Note 59 — Chapter III · RETIREMENT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, ARREST, TRIAL, CONDEMNATION AND CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS.

From the place of arrest the synoptists state Jesus to have been led to the high priest, whose name, Caiaphas, is, however, only mentioned by Matthew; while John represents him as being led in the first instance to Annas, the father-in-law of the existing high priest; and only subsequently to Caiaphas (Matt. xxvi. 57 ff. parall.; John xviii. 12 ff.). The important rank of Annas renders this representation of John as conceivable as the silence of the synoptists is explicable, on the ground that the ex-high priest had no power of deciding in this cause. But it is more surprising that, as must be believed from the first glance, the fourth Evangelist merely gives some details of the transaction with Annas, and appears entirely to pass by the decisive trial before the actual high priest, except that he states Jesus to have been led away to Caiaphas. There was no more ready expedient for the harmonists than the supposition, which is found e.g. in Euthymius, that John, in consistency with the supplementary character of his gospel, preserved the examination before Annas as being omitted by the synoptists, while he passed by that before Caiaphas, because it was described with sufficient particularity by his predecessors.59 This opinion, that John and the synoptists speak of two entirely distinct trials, has a confirmation in the fact that the tenor of the respective trials is totally different. In that which the synoptists describe, according to Matthew and Mark, the false witnesses first appear against Jesus; the high priest then asks him if he really pretends to be the Messiah, and on receiving an affirmative answer, declares him guilty of blasphemy, and worthy of death, whereupon follows maltreatment of his person. In the trial depicted by John, Jesus is merely questioned concerning his disciples and his doctrine, he appeals to the publicity of his conduct, and after having been maltreated for this reply by an attendant (ὑπηρέτης), is sent away without the passing of any sentence. That the fourth Evangelist should thus give no particulars concerning the trial before Caiaphas is the more surprising, since in the one before Annas, if it be this which he narrates, according to his own representation nothing was decided, and consequently the grounds for the condemnation of Jesus by the Jewish authorities, and the sentence itself, are altogether wanting in his gospel. To explain this by the supplementary object of John is to impute to him too irrational a mode of procedure; for if he omitted facts because the other Evangelists had already given them, without intimating that he did so purely for that reason, he could only reckon on introducing confusion, and entailing on himself the suspicion of having given a false narrative. He can hardly have had the opinion that the trial before Annas was the principal one, and that therefore it was allowable to omit the other, since he reports no judgment as having been passed in the former; but if he knew the trial before Caiaphas to have been the principal one, and yet gave no more particular information concerning it, this also was a highly singular course for him to take.