NOTES ON THE INTERNATIONAL LESSON.
Paul before the Sanhedrim.
THE Sanhedrim met in full numbers. They no longer sat in the Lishcath Haggazzith, the famous hall, with its tessellated pavement, which stood at the south side of the court of the priests. Had they still been accustomed to meet there, Lysias and his soldiers would never have been suffered to obtrude their profane feet into a chamber which lay within the middle wall of partition—beyond which even a procurator dare not even have set a step on pain of death. But at this period the Sanhedrim had probably begun their meetings in the Chanujoth, or "booths," the very existence of which was a proof of the power and prosperity of "the Serpent House of Hanan." To this place Lysias led his prisoner, and placed him before them. The Nasi, or president, was, as usual, the high priest. The preliminary questions were asked, and then Paul, fixing on the assembly his earnest gaze, began his defense with the words, "Brethren, my public life has been spent in all good conscience towards God till this day." Something in these words jarred particularly on the mind of the high priest. He may have disliked the use of the term "brethren," an address which implied a certain amount of equality, instead of one of those numerous expressions of servility which it was only fitting that a man like this should use to the great assembly of the wise. But Paul was no Am-ha-aretz, on the contrary, he was as much a rabbi, as much a Chakam, as the best "remover of mountains" among them all, and it may have been that he designedly used the term "brethren" instead of "fathers" because he too had once been a Sanhedrist. The bold assertion of perfect innocence further irritated the presiding Nasi, and he may have felt, somewhat painfully, that his own public life had not by any means been in all good conscience either towards God or towards man.87 This high priest, Ananias, the son of Nebedeous, who had been appointed by Herod of Chalcis, was one of the worst, if not the very worst specimen, of the worldly Sadducees of an age in which the leading hierarchs resembled the loosest of the Avignon cardinals, or of the preferment-hunting bishops in the dullest and deadest period of Charles II. or George I. History records the revengeful unwisdom of his conduct towards the Samaritans, and the far from noble means which he took to escape the consequences of his complicity in their massacre. The Talmud adds to our picture of him that he was a rapacious tyrant who, in his gluttony and greed, reduced the inferior priests almost to starvation by defrauding them of their tithes; and that he was one of those who sent his creatures with bludgeons to the threshing-floors to seize the tithes by force. He held the high-priesthood for a period which, in these bad days, was unusually long (eleven years), a term of office which had, however, been interrupted by his absence as a prisoner, to answer for his misconduct, at Rome. On this occasion, thanks to an actor and a concubine, he seems to have gained his cause, but he was subsequently deposed to make room for Ishmael Ben Phabi, and few pitied him when he was dragged out of his hiding-place in a sewer to perish miserably by the daggers of the Sicarii, whom, in the days of his prosperity, he had not scrupled to sanction and employ. His conduct towards St. Paul gives us a specimen of his character. Scarcely had the apostle uttered the first sentence of his defense when, with disgraceful illegality, Ananias ordered the officers of the court to smite him on the mouth. Smarting from the blow, "God shall smite thee," he exclaimed, "thou white-washed wall! What! dost thou sit there judging me according to the law, and in violation of law biddest me to be smitten?" The bystanders seem to have been startled by the boldness of St. Paul's rebuke, for they said to him, "Dost thou revile the high priest of God?" "I did not know," he said, "brethren, that he is the high priest;" adding that had he known this, he would not have addressed to him the opprobrious name of "whited wall," because he reverenced and acted upon the rule of Scripture, "Thou shalt not speak ill of a ruler of thy people." It has been thought very astonishing that St. Paul should not know that Ananias was the high priest, and all sorts of explanations have consequently been foisted into his very simple words. Considering the disrepute and insignificance into which the high-priesthood had fallen during the dominance of men who would only, as a rule, take it for a short time in order to "pass the chair;" considering that one of these worldly intruders took to wearing silk gloves that he might not soil his hands with the sacrifices; considering, too, that the Romans and the Herods were constantly setting up one and putting down another at their own caprice, and that the people often regarded some one as the real high priest, who was no longer invested with the actual office; considering, too, that in such ways the pontificate of these truckling Sadducees had sunk into a mere simulacrum of what once it was, and that the real allegiance of the people had been completely transferred to the more illustrious rabbis—it is perfectly conceivable that St. Paul, after his long absence from Jerusalem, had not, during the few and much occupied days which had elapsed since his return, given himself the trouble to inquire whether a Kamhith, or a Boethusian, or a Canthera was at that particular moment adorned with the empty title which he probably disgraced. He must, of course, have been aware that the high priest was the Nasi of the Sanhedrim, but in a crowded assembly he had not noticed who the speaker was. Owing to his weakened sight, all that he saw before him was a blurred white figure issuing a brutal order, and to this person, who in his external whiteness and inward worthlessness thus reminded him of the plastered wall of a sepulcher, he had addressed his indignant denunciation. That he should retract it on learning the hallowed position of the delinquent, was in accordance with that high breeding of the perfect gentleman which in all his demeanor he habitually displayed. In the discussion which was going on about his case, his knowledge of the Sanhedrim, of which he had been a member, enabled him easily to recognize that his judges were still mainly divided into two parties—the Sadducean priests and the Pharisaic elders and scribes. The latter were the more popular and numerous, the former were the more wealthy and powerful. Now St. Paul well knew that these two parties were separated from each other by an internecine enmity, which was only reconciled in the presence of common hatreds. He knew, too, that one main point of contention between them arose from questions about the unseen world, and the life beyond the grave. Seeing, therefore, that he would meet with neither justice nor mercy from that tribunal, he decided to throw among them the apple of discord, and cried out amid the babel of tongues, "Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am being judged about the hope and resurrection of the dead." The plan showed great knowledge of character, and the stratagem was for the time almost magically successful. Paul's enemies were instantly at each other's throats. The high priest, Ananias, was so singularly detested by the Pharisaic party that centuries afterwards the tradition still lingered of his violence and greed. There rose a sudden uproar of angry voices, and the scribes, who sided with the Pharisees, started up in a body to declare that Paul was innocent. "We find the defendant not guilty; but if a spirit or angel spoke to him—?" Again the Jews, even these distinguished hierarchs and rabbis, showed their utter incapacity for self-control. Even in the august precincts of the Sanhedrim the clamor was succeeded by a tumult so violent that Paul was once more in danger of being actually torn to pieces, this time by learned and venerable hands. Claudius Lysias, more and more amazed at the impracticability of these Jews, who first unanimously set upon Paul in the temple, and half of whom in the Sanhedrim appeared to be now fighting in his defense, determined that his fellow-citizen should not at any rate suffer so ignoble a fate, and once more ordered the detachment of soldiers to go down to snatch him from the midst of them, and lead him to the one spot in Jerusalem where the greatest living Jew could alone find security—the barracks of foreign conquerors. St. Paul might well be exhausted and depressed by the recurrence, on two consecutive days, of such exciting scenes, and even a courage so dauntless as his could not face unshaken this continual risk of sudden death. The next day was again to bring a fresh peril; but before it came, God in his mercy, who had ever encouraged his faithful servant at the worst and darkest crises, sent him a vision which saved him from all alarm as to his actual life for many a long and trying day. As at Jerusalem on his first visit, and as at Corinth, and as afterwards on the stormy sea, the Lord stood by him and said, "Cheer thee, Paul; for as thou didst bear witness respecting me at Jerusalem, so must thou also bear witness at Rome."—Farrar's Life of Paul.