Caiaphas

• asserted it better one die than community perish

168:3.6It was at this same meet­ing of the San­hedrin that Cai­a­phas the high priest first gave ex­pres­sion to that old Jew­ish adage, which he so many times re­peated: “It is bet­ter that one man die, than that the com­mu­nity per­ish.”

• high priest
• Sanhedrin met at palace of

175:4.13The San­hedrin, hav­ing for­mally de­creed the death of Je­sus and hav­ing is­sued or­ders for his ar­rest, ad­journed on this Tues­day near mid­night, af­ter ap­point­ing to meet at ten o’clock the next morn­ing at the home of Cai­a­phas the high priest for the pur­pose of for­mu­lat­ing the charges on which Je­sus should be brought to trial.

• Judas met with Jesus’ enemies at home of

177:4.1Shortly af­ter Je­sus and John Mark left the camp, Ju­das Is­car­iot dis­ap­peared from among his breth­ren, not re­turn­ing un­til late in the af­ter­noon. This con­fused and dis­con­tented apos­tle, not­with­stand­ing his Mas­ter’s spe­cific re­quest to re­frain from en­ter­ing Je­ru­sa­lem, went in haste to keep his ap­point­ment with Je­sus’ en­e­mies at the home of Cai­a­phas the high priest. This was an in­for­mal meet­ing of the San­hedrin and had been ap­pointed for shortly af­ter ten o’clock that morn­ing. This meet­ing was called to dis­cuss the na­ture of the charges which should be lodged against Je­sus and to de­cide upon the pro­ce­dure to be em­ployed in bring­ing him be­fore the Ro­man au­thor­i­ties for the pur­pose of se­cur­ing the nec­es­sary civil con­fir­ma­tion of the death sen­tence which they had al­ready passed upon him.

• hardhearted and vainglorious

177:4.7When his cousin had fin­ished speak­ing, he pre­sented Ju­das, who, step­ping for­ward near the high priest, said: “All that my cousin has prom­ised, I will do, but what are you will­ing to give me for this ser­vice?” Ju­das did not seem to dis­cern the look of dis­dain and even dis­gust that came over the face of the hard­hearted and vain­glo­ri­ous Cai­a­phas; his heart was too much set on self-glory and the crav­ing for the sat­is­fac­tion of self-ex­al­ta­tion.

177:4.8And then Cai­a­phas looked down upon the be­trayer while he said: “Ju­das, you go to the cap­tain of the guard and ar­range with that of­fi­cer to bring your Mas­ter to us ei­ther tonight or to­mor­row night, and when he has been de­liv­ered by you into our hands, you shall re­ceive your re­ward for this ser­vice.” When Ju­das heard this, he went forth from the pres­ence of the chief priests and rulers and took coun­sel with the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards as to the man­ner in which Je­sus was to be ap­pre­hended. Ju­das knew that Je­sus was then ab­sent from the camp and had no idea when he would re­turn that evening, and so they agreed among them­selves to ar­rest Je­sus the next evening (Thurs­day) af­ter the peo­ple of Je­ru­sa­lem and all of the vis­it­ing pil­grims had re­tired for the night.

• Annas’s aggressive son-in-law
• temple guards ordered Jesus taken to

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.

• Annas’s aggressive son-in-law
• high priest
• Sanhedrin met at palace of

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.

• Annas’s aggressive son-in-law

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.

• more prosecutor than unbiased judge

184:3.4Or­di­nar­ily, the Jews, when try­ing a man on a cap­i­tal charge, pro­ceeded with great cau­tion and pro­vided ev­ery safe­guard of fair­ness in the se­lec­tion of wit­nesses and the en­tire con­duct of the trial. But on this oc­ca­sion, Cai­a­phas was more of a pros­e­cu­tor than an un­bi­ased judge.

• shook accusing finger at, smote Master in face

184:3.14But Cai­a­phas could not longer en­dure the sight of the Mas­ter stand­ing there in per­fect com­po­sure and un­bro­ken si­lence. He thought he knew at least one way in which the pris­oner might be in­duced to speak. Ac­cord­ingly, he rushed over to the side of Je­sus and, shak­ing his ac­cus­ing fin­ger in the Mas­ter’s face, said: “I ad­jure you, in the name of the liv­ing God, that you tell us whether you are the De­liv­erer, the Son of God.” Je­sus an­swered Cai­a­phas: “I am. Soon I go to the Fa­ther, and pres­ently shall the Son of Man be clothed with power and once more reign over the hosts of heaven.”

