Note Note 1 — CHAPTER 34.

1. Annas, and His Interview with Jesus.—"No figure is better known in contemporary Jewish history than that of Annas; no person deemed more fortunate or successful, but also none more generally execrated than the late high priest. He had held the pontificate for only six or seven years; but it was filled by not fewer than five of his sons, by his son-in-law Caiaphas, and by a grandson. And in those days it was, at least for one of Annas' disposition, much better to have been than to be high priest. He enjoyed all the dignity of the office, and all its influence also, since he was able to promote to it those most closely connected with him. And while they acted publicly, he really directed affairs, without either the responsibility or the restraints which the office imposed. His influence with the Romans he owed to the religious views which he professed, to his open partisanship of the foreigner, and to his enormous wealth.... We have seen what immense revenues the family of Annas must have derived from the Temple booths, and how nefarious and unpopular was the traffic. The names of those bold, licentious, unscrupulous, degenerate sons of Aaron were spoken with whispered curses. Without referring to Christ's interference with that Temple-traffic, which, if His authority had prevailed, would of course have been fatal to it, we can understand how antithetic in every respect a Messiah, and such a Messiah as Jesus, must have been to Annas.... No account is given of what passed before Annas. Even the fact of Christ's being first brought to him is only mentioned in the fourth Gospel. As the disciples had all forsaken Him and fled, we can understand that they were in ignorance of what actually passed, till they had again rallied, at least so far, that Peter and 'another disciple', evidently John, 'followed Him into the palace of the high priest'—that is, into the palace of Caiaphas, not of Annas. For as, according to the three synoptic Gospels, the palace of the high priest Caiaphas was the scene of Peter's denial, the account of it in the fourth Gospel must refer to the same locality, and not to the palace of Annas."—Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah; vol. 2, pp. 547-8.