As regards the Roman rule, matters had greatly changed for the worse since the mild sway of Augustus, under which, in the language of Philo, no one throughout the Empire dared to molest the Jews. [1286] The only innovations to which Israel had then to submit were, the daily sacrifices for the Emperor and the Roman people, offerings on festive days, prayers for them in the Synagogues, and such participation in national joy or sorrow as their religion allowed. [1287]
It was far other when Tiberius succeeded to the Empire, and Judæa was a province. Merciless harshness characterised the administration of Palestine; while the Emperor himself was bitterly hostile to Judaism and the Jews, and that although, personally, openly careless of all religion. [1288] Under his reign the persecution of the Roman Jews occurred, and Palestine suffered almost to the verge of endurance. The first Procurator whom Tiberius appointed over Judæa, changed the occupancy of the High-Priesthood four times, till he found in Caiaphas a sufficiently submissive instrument of Roman tyranny. The exactions, and the reckless disregard of all Jewish feelings and interests, might have been characterised as reaching the extreme limit, if worse had not followed when Pontius Pilate succeeded to the procuratorship. Venality, violence, robbery, persecutions, wanton malicious insults, judicial murders without even the formality of a legal process - and cruelty, such are the charges brought against his administration. [1289] If former governors had, to some extent, respected the religious scruples of the Jews, Pilate set them purposely at defiance; and this not only once, but again and again, in Jerusalem, [1290] in Galilee, [1291] and even in Samaria, [1292] until the Emperor himself interposed. [1293]
Such, then, was the political condition of the land, when John appeared to preach the near Advent of a Kingdom with which Israel associated all that was happy and glorious, even beyond the dreams of the religious enthusiast. And equally loud was the call for help in reference to those who held chief spiritual rule over the people. St. Luke significantly joins together, as the highest religious authority in the land, the names of Annas and Caiaphas. [1294] The former had been appointed by Quirinius. After holding the Pontificate for nine years, he was deposed, and succeeded by others, of whom the fourth was his son-in-law Caiaphas. The character of the High-Priests during the whole of that period is described in the Talmud [1295] in terrible language. And although there is no evidence that the house of Annas' [1296] was guilty of the same gross self-indulgence, violence, [1297] luxury, and even public indecency, [1298] as some of their successors, they are included in the woes pronounced on the corrupt leaders of the priesthood, whom the Santuary is represented as bidding depart from the sacred precincts, which their presence defiled. [1299] It deserves notice, that the special sin with which the house of Annas is charged is that of whispering' - or hissing like vipers - which seems to refer [1300] to private influence on the judges in their administration of justice, whereby morals were corrupted, judgment perverted and the Shekhinah withdrawn from Israel.' [1301] In illustration of this, we recall the terrorism which prevented Sanhedrists from taking the part of Jesus, [1302] and especially the violence which seems to have determined the final action of the Sanhedrin, [1303] against which not only such men as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, but even a Gamaliel, would feel themselves powerless. But although the expression High-Priest' appears sometimes to have been used in a general sense, as designating the sons of the High-Priests, and even the principal members of their families, [1304] [1305] there could, of course, be only one actual High-Priest. The conjunction of the two names of Annas and Caiaphas [1306] probably indicates that, although Annas was deprived of the Pontificate, he still continued to preside over the Sanhedrin - a conclusion not only borne out by Acts iv. 6, where Annas appears as the actual President, and by the terms in which Caiaphas is spoken of, as merely one of them,' [1307] but by the part which Annas took in the final condemnation of Jesus. [1308]