This leads up to another question, most important in this connection. The whole of this traffic - money-changing, selling of doves, and market for sheep and oxen - was in itself, and from its attendant circumstances, a terrible desecration; it was also liable to gross abuses. But was there about the time of Christ anything to make it specially obnoxious and unpopular? The priesthood must always have derived considerable profit from it - of course, not the ordinary priests, who came up in their orders' to minister in the Temple, but the permanent priestly officials, the resident leaders of the priesthood, and especially the High-Priestly family. This opens up a most interesting inquiry, closely connected, as we shall show, with Christ's visit to the Temple at this Passover. But the materials here at our command are so disjointed, that, in attempting to put them together, we can only suggest what seems most probable, not state what is absolutely certain. What became of the profits of the money-changers, and who were the real owners of the Temple-market?
To the first of these questions the Jerusalem Talmud [1805] gives no less than five different answers, showing that there was no fixed rule as to the employment of these profits, or, at least, that it was no longer known at that time. Although four of these answers point to their use for the public service, yet that which seems most likely assigns the whole profits to the money-changers themselves. But in that case it can scarcely be doubted, that they had to pay a considerable rental or percentage to the leading Temple-officials. The profits from the sale of meat- and drink-offerings went to the Temple-treasury. But it can hardly be believed, that such was the case in regard to the Temple-market. On the other hand, there can be little doubt, that this market was what in Rabbinic writings is styled the Bazaars of the sons of Annas' (Chanuyoth beney Chanan), the sons of that High-Priest Annas, who is so infamous in New Testament history. When we read that the Sanhedrin, forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, transferred its meeting-place from the Hall of Hewn Stones' (on the south side of the Court of the Priest, and therefore partly within the Sanctuary itself) to the Bazaars,' and then afterwards to the City, [1806] the inference is plain, that these Bazaars were those of the sons of Annas the High-Priest, and that they occupied part of the Temple-court; in short, that the Temple-market and the Bazaars of the sons of Annas are identical.
If this inference, which is in accordance with received Jewish opinion, be admitted, we gain much light as regards the purification of the Temple by Jesus, and the words which He spake on that occasion. For, our next position is that, from the unrighteousness of the traffic carried on in these Bazaars, and the greed of their owners, the Temple-market' was at the time most unpopular. This appears, not only from the conduct and words of the patriarch Simeon and of Baba ben Buta (as above quoted), but from the fact that popular indignation, three years before the destruction of Jerusalem, swept away the Bazaars of the family of Annas, [1807] and this, as expressly stated, on account of the sinful greed which characterised their dealings. And if any doubt should still linger in the mind, it would surely be removed by our Lord's open denunciation of the Temple-market as a den of robbers.' [1808] Of the avarice and corruption of this High-Priestly family, alike Josephus and the Rabbis give a most terrible picture. Josephus describes Annas (or Ananus), the son of the Annas of the New Testament, as a great hoarder up of money,' very rich, and as despoiling by open violence the common priests of their official revenues. [1809] The Talmud also records the curse which a distinguished Rabbi of Jerusalem (Abba Shaul) pronounced upon the High-Priestly families (including that of Annas), who were themselves High-Priests, their sons treasurers (Gizbarin), their sons-in-law assistant-treasurers (Ammarkalin), while their servants beat the people with sticks.' [1810] What a comment this passage offers on the bearing of Jesus, as He made a scourge to drive out the very servants who beat the people with sticks,' and upset their unholy traffic! It were easy to add from Rabbinic sources repulsive details of their luxuriousness, wastefulness, gluttony, and general dissoluteness. No wonder that, in the figurative language of the Talmud, the Temple is represented as crying out against them: Go hence, ye sons of Eli, ye defile the Temple of Jehovah!' [1811] These painful notices of the state of matters at that time help us better to understand what Christ did, and who they were that opposed His doing.