A touch of witty caricature or grotesque ex- aggeration has often since then given pass and plausibility to something essentially wrong and in itself repulsive. When society is made selfisli and artificial by luxury and the love of pleasure, it will keep its oaths of personal vanity although the gratification should stifle the voice of sincerity and truth. G. M. Mackie.
CHICKENS.— See Animals, p. U\
CHIEF PRIESTS (dpx'fpers). — In the Gospels
apxiepeOs projierly denotes the individual who for
the time being held the ottice of Jewish high
priest, and when the^xoul o<(Uis m its singular
foim, ' high priest' is the almost in\ aiiable rendei-
m It rorines thiou^hmit the >« I, both in AV
1 I \ (iti I k 3 (jri apx(f/)^ws "Awa kal }s.aia<pa IS
It I 111 AV 'Ann IS and Caiaphas being the
I I 1 1 1 t and in ItV in the hi„h priesthood
I \ I II uid Caiaphis In Ac 10" apxiepci-f, as
l|l II I 'one Scevi, a lew is undeie I 'duet of
]n I ill A\ , ' a ( hiet pue-^t in IIV ) lor a
1 I itiiient of the ottite ot the apxifpeis in
I t I 111 I I ) of the use of the woid as a
Mil I I \ IIk authoi of Hebrews, leference
I I 1 It it High Pfiest But in the
I 1 1-^ ui 1 \ t the word occuis \eiy fiequently
111 tilt plui il fiim (cf Tos Vita, 38, BJ 1\ ill.
7, 9, 10, and ;/(s in) ind on all such occasions,
both in AV and K\ , it i-, ti mslated ' thief puests '
It IS these apxtepeii, not the apxiepev! piopu, With
whom we aie concerned in the piesent aitide
The jnecise meaning of apx'ep"', as we meet it in the Gospels and Josephus, is not easily deter- mined. A common explanation used to be that these 'chief priests' were the heads or )iresidents of the twenty-four courses into which tlieJew^ish priesthood was divided (1 Cli 24'', 2 Cli 8", Lk !•''•*; Jos. Ajit. VII. xiv. 7), or at least Ihtil the.se heads of the priestly courses were included under the term (see, e.g., the Lexicons of Cremer and Grimni- Thayer, s.v. dpxiepeus ; Alford on Mt 2''). It is true that some support for this view maybe found in the exjiiessions 'all the chief (RV 'chiefs') of the priests' (2Ch 36", Neh 12'), 'the chief priests' (KV ' the diiefs ot the priests,' Ezr 10=)._ But it is noticeable, as Schlirer pointed out ('Die apxifpe''^ im NT ' in SK for 1872), that in the hXX the word
298
CHILDHOOD
CHILDHOOD
dpxieptit is never used of the lieaJs of the priestly courses, and that the nearest approximations to this term are such phrases as fipxcxres tOiv Tra.TpiS>v tCv Ui>iwv(l Ch24«), fipx"""-" rCip Upiwv (Neh 12'). And most scholars now take the view that the dpxKpeU were high priests rather than ' chief priests,' not leading representatives from the general body of the priesthood, but members of an exclusive high priestly caste.*
As applied to this high priestly class, the word dpx'^P^'ii would seem to denote primarily the official high priest together ^^•ith a group of ex- high priests. For by NT times the high priestly office had sunk far from its former greatness. It was no longer hereditary, and no longer held for life. Both Herod and tlie Roman legates deposed and set up high priests at their pleasure (Jos. Anf. XX. X. 1), as the Seleucidse appear to have done at an earlier period (2 Mac 4^; Jos. Ant. XII.
V. 1). Thus there were usually several ex-high priests alive at the same time, and these men, though deprived of office, still retained the title of dpx'fpfis and still exercised considerable power in the Jewish State (cf. Jos. Vita, 38, BJ II. xii. 6, IV. iii. 7, 9, 10, IV. iv. 3). In the notable case of Annas, we even have an ex-high priest whose influence was plainly greater than that of the dpxiepei's proper (cf. Lk 3-, Jn 18"- ", Ac 4").
But Schiirer further maintains that, in addition to the ex-high priests, the title was applied to the members of those families from which the high priests were usually chosen— the yii'os apx'cpariKdv of Ac 4". It appears from a statement of Josephus that the dignity of the high priesthood was con- fined to a few select families {BJ IV. iii. 6) ; and that this was really the case becomes clear upon an examination of the list which Schiirer has compUed, from the various references given by the Jewish historian, of the twenty-eight holders of the office during the RomanoHerodian period {IIJP II. i. 196 ff., 204). Above all, in one passage (BJ
VI. ii. 2) Josephus, after distinguishing the woi tui' apx^epioiv from the apxifpeU themsehes, apparently combines both cla.sses under the general designa- tion of dpxifpfis. Schiirer accordingly comes to the conclusion, which has been widely adopted, that the dpxicpeis of the NT and Josephus ' consist, in the first instance, of the high priests properly so called, i.e. the one actually in office and those who had previously been so, and then of the mem- bers of those privileged families from which the high priests were taken' {op. cit. ]>. 206). These, then, were in all probability the ' chief priests ' of the EV. They belonged to the party of the Sadducees (Ac 5"; Jos. Anf. XX. ix. 1), and were, formally at least, the leading personages in the Sanhedrin.t But in NT times their influence, even in the Sanlieilrin, was inferior to that of the scribes and I'li;ui-oes, wlio coiiimaiided the popu- lar sympathir^ a-; the lii-h prie^^tly party did not (Jos. Ant. XIII. X. 6, xvilt. i. 4 ; cf. Ac 5"^- 23«f-).