The High Priests and Jerusalem’s Elite
The High Priests and Jerusalem’s Elite
Jesus’ primary lethal opposition in the Gospels is also what makes best sense of his execution in Jerusalem: he offended members of the municipal elite, aristocrats who mediated between Judea and Rome. Even though the Fourth Gospel addresses a later situation after the demise of the Sadducean party (and John does not in fact mention Sadducees), the high priests provide a major part of Jesus’ final opposition even in John (Jn 18:3, 35; 19:6, 15, 21).
A few comments on the high priesthood are therefore in order.90 Elsewhere in the Roman Empire, the title did not always bear the prestige it held in Palestine. 91 Perhaps under foreign influence, Jewish writers came to speak of the priestly aristocracy or high priestly family as “high priests,” rather than reserving that title merely for the ruling chief priest, the kohen hagadol of the Hebrew Bible.92 (The Gospels’ use of “high priest” for multiple members of the high priestly family is not then inaccurate.) Even Pharisaic tradition respected the office of high priest,93 though Sadducees dominated it.94 Jewish high priests held considerable political authority.95 Contrary to Israelite law, however, Roman officials freely gave and revoked the high priestly office.96
The Gospels are not “anti-Jewish” to complain about corruption among the chief priests; that they were corrupt is the perspective of most ancient Jewish sources (except for the aristocratic priests themselves,97 none of whose views anyone else cared to preserve). Thus Josephus experienced the opposition of high priests he considered corrupt.98 Qumran and others opposed the priestly aristocracy that controlled the Temple; as Overman notes, “For many marginalized groups in this period the problem, in short, was the local leaders and politicians in Roman Palestine.”99 The sum total of our extant sources suggests that corruption and exploitation pervaded Jerusalem’s elite no less than that of other elites in antiquity.100 Most of Jerusalem’s municipal aristocracy or Sanhedrin consisted of members of elite priestly families; these ruling families had been promoted to their favored positions by Herod the Great after he eliminated the aristocrats who opposed him (i.e., most of the earlier Sanhedrin).101
A sunedrion was a ruling council, equivalent to a boulē, or a senate.102 Cities like Tiberias had their own ruling senates composed of the leading citizens.103 Municipal senates consisted of aristocrats the Romans called decurions, and in the eastern Mediterranean “varied in size from thirty to five hundred members.” 104 The Jerusalem Sanhedrin was in a sense the municipal aristocracy of Jerusalem; but just as the Roman senate wielded power far beyond Rome because of Rome’s power, Jerusalem’s Sanhedrin wielded some influence in national affairs, to the degree that Roman prefects and Herodian princes allowed.105
Tradition claims that the Sanhedrin included 71 members;106 yet if it simply represented a body of ruling elders from the municipal aristocracy this may have been at best an average figure.107 Later tradition claims that they met in the Chamber of Hewn Stone on the Temple Mount;108 otherwise they met close to the Temple Mount.109 Our first-century sources, the New Testament and Josephus, include Sadducees and other groups in the Sanhedrin, under high priestly control; later rabbis characteristically but inaccurately portray the Sanhedrin as an assembly of rabbis.110
The Sanhedrin in Jesus’ day probably consisted largely of members of the Jerusalem aristocracy and wealthy landowners in the vicinity.111 Sometimes rulers could use sanhedrins, or assemblies, the way some politicians today use committees: to secure the end they wanted without taking full responsibility for that decision. In Josephus, rulers like Herod appointed the Sanhedrin members they wished and obtained the results they wished.112 Before Herod came to power, the Jerusalem Sanhedrin exercised significant authority.113 In Pilate’s time, without Herod the Great’s interference and the Romans expecting local aristocracies to administer the business they could,114 we should not be surprised that chief priests were a more dominant force. They could convene a sanhedrin,115 and the priestly aristocracy constituted a large portion of it.116 Nevertheless, the Sanhedrin had good reasons to seek to please Rome.117 Less than four decades after the events the Gospels describe, Jerusalem’s aristocracy continued to act as a body. When the high priest and the leading Pharisee allegedly acted without the approval of the rest of the assembly, they provoked that assembly’s anger.118
After examining Josephus’ three mentions of “Sanhedrin” and five of boulē,119 Brown concludes that Josephus’ portrait of the Sanhedrin is quite close to that of the Gospels and Acts. They judge, consist of “chief priests, scribes, and rulers or influential citizens (=elders),” sentence those found guilty of crimes, and constitute the leading Jewish body with which Roman rulers would deal. Clearly they “played a major administrative and judicial role in Jewish self-governance in Judea.”120