ANNAS (Gr. 'A was, Heb. f:n, 'merciful' [in Josephus, Ananos]). — Annas the son of Sethi, ap- pointed high priest by yuirinius in A.D. 6 or 7, retained office till he was deposed by Valerius Gratus in A.D. 15 (Jos. Ant. xvill. ii. 1, 2). Josephus tells us that he was regarded as the most fortunate of men, for he had five sons who all held the office of high priest {Ant. XX. ix. 1). From the Fourth Gospel we learn that Joseph Caiaphas, the high priest at the date of the Crucifixion, was a son-in-law of Annas (Jn 18^^). His removal from office in A.D. 15 did not by any means diminish his influence. Being extremely wealthy, he was able to exert the powers of high priest long after he was deposed. His wealth and that of his sons Avas acquired by the institution of the ' booths or bazaars of the sons of Annas,' which enjoyed the monopoly for the sale of all kinds of sacrificial requirements. These booths were situated either in the temple court (Keim, Jesus of Nazara, v. 116; Edersheim, LT iii. 5) or on the Mount of Olives (J. Derenbourg, Essai sur I'histoire . . . de la Palestine, 1867, p. 465). The words of Jesus re- garding the unholy traffic (Mt 'iV^, Lk 19''^) aroused the hostility of the priestly party and led to His arrest and examination by Annas ( Jn 18^*'-'*). The Talmud accuses the sons of Annas of ' serpentlike hissings ' (or whisperings [Pes. 57a]). Probably the meaning is that they exerted private influ- ence on the judges and perverted justice for their own ends. Their attitude towards Jesus and the apostles as revealed in the NT seems to bear out this interpretation. Although, as we have seen, Annas was deposed from the high-priestly office in A.D. 15, he retains the title all through the NT. Both Josephus and the writers of the NT uniformly give the title ' high priest ' not only to the actual occupant of the office at the time, but to all his l^redecessors who were still alive, as well as to all the more influential members of the families from which the high priests were selected. The phrase in Lk 3^ ' in the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas' is unique, and may be accounted for by the fact that the combination had become so familiar in connexion with the history of the Crucifixion that St. Luke couples the two to- gether here (Ewald, HI, vol. vi. [1883] p. 430, n. 3).
The important and induential position held bj' Annas even after his deposition is proved by the fact that it was to him that Jesus was first sent before He appeared at the more formal tribunal of the Sanhedrin ( Jn 18^^). The interview with Annas (Jn 18^^"^) determined the fate of the prisoner, and probably Annas was the chief instigator in com- passing the death. In Ac 4® Annas again appears as the head of the party who tried the apostles and enjoined them to keep silent about the Resurrection.
Literature. — Josephus, Antiquities, pasHm; A. Eders- heim, LT i. [1886] 263 ; T. Keim, Jesus of Sazara, 1867-1882, vu 36fif. ; E. Schiirer, GJV* ii. [1907] 256, 270, 274, 275.
W. F. Boyd. ANNIHILATION.— See Eschatology.
ANOINTING. — Anointing was used in antiquity in three chief connexions: (1) as a part of the toilet, to beautify, strengthen, and refresh the body ; (2) medicinally ; (3) as a part of religiou- ceremonial. From the last-named sprang (4) the use of terms of anointing in a metaphorical sense
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A^OmTING
AliSWEK
to signify, e.g., the imparting of the Divine Spirit, whether to the Messiah or to the Christian dis- ciple.
1. So far as the first use is concerned, examples witliin onr period may be found in the anointing of the Lord's feet (Lk 7^- ^, Jn 12») and in Mt 6" ' anoint thy head, and wash thy face.'
2. Instances of the second occur in Jn 9'" ", Rev 3''^ 'eyesalve to anoint tliine eyes,' and are generally found in Mk 6'* ' they anointed with oil manj' that were sick, and healed them,' and Ja 5^* ' Is any among you sick ? let him call for the elders of the church ; and let them pray over him, anoint- ing him with oil in the name of the Lord.' The commentators on these texts generally quote pass- ages to prove that the use of oil was well known in medicine, and leave it to be understood that the apostles in the Gospel and the elders in the Epistle are thought of as making use of the simplest heal- ing remedy known to them. This method of in- terpretation does not seem satisfactory, because the parallels quoted do not bear out the point. In Is 1* and Lk 10^^ oil is used as a remedy for wounds, not for internal sickness. Herod in his last illness was placed in a bath of warm oil (Jos. BJ I. xxxiii. 5), but this was only one amongst several methods of treatment used in his case, and was no doulit employed because of the open and running sores on his body. Galen (Med. Temp., bk. ii. ) speaks of oil as the ' best of medicines for withered and dry bodies,' but that does not mean that he would have advocated the indiscriminate use of oil in cases of sickness due to various causes. Philo's praise of oil for imparting vigour to the tlesh [Somn. ii. 8) must not be pressed into an advo- cacy of it as a panacea against all forms of dis- ease. It must remain doubtful whether the two NT passages can be reasonably understood to mean that oil was used as a siinjile medical remedy with- out deeper signitication.