Reflections on the Trials of Jesus the Romanpraefectusin the morning, pressing on Pilate the necessity of cru-
cifixion, to which he assented, and which then took place. Even that may
seem incredible in view of the requirements of purity imposed during the
festival. But Luke goes further, and represents the calling of a regular council
in the morning, after the examination in the high-priestly house, and be-
fore the accusation before Pilate. If such an event really occurred, it must
have offended even more profoundly against the rules later propounded in
the Mishnah—and more importantly against the underlying beliefs about
the sanctity of the festival which gave rise to those rules.
In John, by contrast, Passover, which has not yet arrived, dominates every-
thing. It is because Jesus is brought before Pilate on the morning of the day
whose evening will see the onset of Passover that Jesus’ accusers will not
enter thepraetorium. It is, on this interpretation, because the sanctity of the
festival prevents the holding of a capital trial even on the day before, that
they tell Pilate, ‘‘It is not permitted to us to kill anyone.’’ It is because they
(unlike Jesus, who has no choice) remain outside thepraetorium, that Pilate
conducts the examination by alternating between questioning Jesus inside
and confronting his accusers, and the crowd, outside, in the paved court-
yard. This courtyard, identified only by John, has a regulartribunal(bēma)on
which Pilate formally takes his seat when he finally brings Jesus outside to
confront the Jewish crowd. Nothing is described here, however, any more
than in the other Gospels, which could count as a formal trial by Pilate. There
is no formal accusation and defence; no opinions are asked of the governor’s
council; and no formal verdict is pronounced. As with the other Gospels,
in John the decision by Pilate to have Jesus executed is not represented as a
verdict concluding a trial, but as a political decision taken as a concession to
political pressure both from the Jewish authorities and from the crowd. The
long-debated question of whether it was the Roman governor or ‘‘the San-
hedrin’’ which had the legal right to try capital cases in first-century Judaea
and to order the execution of those condemned on capital charges may be
doubly misconceived, if it is thought to be directly relevant to how we in-
terpret the Gospels. For, firstly, it has already been suggested that we should
think rather of the pattern presented by Josephus’ account of the execution
of James, when the high priest summons ‘‘a council [synedrion] of judges’’
(Ant. , ); that is to say, when the occasion arose, the high priest called
together a group of citizens of his own choosing, just as a Roman official
would summon a council (consilium).^20 Secondly, of the four Gospels, only
. For this suggestion, see M. Goodman,The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the
Jewish Revolt against Rome(), –.