E. llfLL.
SANDAL.— See DuEriS, vol. i. p. 627.
SAND FLIES (UVm of Ex 8'« and Wis 19"').— See Lli K.
SAND LIZARD.— See Snail.
•■SANHEDRIN —
I. TIu» nninc and Its hUtory,
II. Origin iinil history of the Institution, iii. IMnt-i- <if iiu-fllnj;.
Iv. <'oiii]H>^ttion, anil qualltlcatlons for membor8hl[>. V. Till' [irfsldt-nt. vl. Fiiiictloiis utut procoduro. vll. halcfst histnry. LIUTuturv.
i. The Name and its History.— ^nn/jciirjn (i.e. avviipiov) was the name applied to the highest court of justice and .supreme council at ■Iiriisalem, and in a wider sense also to lower courls of ju.siice. In the .lewish tradition-literature this designation, borrowed from the Greek, alternates with the post- biblical Heb. jn n'a Aram. »y\ o. The Ilebrew-
"Cutiunuht, IIWJ, bu
Aramaic form t'l'^'','? (we find also the punctuation '"'77,'?) sprang from the Greek word, the a-spiration of the second vowel (from iSpa) becoming audible and being transcribed with n. The ending -loi' was pronounced as a monosyllable, with elision of the 0, its in other words with the same ending (cf. jo-'D = iraXcLTLov, i.e. palatium). The word, how- ever, is found written also without n (.see Levy, WTirterb. z. den Tarijumim, ii. 17'>; ^tUW'B iii. o536). From jmnjo, which sounded like a Semitic plural, there was even formed a sing, form '^''.^JP, which is met with not infrecinently. Both forms were treated as feminines. From '"'.■;7?? was formeil the jilur. riN-nnjD.
Owing to the character of the ancient traditions embodied in the Talmudic literature, it cannot be gathered from these when the employment of the Greek word began. In the halachic tradition it makes its appearance as completely naturalized and belonging to the ancient vocabul.try of this tradition. The first historical statement in which .Josephus employs the word cwiopiov has regard to the procedure of the Roman governor of Syria, (iabinius, who abrogated the constitution of the country of the Jews, and divided the latter into five districts, each with a syncdrion at its head {Ant. XIV. V. 4). One of these sijnedria had its seat at .Jerusalem, and was of exactly the same rank iis the others. But it is not likely that the name fir.st took root on this occasion (li.c. 57), and in coiLsecjuence of the action of Gabinius. For if the term was fir.st employed in his decree degra<ling tlie .supreme council of Jerusalem, it would surely not have been retained when, a few years afterwards, the Sanhedrin at .lerusalem re- gained its dignity ; nor, if it had had so hateful an origin, would it have gained the popularity which is conspicuous in its employment in the national tradition, and especially in that connected with religious legisl.ation. But a diri'ct proof of the earlier origin of our loan-word may be drawn from the Alexandrian translation of the ()T. In the LXX version of the Book of I^roverbs awdpiov is used pretty frequently : so in 1.5'" to rejjroduce -^ D in the sense of 'deliberative a.ssembly ' (cf. also ll" an<l ?)'--, likewi.se Jer 15'"). In 2t)-'' '■nfiD is ren- dered by if (Tvvedploii. But .specially striking are the renderings of 22"> and 31-". In the former of these passages the translator read f-i P'3 3-"i for [<T .-3-j"i, and rendered accordingly Srav yap KaOicrri iv cvfeSpitp, where, however, (rvpiSpiov is. as in the language of the Palestinian schools, eciuivalent to r"! •"''?. In the other passage the second half of the verse is rendered iji-ka in KaOljri iv uwdpltf nera Twv yfp6vT(ijv KaToiKuv T7}s yijs. The addition iv avv(Spli)> is plainly occasioned by the mention of the 'ehlers' of the land, for the members of the Sanhedrin are called ^Vr.^ {irpeafiiTepoC), and the Sanhedrin it.self (see below) also bears the title yepovala. — Now we do not know when the Book of Proverbs was translated into (ireek, but in all probiibility it is included among the ' other books,' besides the Pentateuch and the Prophets, whose translation into Greek is mentioned in the Prologue to Siraih. In that case the Greek translation of Proverlis would have been in existence as early jus B.C. 130, and (rwidpiov had been then for a long time the common property of the Jewish school speech, into which it nnist have found its way at the era of the (irieco-Syriau supremacy.
ii. OlIKJIN AND HlSTOKV OK TIM'. iNSIITrTlON.
— 1. It might be .i-s-sumed beforehand that the institution which received the (ireek title awiSpiov in the 2nd cent. B.C. h.ad also an existence of some kind during the earlier centuries of the .second temple. It has been suggested that the (iltKAT SVNAOOOfE (nVnjn .-oj:), which in the school tradition (see Aboth i. 1) forma the connect-
Cfutrks AtiOnci'tl ^nt»
398
SANHEDPJN
SANHEDRIN
irig link between the last of the Prophets ami the first teachers of the ],a\v who are named in the (jrei'k period, was nothing else than tlie supreme council of Jerusalem, afterwards called the San- hedrin. Hut it is to be noted as a fact that the school tradiiiuu itself understands by .T^njn pdjj not an institution persisting f<n' centuries, lint that exlreniely important assembly held under Kzra and Nehemiah (Neh 8-10), which was called the 'great,' just as 1 Mac l-i"-* gives the name <ri'>'o7w77) lieyaXr) to the assembly wjiich nominated t^iinon hereditary prince and higli priest. t)f cour.se it is po.ssible that the supreme council of .Jerusalem was thought of as the continuation of that great assi'iubly, or, rather, tluit the great assembly was thouglit of as the supreme council, the Sanhediin of the period between the last of the Prophets and the beginning of the Greek domination. Such a conception would make its ■way all tlie more readily, seeing that later tradi- tion contracted this period to a few decades. It Would also explain the circumstance that in the Koll of Fasts (Mcgillot Taanith) the Sanhedrin is called ,s--^i"j3 ( = noj;) in the past^age cited below. An actual trace of the highest court of justice as it existed in .Jerusalem at the close of the Persian period should perhaps be discovered in the de- scription of the college of judges which, according to 2 Ch 19', king Jehoshaphat instituted at Jeru- salem, and whose functions are specified, having regard to Dt 17*. In this description the Chronicler had before his mind's eye the institution as it existed in Jerusalem in his own day.