• shook accusing finger at, smote Master in face

184:3.18But An­nas did not suc­ceed in keep­ing con­trol of the court. Af­ter Je­sus had so un­ex­pect­edly an­swered Cai­a­phas, the high priest stepped for­ward and smote him in the face with his hand. An­nas was truly shocked as the other mem­bers of the court, in pass­ing out of the room, spit in Je­sus’ face, and many of them mock­ingly slapped him with the palms of their hands. And thus in dis­or­der and with such un­heard-of con­fu­sion this first ses­sion of the San­hedrist trial of Je­sus ended at half past four o’clock.

• accused Jesus before Pilate

185:6.7Then the high priest him­self stepped for­ward and, go­ing up to Pi­late, an­grily de­clared: “We have a sa­cred law, and by that law this man ought to die be­cause he made him­self out to be the Son of God.” When Pi­late heard this, he was all the more afraid, not only of the Jews, but re­call­ing his wife’s note and the Greek mythol­ogy of the gods com­ing down on earth, he now trem­bled at the thought of Je­sus pos­si­bly be­ing a di­vine per­son­age. He waved to the crowd to hold its peace while he took Je­sus by the arm and again led him in­side the build­ing that he might fur­ther ex­am­ine him. Pi­late was now con­fused by fear, be­wil­dered by su­per­sti­tion, and ha­rassed by the stub­born at­ti­tude of the mob.

• shook avenging finger in Pilate’s face

185:7.5Pi­late was just about ready to re­lease Je­sus when Cai­a­phas, the high priest, ap­proached the cow­ardly Ro­man judge and, shak­ing an aveng­ing fin­ger in Pi­late’s face, said with an­gry words which the en­tire mul­ti­tude could hear: “If you re­lease this man, you are not Cae­sar’s friend, and I will see that the em­peror knows all.” This pub­lic threat was too much for Pi­late. Fear for his per­sonal for­tunes now ec­lipsed all other con­sid­er­a­tions, and the cow­ardly gov­er­nor or­dered Je­sus brought out be­fore the judg­ment seat. As the Mas­ter stood there be­fore them, he pointed to him and taunt­ingly said, “Be­hold your king.” And the Jews an­swered, “Away with him. Cru­cify him!” And then Pi­late said, with much irony and sar­casm, “Shall I cru­cify your king?” And the Jews an­swered, “Yes, cru­cify him! We have no king but Cae­sar.” And then did Pi­late re­al­ize that there was no hope of sav­ing Je­sus since he was un­will­ing to defy the Jews.

• Caiaphas

186:1.1It was about half past eight o’clock this Fri­day morn­ing when the hear­ing of Je­sus be­fore Pi­late was ended and the Mas­ter was placed in the cus­tody of the Ro­man sol­diers who were to cru­cify him. As soon as the Ro­mans took pos­ses­sion of Je­sus, the cap­tain of the Jew­ish guards marched with his men back to their tem­ple head­quar­ters. The chief priest and his San­hedrist as­so­ciates fol­lowed close be­hind the guards, go­ing di­rectly to their usual meet­ing place in the hall of hewn stone in the tem­ple. Here they found many other mem­bers of the San­hedrin wait­ing to learn what had been done with Je­sus. As Cai­a­phas was en­gaged in mak­ing his re­port to the San­hedrin re­gard­ing the trial and con­dem­na­tion of Je­sus, Ju­das ap­peared be­fore them to claim his re­ward for the part he had played in his Mas­ter’s ar­rest and sen­tence of death.

• Sanhedrin met at palace of

188:2.2This Fri­day night, af­ter the Pass­over sup­per, about mid­night a group of the Jew­ish lead­ers gath­ered at the home of Cai­a­phas, where they dis­cussed their fears con­cern­ing the Mas­ter’s as­ser­tions that he would rise from the dead on the third day. This meet­ing ended with the ap­point­ment of a com­mit­tee of San­hedrists who were to visit Pi­late early the next day, bear­ing the of­fi­cial re­quest of the San­hedrin that a Ro­man guard be sta­tioned be­fore Je­sus’ tomb to pre­vent his friends from tam­per­ing with it. Said the spokesman of this com­mit­tee to Pi­late: “Sir, we re­mem­ber that this de­ceiver, Je­sus of Naz­a­reth, said, while he was yet alive, ‘Af­ter three days I will rise again.’ We have, there­fore, come be­fore you to re­quest that you is­sue such or­ders as will make the sepul­chre se­cure against his fol­low­ers, at least un­til af­ter the third day. We greatly fear lest his dis­ci­ples come and steal him away by night and then pro­claim to the peo­ple that he has risen from the dead. If we should per­mit this to hap­pen, this mis­take would be far worse than to have al­lowed him to live.”

• Caiaphas

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.