Reviews of Books
WAS CHRIST'S TRIAL ILLEGAL? The Trial of Jesus, from a Lawyer's Standpoint. By Walter M. Chandler, of the New York bar. V. 1, The Hebrew Trial; v. 2, The Roman Trial. Empire Publishing Co., New York. Pp. xxxv, 366; xi, 381 + bibliography and index. THE author of this work has tried to convey clear ideas about a matter upon which little information is accessible. If his attempt to show precisely what took place at the trial of Jesus is unsuccessful, he has nevertheless done a service by collecting material relating to the principles of Roman and Hebrew jurisprudence probably in existence at the beginning of the Christian era. As Prof. Nathaniel Schmidt says in his scholarly work on "The Prophet of Naza reth" (p. 286), "It has been repeatedly shown that the trial as described in the Gospels is out of harmony with the legal procedure pre scribed in the Mishnaic tractate 'Sanhedrin' and its Talmudic amplifications." Mr. Chand ler's book makes an elaborate effort to demon strate the illegality of the Hebrew trial. Unfortunately, however, he commits at the outset the fatal mistake of accepting the Scriptural record of fact as final and unim peachable. As a result he obtains a dis torted perspective of his subject, and no thoroughness of research can atone for the defect. The Scriptural narrative is in several re spects lacking in verisimilitude. It is in credible that so much could have happened in the twenty-four hours preceding the Passover. It is also incredible that Jesus should have been tried by summary proceedings and exe cuted within so inconceivably short a space of time. There is a touch of incredibility in the high-handed procedure before Caiaphas, so inconsistent with the humane spirit of Hebrew criminal law; there is also an informality in the proceedings before Pilate which offends one's historical sense. While we know that Christ died an ignominious death, the inhuman brutalities attendant upon his execution are difficult to reconcile with the spirit of Roman as well as of Jewish criminal law. Whoever, therefore, wishes to understand what actually occurred at the trial of Jesus must take the credible portion of the Biblical narrative as a basis and try to reconstruct the record of
fact with the aid of historical research. Modern Biblical scholars employing critical methods seem thus far to have accomplished little or nothing in this direction. Were there two trials, or was there only a single trial? The Scriptural account does not really give the answer to this question. There is no reason to doubt that there was at least one trial of Jesus, in accordance with the regular procedure either of Hebrew or of Roman jurisprudence. The sentiment of the Jewish hierarchy, even amid party turmoil and intrigue, would not have tolerated a violation of every legal right of the accused. Pilate would not have allowed the death sen tence without a regular conviction. But there is also good reason to suppose that there were two regular trials of Jesus. In the first place, the circumstantiality of the account of the trial before Pilate leads one to suppose that Jesus was in all probability regularly tried and acquitted of the charge of sedition. If, then, he was acquitted of this charge, his conviction was probably secured on a different accusation, that of a religious rather than a civil offense. The Sanhedrin would have had the jurisdiction to try a charge of blasphemy, and such a trial would have had to occur before Pilate would have permitted the death sentence to be carried out. We may therefore conclude that there were probably two regular trials, and that Mr. Chandler is right in devoting one volume to each. One cannot, however, approve of the method by which he reaches the conclusion that there were two trials, from a study of the Bible record. The majority of laymen would not get the idea from the Bible that the proceedings at the house of Caiaphas amounted to a trial, but rather to an informal preliminary hearing. The presumption is that there were regular proceedings before Caiaphas, and the burden of proof rests with those who contend for an irregularity. Josephus, in spite of what he says about the haughty, cruel spirit of the family of the high priest Ananos (Annas), father-in-law of Caiaphas, offers no ground for the assumption that Caiaphas and Annas would have been likely to defy Hebrew law. Josephus tells us that Ananus, son of Ananos,
