Note 2 — Chapter II · MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS; TREACHERY OF JUDAS; LAST SUPPER WITH HIS DISCIPLES.

With regard to this difference modern criticism observes, that we should not at all comprehend the tragical turn of the fate of Jesus from the synoptical accounts, and that John alone opens to us a glance into the manner in which, step by step, the breach between the hierarchical party and Jesus was widened; in short, that in this point also the representation of the fourth gospel shows itself a pragmatical one, which that of the other gospels is not.2 But what it is in which the Gospel of John exhibits superiority in gradation and progress, it is difficult to see, since the very first definite statement concerning the incipient enmity (v. 18) contains the extreme of the offence (ἴσον ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν τῷ θεῷ, making himself equal with God) and the extreme of the enmity (ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν ἀποκτεῖναι, they sought to kill him); so that all which is narrated further concerning the hostility of the Jews is mere repetition, and the only fact which presents itself as a step towards more decided measures is the resolution of the Sanhedrim, chap. xi.. This species of gradation, however, is not wanting in the synoptical account also: here we have the transition from the indefinite laying wait for Jesus, and the communing what might be done to him (Luke xi. 54, vi. 11), or as it is more precisely given in Matthew (xii. 14), and in Mark (iii. 6), the taking counsel how they might destroy him, to the definite resolve as to the manner (δόλῳ) and the time (μὴ ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ Matt. xxvi. 4 f. parall).—But it is especially made a reproach to three first Evangelists, that in passing over the resurrection of Lazarus, they have omitted that incident which gave the final impulse to the fate of Jesus.3 If we, on the contrary, in virtue of the above result of our criticism of this miraculous narrative, must rather praise the synoptists, that they do not represent as the turning point in the fate of Jesus, an incident which never really happened: so the fourth Evangelist, by the manner in which he relates the murderous resolve to which it was the immediate inducement, by no means manifests himself as one whose authority can be held by us a sufficient warrant for the truth of his narrative. The circumstance that he ascribes to the high priest the gift of prophecy (without doubt in accordance with a superstitious idea of his age4), and regards his speech as a prediction of the death of Jesus, would certainly not by itself prove that he could not have been an apostle and eye-witness.5 But it has with justice been held a difficulty, that our Evangelist designates Caiaphas as the high priest of that year, ἀρχιερεὺς τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκείνου (xi. 49), and thus appears to suppose that this dignity, like many Roman magistracies, was an annual one; whereas it was originally held for life, and even in that period of Roman ascendancy, was not a regular annual office, but was transferred as often as it pleased the arbitrariness of the Romans. To conclude on the authority of the fourth gospel, in opposition to the general custom, and notwithstanding the silence of Josephus, that Annas and Caiaphas, by a private agreement, held the office for a year by turns,6 is an expedient to which those may resort whom it pleases; to take ἐνιαυτοῦ indefinitely for χρόνου,7 is, from the twofold repetition of the same expression, v. 51 and xviii. 13, inadmissible; that at that period the high priesthood was frequently transferred from one to another, and some high priests were not allowed to remain in their office longer than a year,8 did not justify our author in designating Caiaphas as the high priest of a particular year, when in fact he filled that post for a series of years, and certainly throughout the duration of the public agency of Jesus; lastly, that John intended to say that Caiaphas was high priest in the year in which Jesus died, without thereby excluding earlier and later years, in which he also held the office,9 is an equally untenable position. For if the time in which an incident occurs is described as a certain year, this mode of expression must imply, that either the incident the date of which is to be determined, or the fact by which that date is to be determined, is connected with the term of a year. Thus either the author of the fourth gospel must have been of the opinion, that from the death of Jesus, to which this decision of Caiaphas was the initiative step, a plenitude of spiritual gifts, including the gift of prophecy to the high priest of that period, was dispensed throughout that particular year,10 and no longer; or, if this be a far-fetched explanation, he must have imagined that Caiaphas was high priest for the term of that year only. Lücke concludes that as, according to Josephus, the high priest of that period held his office for ten years successively, therefore John cannot have meant, by the expression ἀρχιερεὺς τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκείνου, that the office of high priest was an annual one; whereas the author of the Probabilia, on the ground that the evidence of this meaning in the words of the gospel, is far more certain than that John is its author, reverses this proposition, and concludes, that as the fourth gospel here presents an idea concerning the duration of the office of high priest which could not be entertained in Palestine, therefore its author cannot have been a native of Palestine.11