons of An­nas” had al­ready be­gun to es­tab­lish their bazaars in the tem­ple precincts, those very mer­chan­dise marts which per­sisted to the time of their fi­nal over­throw by a mob three years be­fore the de­struc­tion of the tem­ple it­self.

129:2.7Je­sus had car­ried with him to Je­ru­sa­lem a let­ter from Sa­lome, Zeb­e­dee’s wife, in­tro­duc­ing him to the for­mer high priest, An­nas, as “one, the same as my own son.” An­nas spent much time with him, per­son­ally tak­ing him to visit the many academies of the Je­ru­sa­lem re­li­gious teach­ers. While Je­sus thor­oughly in­spected these schools and care­fully ob­served their meth­ods of teach­ing, he never so much as asked a sin­gle ques­tion in pub­lic. Al­though An­nas looked upon Je­sus as a great man, he was puz­zled as to how to ad­vise him. He rec­og­nized the fool­ish­ness of sug­gest­ing that he en­ter any of the schools of Je­ru­sa­lem as a stu­dent, and yet he well knew Je­sus would never be ac­corded the sta­tus of a reg­u­lar teacher inas­much as he had never been trained in these schools.

129:2.8Pres­ently the time of the Pass­over drew near, and along with the throngs from ev­ery quar­ter there ar­rived at Je­ru­sa­lem from Ca­per­naum, Zeb­e­dee and his en­tire fam­ily. They all stopped at the spa­cious home of An­nas, where they cel­e­brated the Pass­over as one happy fam­ily.

183:5.2Ju­das marched along near the cap­tains, over­hear­ing all that was said, but took no part in the dis­pute, for nei­ther the Jew­ish cap­tain nor the Ro­man of­fi­cer would so much as speak to the be­trayer—they held him in such con­tempt.

183:5.3About this time John Zeb­e­dee, re­mem­ber­ing his Mas­ter’s in­struc­tions to re­main al­ways near at hand, hur­ried up near Je­sus as he marched along be­tween the two cap­tains. The com­man­der of the tem­ple guards, see­ing John come up along­side, said to his as­sis­tant: “Take this man and bind him. He is one of this fel­low’s fol­low­ers.” But when the Ro­man cap­tain heard this and, look­ing around, saw John, he gave or­ders that the apos­tle should come over by him, and that no man should mo­lest him. Then the Ro­man cap­tain said to the Jew­ish cap­tain: “This man is nei­ther a traitor nor a cow­ard. I saw him in the gar­den, and he did not draw a sword to re­sist us. He has the cour­age to come for­ward to be with his Mas­ter, and no man shall lay hands on him. The Ro­man law al­lows that any pris­oner may have at least one friend to stand with him be­fore the judg­ment bar, and this man shall not be pre­vented from stand­ing by the side of his Mas­ter, the pris­oner.” And when Ju­das heard this, he was so ashamed and hu­mil­i­ated that he dropped back be­hind the marchers, com­ing up to the palace of An­nas alone.

183:5.4And this ex­plains why John Zeb­e­dee was per­mit­ted to re­main near Je­sus all the way through his try­ing ex­pe­ri­ences this night and the next day. The Jews feared to say aught to John or to mo­lest him in any way be­cause he had some­thing of the sta­tus of a Ro­man coun­selor des­ig­nated to act as ob­server of the trans­ac­tions of the Jew­ish ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal court. John’s po­si­tion of priv­i­lege was made all the more se­cure when, in turn­ing Je­sus over to the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards at the gate of An­nas’s palace, the Ro­man, ad­dress­ing his as­sis­tant, said: “Go along with this pris­oner and see that these Jews do not kill him with­out Pi­late’s con­sent. Watch that they do not as­sas­si­nate him, and see that his friend, the Galilean, is per­mit­ted to stand by and ob­serve all that goes on.” And thus was John able to be near Je­sus right on up to the time of his death on the cross, though the other ten apos­tles were com­pelled to re­main in hid­ing. John was act­ing un­der Ro­man pro­tec­tion, and the Jews dared not mo­lest him un­til af­ter the Mas­ter’s death.

183:5.5And all the way to the palace of An­nas, Je­sus opened not his mouth. From the time of his ar­rest to the time of his ap­pear­ance be­fore An­nas, the Son of Man spoke no word.