Sanhedrim

Sanhedrim, or SANHEDRIN (Sanhedrin being the Hebrew spelling of the Gr. sunedrin, 'assem- ly, 'council'), the supreme national tribunal of the Jews, established at the time of the Maccabees, probably under John Hyrcanus. It consisted of seventy-one members, and was presided over by the Nasi ('prince'), at whose side stood the Ab-Beth-Din ('father of the tribunal'). Its members belonged to the different classes of society: there were priests (Gr. archiereis); elders, that is, heads of families, men of age and experience (Gr. presbyteroi); scribes, or doctors of the law (Gr. grammateis); and others, exalted by eminent learning—the sole condition for admission into this assembly. The presidency was conferred on the high-priest in preference, if he happened to possess the requisite qualities of eminence; otherwise, 'he who excels all others in wisdom' was appointed, irrespective of his station. The limits of its jurisdiction are not known with certainty; but there is no doubt that the supreme decision over life and death, the ordeal of a suspected wife, and the like criminal matters were exclusively in its hands. Besides this, however, the regulation of the sacred times and seasons, and many matters connected with the cultus in general, except the sacerdotal part, which was regulated by a special court of priests, were vested in it. It fixed the beginnings of the new moons; intercalated the years when necessary; watched over the purity of the priestly families, by carefully examining the pedigrees of those priests born out of Palestine, so that none born from a suspicious or ill-famed mother should be admitted to the sacred service; and the like. By degrees the whole internal administration of the commonwealth was vested in this body, and it became necessary to establish minor courts, similarly composed, all over the country, and Jerusalem itself. Thus we hear of two inferior tribunals at Jerusalem, each consisting of twenty-three men, and others consisting of three men only. These courts of twenty-three men (Lesser Synedrin), however, as well as those of the three men, about both of which Josephus is silent, probably represent only smaller or larger committees chosen from the general body. Excluded from the office of judge were those born in adultery; men born of non-Israelitish parents; gamblers; usurers; those who sold fruit grown in the Sabbatical year; and, in individual cases, near relatives. All these were also not admitted as witnesses. Two scribes were always present, one registering the condemnatory, the other the exculpatory votes. The mode of procedure was exceedingly complicated; and such was the caution of the court, especially in matters of life and death, that capital punishment was pronounced in the rarest instances only. The Nasi had the supreme direction of the court, and convoked it when necessary. He sat at the head, and to his right hand was the seat of the Ab-Beth-Din; in front of them the rest of the members took their places according to their dignity, in a semicircle. The court met on extraordinary occasions in the house of the high-priest; its general place of assembly, however, was a certain hall (Lisheat Hagaziz), probably situated at the south-west corner of one of the courts of the temple. With exception of Sabbath and feast days it met daily. The political troubles forced the Sanhedrim (70 B.C.) to change its meeting-place, which was first transferred to certain bazaars (Hannyoth) at the foot of the temple mount. After the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem it finally established itself, after many further emigrations, in Babylon.

The question as to the origin and development of the Sanhedrim is a difficult one. It is said it was intended to be a faithful reproduction of the Mosaic assembly of the seventy (Moses himself making seventy-one), supposed to have been re-established by Ezra after the Exile. There are widely different opinions respecting the jurisdiction and competence of the Sanhedrim at the time of Christ and the apostles. It has even been questioned how far, save for a few matters of small importance, it may be said to have existed at all, curtailed and circumscribed as it was by the Romans, who seem to have recognised only the 'high-priest.' Nor is it agreed whether it was really from the Sanhedrim at all some of those well-known acts recorded in the New Testament had their origin; and it is difficult to account, by what we know of its constitution, for many of the proceedings against the apostles ascribed to this body.

See the histories of the Jews by Ewald, Herzfeld, Jost, Graetz, Kuenen, and others; Hausrath's Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte (1868); Schürer's History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (Eng. trans. 1886-90).