“First they led him to Annas; for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had given counsel to the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people” (Catholic edition RSV, John 18:13,14)
Annas had been deposed from the office of high priest by the Romans 14 years before, but though he had lost his position he had retained his power. A Jewish writer of the time recorded this note about him: “Now the report goes, that this elder Ananus (Annas) proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons, who had all performed the office of high priest to God, and he had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests…”. (1) And we learn from St John that Caiaphas himself, the official high priest, was a son-in-law of Annas.
The family of Annas was the richest in the country, their wealth being largely derived from their profiteering in what were called the shops of the sons of Annas. These shops – there were four on the Mount of Olives and a fifth in the Temple courtyard itself – were run by the high priest’s family and relations and they provided at exorbitant prices the offerings needed for both public and private sacrifices.
Thus the high priestly monopoly in the requisites of religion had been converted into a gigantic racket. And the profits were swollen still further by their control of the exchange of money in the Temple. The sacrifices could be bought only with Temple money, which was not in general circulation. People who wished to offer a sacrifice had first to change their ordinary currency into Temple coinage for which a high exchange rate was charged. We can therefore understand why Our Blessed Lord told the chief priests that they had made the House of prayer into a robbers’ den.
On the night of Maundy Thursday Our Lord was first taken to Annas, so that the old man could set the seal of his great authority on the subsequent proceedings. He did this by personally committing Jesus for trial by the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Jewish Council, and accordingly sent him to Caiaphas, the Council’s President.
Joseph Caiaphas had been high priest for the past 11 years and was to continue for another seven before he was deposed, so long a tenure of office being a tribute to his political astuteness. For Caiaphas was essentially a man of the world whose stock in trade was religion.
Our Lord’s attacks on the religious leaders had angered and alarmed Caiaphas, but what had decided the high priest to remove him was the raising of Lazarus from the dead, a public miracle which added enormously to Our Lord’s prestige in the capital. Caiaphas, therefore, had immediately presided at a meeting at which he recommended that Our Lord should be put to death on the grounds that his popularity and the great following which he now had, were bound to culminate in armed conflict with the Roman government and bring merciless reprisals on the whole nation.
“…it is expedient for you”, he told this meeting, “that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish” (Catholic edition RSV, John 11:50). Such a proposal was contrary to all principles of religion and morality, and so he put it forward under the cloak of patriotism. Caiaphas was a firm believer in appearances.
Our Lord’s action in clearing the traders and their animals from the Temple courtyard had been the signal for another meeting in Caiaphas’ house. Previously Jesus had challenged the authority of the high priest’s party; now he had openly attacked the profiteering which was the source of their wealth and power, and the time had come for immediate action. Caiaphas was not the first man, nor the last, whose most sensitive point was his pocket.
What was now necessary was to find an opportunity to arrest Our Lord in some lonely and unfrequented spot, unprotected by the patriotic Galileans who had escorted him into the city on Palm Sunday. The visit of Judas Iscariot on the Wednesday in Holy Week was for Caiaphas a most unexpected stroke of good fortune, for he now actually had a spy among Our Lord’s closest friends and followers. And so Jesus was betrayed and arrested. And at last Caiaphas had him in his power.
The object of the trial before the Sanhedrin was not to establish the truth, but to obtain a verdict which carried with it the death penalty under Jewish Law, and which would also satisfy Jewish public opinion that justice had been done.
Legally, the Sanhedrin could not meet before dawn, but Caiaphas was anxious to waste no time and so, with those of its members who were most closely associated with him in the plot, he at once began an informal inquiry, the findings of which, he was sure, would be accepted and confirmed by the Sanhedrin when it met later in formal session. Jesus could then be taken to Pilate with the minimum of delay.
Caiaphas had already made up his mind that Our Lord was to be found guilty, but nevertheless he was very anxious to keep up appearances – hence the use of false witnesses. When their evidence came to nothing, Caiaphas took the matter into his own capable hands: “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” (Catholic edition RSV, Matthew 26:63). When Our Lord in effect assented, Caiaphas had all he needed. He could now have Our Lord condemned by the Sanhedrin for blasphemy, in pious horror at which he made a tear at the neck of his tunic as the Jewish Law required.
Since the Roman governor alone had the power to inflict the death sentence, and then only for crimes against Roman Law, all that remained was to bring Our Lord before Pilate and there indict him for treason against the Emperor Tiberius Caesar. In that way Roman Law as well as Jewish sentiment would be satisfied.
Caiaphas valued above all else, power and wealth and social position, and he used religion as the means to maintain all three. What Judas had vainly longed to possess, Caiaphas was determined to keep and would tolerate nothing that might threaten it. Such was the natural outcome of having a man of the world as the spiritual head of the People of God. Caiaphas was a living illustration of Christ’s words, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (that is, money) (Catholic edition RSV, Matthew 6:24).
That Holy Week, when Jesus cleansed the Temple, he served God by driving mammon out, but mammon was not driven from the heart of Caiaphas. And that dual allegiance to God and to the world is not easily driven from the heart of the Christian either.
If we doubt the truth of that, let us ask ourselves what we truthfully believe to be the best things, the desirable things in life – moral and religious principles or personal advantage? The admiration of others and a high standard of living or personal fellowship with God and a life lived to please him? Treasures on earth or treasures in Heaven?
There is no doubt what the world itself believes in and recommends: the world despises what God values, and values what God despises. As Archbishop William Temple once said, it is as though someone had broken into a shop and changed all the price labels, so that all the really good things were marked down, and all the worthless things priced up – all the values upside down.
Of one thing we may be certain, to put worldly things first, whether one actually has them or not, destroys true devotion to God. As St John says, “Do not bestow your love on the world, and what the world has to offer; the lover of this world has no love of the Father in him” (1 John 2:15). (2)
If we try to combine the two, putting the false things first, while remaining practising members of the Church, we shall be content with externals only. What matters then is to have a good name rather than to deserve it; to have a reputation for being straightforward or devout, rather than actually to be so. And when one relies on appearances without the reality, one is obliged to cover up what is lacking with subterfuges and poses.
To prize the things of the world is to side firmly with Caiaphas. If we want to be on Our Lord’s side, we have to act and think as he did and as he bids us do, by making God our treasure on whom we truly and joyfully set our hearts.
References
1. Josephus, F. (born 37 AD) trans Whiston, W. (1861) The antiquities of the Jews, 20, 9,1, Halifax: Milner and Sowerby.
2. Knox, R. (1948) The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, translated from the Latin Vulgate, London: Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd.