As the high court of juatice described in 2 Ch 19^ consisted of * I.evites, priests, and* beads of Israelitish families,' so in the ancient exposition of Dt IT" (Sifre, tid loc, § 1.^ ad init.) it Is stated tliat the court dealing with law cases must have priests and T.evites amongst its nienibers, hut that even without tliese it miglit be legitimately composed. A rule of the Mishna {Kidihithin iv. .')) is to the elVect that an inijuiry as to purity of family descent Is not to be carried lieyond the Sanhedrin, since no'one can be a member of it whose origin is not uiu]Ues- tionable. It is actually described in another rule {Satififd. iv. 21 that iudgos in criminal cases, inclu<ling therel'ore meml>eis nf the Sanhedrin, are to be only priests, l-evites, or Israelites whose daughters may be inan-ieu by priests.
V. Tin-: Pi:Ksn)KNT()F Tin; Saniif.duin'. — 1. On
this point the tr,adition-literature contains state- ments which it is ditficull or impossible to recon- cile with the report.s of Joseplius and the NT. The last are meagre, indeed, and do not give a distinct ])icture of the method of procedure in the Sanhedrin and of the action of its president. But from Joseplius we learn that in K.v. 47 the Ilas- moniean high priest and prince Hyrcanus II. called the Sanhedrin together and directed the procedure in the case of lierod (Ant. .x;iv. ix. 4 f.), and that in A.I). (i2 the Sadducean high priest Ananus 11. summoned the Sanhedrin, in order to have some sentences of death passed {ib. xx. ix. 1). At the
trial of Jesus, the high priest Caiaphas appears at the head of the Sanhed'Mn (Mt •J(i'^'), as does the high priest Anani;us at the trial of St. Paul (Ac 24'). Of such a function belonging to the high priest (cf. also 2 Ch 19'i) there is not the slightest trace in the tradition-literature. On the contrary, it is assumed as an axiom that the Sanhedrin h.ad its own president, making up the number of members to 71 (see above). The simplest designa- tion of the president is pi ro Nr-i ' head of the hou.se of justice ' (Itonh hxishana ii. 7, iv. 4), which in the later haggadic literature is represented by p-nnjD ^£' c's-> {Pernkta rahbathi, c. xi. p. 4:ib), jmnjD 'U\s-i {TaHchiima, ed. Buber, i. 17o), 'u-si pw-nn:D (Esther rab. on l'-'). But the title that must be regarded a.s peculiar to the president is jn n'3 3N 'father of the house of justice.' As liead of the supreme court, the 'Ab Beth Din is once named after the king (^Yoma vii. 5), once after the 'prince' (Taanilh ii. 1), by which last title is meant the head of the State, who, after the usage of the Pentateuch and especially of Ezekiel, is frequently called in the halachic literature >* ^'l 'prince'; once it is expressly said, with allusion to Lv 4--, I'^'in nt N'ti'jn int-si (Jlordijolh iii. 'A). Now, remarkably enough, the same word n-^'j became the title of the president of the Sanhedrin. The sitting arrangements of the Satdiedrin are thus described (Tos. Sanhed. viii. 1 ; Jems. Sanhed. 19c) : 'The Sanhedrin sat in a semicircle [lit. 'like the half of a circular threshing-floor']; in the middle sat the Xasi, and the elders [i.e. the mem- bers of the Sanhedrin] sat upon his right hand and upon his left.' This statement appears to relate to the Sanhedrin of Jamnia, for it is followed im- mediately by the reminiscences of a teacher of the Law regarding that Sanhedrin. Eleazar b. Zadok reports: 'When R. Gamaliel [Gamaliel II.] held the presidency at Jamnia, my father and another sat to the right, the others to the left.'
2. It is not till the post-Hadrianio era that the 'Ah Beth Din appears side by side with the Xasi as joint-president. Jochanan (t 279) records — doubtless on the basis of trustworthy tradition — that R. Simon b. Gamaliel (the son of Gamaliel II.) was Nasi, wdiile R. Nathan was 'Ab Beth Din (Bab. Horaijiith 13?;). This double presidency, to designate which the two titles of the president of the Sanhedrin are utilized, is carried back, in a quite i-solated notice of the Mishna (C'haijiija ii. 2), to the time when the Temple still existed. We are told there of a controversy about a religious law which went on for five generations, always between two teachers of the Law. The five pairs of teachers named (the last pair being Hillel and Shammai)are the same who, according to the Mishna (Aboth i. 1), were the bearers of the tradition, and who are once (Peah ii. 5) summarily designated, as such, .-'Oi; 'the I'airs.' That these pairs were the most noted teachers of their time, the Pharisaic heads of the schools of the 2nd and 1st cent. B.C., is known to us also from other traditions about mo.st of them. But the above notice, according to which the first of the pairs was always Nasi and the second 'Ab Beth Din. must be regarded as a trans- ferring of later relations to early times. If 'pair' had the meaning attributed to it by the author of the notice, it would be incomprehensible, apart from anything else, why the series of pairs came to an eiid with Hillel and Shammai. Nevertheless, the ' Pairs ' belonged to the leading members of the Sanhedrin, as is witnes.sed in the case, for in.stance, of Simon b. Shetach, from other quartfrs. One of the pairs, Shemayah and Abtalion, is mentioned also by Josephus as belonging to the Sanhedrin (Ant. .XV. i. 1, where they appear as PoUion and Sameas).