Chief Priests
Chief Priests
CHIEF PRIESTS ().In the Gospels properly denotes the individual who for the time being held the office of Jewish high priest; and when the word occurs in its singular form, high priest is the almost invariable rendering it receives throughout the NT, both in Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 (in Luk 3:2 is rendered in Authorized Version Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, and in Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. In Act 19:14 , as applied to one Sceva, a Jew, is rendered chief of the priests in Authorized Version , a chief priest in Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ). For a general treatment of the office of the in NT times, and also of the use of the word as a title of Christ by the author of Hebrews, reference must be made to art. High Priest. But in the Gospels and Acts the word occurs very frequently in the plural form (cf. Josephus Vita, 38, BJ iv. iii. 7, 9, 10, and passim), and on all such occasions, both in Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 , it is translated chief priests. It is these , not the proper, with whom we are concerned in the present article.
The precise meaning of , as we meet it in the Gospels and Josephus, is not easily determined. A common explanation used to be that these chief priests were the heads or presidents of the twenty-four courses into which the Jewish priesthood was divided (1Ch 24:4, 2Ch 8:14, Luk 1:5; Luk 1:8; Josephus Ant. vii. xiv. 7), or at least that these heads of the priestly courses were included under the term (see, e.g., the Lexicons of Cremer and Grimm-Thayer, s.v. ; Alford on Mat 2:4). It is true that some support for this view may be found in the expressions all the chief ( Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 chiefs) of the priests (2Ch 36:14, Neh 12:7), the chief priests ( Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 the chiefs of the priests, Ezr 10:5). But it is noticeable, as Schrer pointed out (Die im NT in SK [Note: K Studien und Kritiken.] for 1872), that in the LXX Septuagint the word is never used of the heads of the priestly courses, and that the nearest approximations to this term are such phrases as (1Ch 24:6) (Neh 12:7). And most scholars now take the view that the were high priests rather than chief priests, not leading representatives from the general body of the priesthood, but members of an exclusive high priestly caste.* [Note: In accordance with this view, Dr. Moffatt, in his Historical New Testament, renders ; high priests, a plan which has also been adopted by the editor of The Corrected English New Testament (1905).]
As applied to this high priestly class, the word would seem to denote primarily the official high priest together with a group of ex-high priests. For by NT times the high priestly office had sunk far from its former greatness. It was no longer hereditary, and no longer held for life. Both Herod and the Roman legates deposed and set up high priests at their pleasure (Josephus Ant. xx. x. 1), as the Seleucidae appear to have done at an earlier period (2Ma 4:24; Josephus Ant. xii. v. 1). Thus there were usually several ex-high priests alive at the same time, and these men, though deprived of office, still retained the title of and still exercised considerable power in the Jewish State (cf. Josephus Vita, 38, BJ ii. xii. 6, iv. iii. 7, 9, 10, iv. iv. 3). In the notable case of Annas, we even have an ex-high priest whose influence was plainly greater than that of the proper (cf. Luk 3:2, Joh 18:13; Joh 18:24, Act 4:6).
But Schrer further maintains that, in addition to the ex-high priests, the title was applied to the members of those families from which the high priests were usually chosenthe of Act 4:6. It appears from a statement of Josephus that the dignity of the high priesthood was confined to a few select families (BJ iv. iii. 6); and that this was really the case becomes clear upon an examination of the list which Schrer has compiled, from the various references given by the Jewish historian, of the twenty-eight holders of the office during the Romano-Herodian period (HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] ii. i. 196 ff., 204). Above all, in one passage (BJ vi. ii. 2) Josephus, after distinguishing the from the themselves, apparently combines both classes under the general designation of . Schrer accordingly comes to the conclusion, which has been widely adopted, that the of the NT and Josephus consist, in the first instance, of the high priests properly so called, i.e. the one actually in office and those who had previously been so, and then of the members of those privileged families from which the high priests were taken (op. cit. p. 206). These, then, were in all probability the chief priests of the Authorized and Revised Versions . They belonged to the party of the Sadducees (Act 5:17; Josephus Ant. xx. ix. 1), and were, formally at least, the leading personages in the Sanhedrin. [Note: When are mentioned in the NT along with and , they almost invariably occupy the first place.] But in NT times their influence, even in the Sanhedrin, was inferior to that of the scribes and Pharisees, who commanded the popular sympathies as the high priestly party did not (Josephus Ant. xiii. x. 6, xviii. i. 4; cf. Act 5:34 ff; Act 23:6 ff.).
Literature.Schrer, HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] ii. i. pp. 174184, 195206, and Die im NT in SK [Note: K Studien und Kritiken.] , 1872, pp. 593657; Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, i. p. 322 t.; Ewald, HI [Note: I History of Israel.] vii. p. 479 ff.; Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible , artt. Priests and Levites and Priest in NT; Hauck-Herzog, PRE [Note: RE Real-Encyklopdie fur protest. Theologic und Kirche.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , art. Hoher Priester; Jewish Encyc., art. High Priest.
J. C. Lambert.