among the Jews, the great council of the nation, consisting of seventy senators, taken partly from among the priests and levites, and partly out of the inferior judges, who formed what was called the lesser sanhedrim. The room they met in was a rotunda, half of which was built without the temple, and half within. The nasi, or president of the sanhedrim, sat upon a throne, with his deputy on his right hand, his sub-deputy on his left, and the other senators ranged in order on each side.

The authority of this council was very extensive: for they decided such causes as were brought before them by way of appeal from the inferior courts; and the king, the high-priests, and prophets, were under the jurisdiction of this tribunal. They had the right of judging in capital cases, and sentence of death might not be pronounced in any other place; for which reason the Jews were forced to quit this hall, when the power of life and death was taken out of their hands, forty years before the destruction of the temple, and three years before the death of Christ.

There were several inferior sanhedrims in Palestine, each of which consisted of twenty-three persons; all these depended on the great sanhedrim of Jerusalem.