[5898] St. Luke xxii. 66.
[5899] St. John xviii. 20.
[5900] I cannot think that the expression t ksmo to the world,' in ver. 20 can have any implied reference to the great world in opposition to the Jews (as so many interpreters hold). The expression the world' in the sense of everybody' is common in every language. And its Rabbinic use has been shown on p. 368, Note 3. Christ proves that He had had no secret' doctrine, about which He might be questioned, by three facts: 1. He had spoken parresa without reserve;' 2. He had spoken t ksmo to everybody, without confining Himself to a select audience; 3. He had taught in the most public places - in Synagogue and in the Temple, whither all Jews resorted.
[5901] So according to the better reading and literally.
[5902] St. Matt. xxvi. 58; St. Mark xiv. 54; St. Luke xxii, 54, 55.
[5903] St. John xviii. 15-18.
[5904] St. John xviii. 15.
[5905] The circumstance that Josephus (Ant. vii. 2. 1) on the ground of 2 Sam. iv 6 (LXX.) speaks of a female porter,' and that Rhoda opened the door in the house of the widowed mother of John Mark (Acts xii. 13), does not convince me, that in the Palace of the High-Priest a female servant regularly discharged that office.
[5906] St. Mark xiv. 66.
[5907] St. Matt. xxvi. 69.
[5908] The Synoptists.
[5909] St. John.
[5910] St. John.
[5911] St. Matthew.
[5912] St. Mark.
[5913] St. Matthew.
[5914] The expression all the council' must evidently be taken in a general, not literal sense. No one would believe, for example, that either Nicodemus or Gamaliel was present. I would not, however, attach any great importance to this. The reference to the Elders' (in St. Matt.) is spurious.
[5915] This is also the conclusion of the calmest and most impartial Jewish historian, my lamented friend, the late Dr. Jost (Gesch. d. Judenth. i. pp. 402-409). He designates it a private murder (Privat-Mord), committed by burning enemies, not the sentence of a regularly constituted Sanhedrin. The most prominent men who represented the Law, such as Gamaliel, Jochanan b. Zakkai, and others, were not present.' The defence of the proceedings as a right and legal procedure by the Sanhedrin, as made by Salvador (Gesch. d. Mos. Instit. [German Transl.] vol. ii. pp. 67-79) is, from the critical point of view, so unsatisfactory, that I can only wonder the learned Saalschütz should, even under the influence of Jewish prejudice, have extended to it his protection (Mos. Recht, pp. 623-626). At the same time, the refutation of Salvador by M. Dupin (reproduced as App. to vol. iii. of the German translation of Salvador) is as superficial as the original attack. Cohen's Les Déicides' is a mere party-book which deserves not serious consideration. Grätz (Gesch. d. Juden, iii. p. 244) evades the question.
[5916] In Sanh. i. 6, the reasons for the various numbers are given; but we can scarcely regard them as historical.
[5917] Various modern writers have of late denied the existence of tribunals of three. But the whole weight of evidence is against them. A number of passages might here be quoted, but the reader may be generally referred to the treatment of the subject in Selden, de Synedriis, ii. c. 5, and especially to Maimonides, Hilkh. Sanh.
[5918] In the case of a Mumcheh or admitted authority, even one Judge could in certain civil cases pronounce sentence (Sanh. 2 b; 3 a).
[5919] In Jerusalem there were said to have been two such tribunals; one whose locale was at the entrance to the Temple-Court, the other at that to the inner or Priest-Court.
[5920] It is a mistake to identify these with the four shops on the Mount of Olives. They were the Temple-shops previously described.
[5921] Sanh. 2 a; Maim. Sanh. iv. 1-3.
[5922] Sanh. 2 a; 15 b.