The fact that this preliminary examination or a,vaxpi(n! before Annas is recorded only in the Fourth Gospel (1812-14. 19-24) has excited, not unnaturally, strong suspicion of its authenticity, and efforts, more or less plausible (cf. Keim, vi. 36 f.), have been made to show that the author has wrongly inferred from Lk 32, Ac 4'' 517, the high authority of Annas ; and that the latter is brought in for the sake of novelty or varietj'. These efforts are quite unconvincing. Historical criticism cannot be put off nowadays with the assumption that the Markan tradition is so exhaustive and infallible as to prove a standard for judging the later Gospels. Certain data in the tradition even of the Fourth Gospel (e.g. the date of the Crucifixion, cf. vol. i. 413 f., 882 f., with Kattenbusch in Die Christliche Welt, 1895, pp. 317 f., 331 f.) are winning more and more credence from critics of all schools, and the insuper- able difficulty about eliminating the Annas trial is the impossi- bility of detecting any adequate motive for its invention and introduction. The various theories which explain its growth from a misconception of the Synoptists will not hold water. The details of it are also uncoloured by any specific Johannine interest, t It is not shot through, as is the later trial before
* Jesus ignores the query with regard to the disciples (which involved an insinuation of sedition and conspiracy), and asserts that His teaching was open and above-board, no esoteric doc- trine. The well-known parallel is the remark of Socrates in the Apologia (xxi.) : ' If anj' one says he ever learnt or heard from me in private what all other people did not hear, be sure he is not speaking the truth.' Twice only, here and in Mk 14*8, does He expostulate with the priestly authorities for their unfair treatment of Him. Evidently He saw that they were determined to have their way, and no further protest fell from His lips (see \'ol. i. 756-757). The blow of Jn 18— is illustrated by that of Ac 232. It is arbitrary to take the latter as the prototype of the former.
t The historical basis of the report is recognized not merely by Ewald, Renan, and Hausrath, but by so thoroughgoing a critic as A. R6ville (J('.ius de Nazareth, ii. 378 f.). The likelihood is that it forms, as Oscar Holtzmann admits of Jn 1828 {Life of Jesus, Eng. tr. p. 480), ' a fragment of the good tradition pre- served in the Johannine Gospel.' The idea of Christ's publicity (1820) is, of course, a genuinely Johannine trait (cf. 7i4f.), but this does not explain why the author should have invented the Annas trial for it.
752
TRIAL OF JESUS
TRIAL OF JESUS
Pilate, by Johannine conceptions. The Fourth Gospel, it is true, ignores the details of the trial before Caiaphas ; but this ditficulty is not more serious than that of the Synoptic silence upon the Annas trial, for the latter might well appear too insignificant or private to be retained beside the Caiaphas trial, or even to be accurately distinguished from it. As the ex-high priest had no power to pronounce sentence, the tendencj' of tradition would naturally be towards the decisive proceedings before Caiaphas.
The traditional order of the text in Jn 18, however, does not appear to represent the original. Some distortion has taken place, as the Sinaitic Syriac version shows, and efforts have been made to restore the true sequence (see Moffatt, The Historical New Test. pp. 528 f., 693 f.), perhaps the most plausible proposal being that of Professor G. G. Findlay, who would read vv. 19-24 between v. 1-4 and v. IS. Some such rearrangement is necessary, at any rate, in order to give a coherent sense to the passage, the denial of Peter taking place, as in the Synoptic account, at the house of Caiaphas (181518. 25-27). On Wellhausen's recent attempt to excise all the allusions to Caiaphas, see the present writer's paper in the Expositor (July 1907, pp. 55-69).
It does not necessarily follow from Lk 32 that St. Luke assumed the high priest of 2254f. vvas Annas. But if he did, he (or his source at this point) tacitly corrects the Markan tradition. On the other hand, St. Luke ignores Caiaphas entirely. When the Council meet, they act unanimously and simultaneously (2266f.) ; there is no need of any mouthpiece or spokesman.
These efforts of the high priest and the Council to secure evidence against Jesus proved at first a failure. Many witnesses came forward, but nothing tangible or crucial could be made out of their state- ments.* At last some people appeared with a garbled version of one saying which seemed relevant and final. As given by the three writers who record it, it runs thus :
Matthew (2661).
I am able to de- stroy
the temple of God,
and after three days to build it.
John (2i9). Destroy {Kverari)
this temple,
and in three days I will raise it.
Mark (1458). I will destroy (x«t«-
this temple made
with hands, and after three days I will build another
not made with
hands.
The saying bears on its face the stamp of authen- ticity, t but it is impossible to ascertain its original place or significance. The Synoptic omission of its utterance by Jesus is all the more striking, since it would fit in excellently with the Synoptic account of the cleansing of the Temple, which preceded and determined the arrest of Jesus. The Fourth Evangelist, who misplaces this incident, actually cites it in this very connexion (Jn 2^'), but charac- teristically he gives it a double meaning. Jesus, he declares, was speaking of His resurrection, the temple being the body — according to the familiar symbolism of the age. The Jews, however, took Him literally. In all probability the saying was ' one of those mystic pregnant words which imply more than they explicitly state, or than any one thought of when they were first uttered ' (cf . Bruce, Kingdom of God, pp. 306-310). The original mean- ing may have been that Jesus, who claimed to be greater than the Temple (Mt 12"), would raise His community, even though the Jewish system of worship was shattered. His cause was not bound up with the Temple. If He came to associate His own death with the ruin of the sanctuary, it was inevitable that the conception of His personal resurrection should further colour the saying. But in any case the later Christian reflexion would read it in the light of the resurrection, whether with or without any historical justification. The Fourth Evangelist, who makes Jesus not onl.y fully con- scious of His Messianic dignity and approaching death from the first, but outspoken on the subject, has naturally no difficulty in placing the statement at the threshold of His ministry, and it has been argued that this length of time between the saying and its quotation at the trial is historically neces-