or SANHEDEIN, from the Greek word συνέδριον, which signifies a council or assembly of persons sitting together, was the name by which the Jews called the great council of the nation, assembled in an apartment of the temple of Jerusalem to determine the most important affairs of their church and state. This council consisted of seventy senators. The room they met in was a rotunda, half of which was built without the temple, and half within; that is, one semicircle was within the compass of the temple, the other semicircle was built without, for the senators to sit in, it being unlawful for any one to sit down in the temple. The Nasi, or prince of the sanhedrim, sat upon a throne at the end of the hall, having his deputy at his right hand, and his sub-deputy at his left. The other senators were ranged in order on each side.

The rabbins pretend, that the sanhedrim has always subsisted in their nation from the time of Moses down to the destruction of the temple by the Romans. They date the establishment of it from what happened in the wilderness, some time after the people departed from Sinai, in the year of the world 2514. Moses, being discouraged by the continual murmurings of the Israelites, addressed himself to God, and desired to be relieved at least from some part of the burden of the government. Then the Lord said to him, "Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee: And I will come down and talk with thee there; and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone." The Lord, therefore, poured out his spirit upon these men, who began at that time to prophesy, and have not ceased ever since. The sanhedrim was composed of seventy counsellors, or rather seventy-two, being six out of each tribe; and Moses, as president, made up the number to seventy-three. To prove the uninterrupted succession of the judges of the sanhedrim, there is nothing unattempted by the partisans of this opinion. They find a proof where others cannot so much as perceive any appearance or shadow of it. Grotius may be consulted in many places of his commentaries, and in his first book De jure belli et pacis (c. iii. art. 20), and Selden De Synedris veterum Hebraeorum; also Calmet's Dissertation concerning the Polity of the ancient Hebrews, printed before his Sanhedrin Commentary upon the Book of Numbers.

As to the personal qualifications of the judges of this bench, their birth was to be untainted. They were often taken from the race of the priests or Levites, or out of the number of the inferior judges, or from the lesser sanhedrim, which consisted only of twenty-three judges. They were to be skilful in the law, as well traditional as written. They were obliged to study magic, divination, fortune-telling, physic, astrology, arithmetic, and languages. The Jews say they were to know to the number of seventy tongues; that is, they were to know all the tongues, for the Hebrews acknowledged but seventy in all, and perhaps this is too great a number. Eunuchs were excluded from the sanhedrim because of their cruelty, usurers, decrepid persons, players at games of chance, such as had any bodily deformities, those that had brought up pigeons to decoy others to their pigeon-houses, and those that made a gain of their fruits in the sabbatical year. Some also exclude the high priest and the king, because of their power; but others will have it that the kings always presided in the sanhedrim whilst there were any kings in Israel. Lastly, it was required that the members of the sanhedrim should be of a mature age, of a handsome person, and of considerable fortune. We speak now according to the notions of the rabbins, without pretending to warrant their opinions.

The authority of the great sanhedrim was very extensive. This council decided such causes as were brought before it by way of appeal from the inferior courts. The king, the high priest, and the prophets, were under its jurisdiction. If the king offended against the law, for example, if he married above eighteen wives, if he kept too many horses, if he hoarded up too much gold and silver, the sanhedrim had him stripped and whipped in their presence. But whipping, they say, among the Hebrews was not at all ignominious; and the king bore this correction by way of penance, and himself made choice of the person that was to exercise this discipline over him. The general affairs of the nation were also brought before the sanhedrim. The right of judging in capital cases belonged to this court, and the sentence could not be pronounced in any other place, but in the hall called Laschot haggazith, or the hall paved with stones, supposed by some to be the ἀβαττάρες, or pavement, mentioned in John xix. 13. Hence it came to pass, that 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 their temple, and three years before the death of Jesus Christ. In the time of Moses this council was held at the door of the tabernacle of the testimony. As soon as the people were in possession of the land of promise, the sanhedrim followed the tabernacle. It was kept successively at Gilgal, at Shiloh, at Kirjath-jearim, at Nob, at Gibbon in the house of Obed-edom; and, lastly, it was settled at Jerusalem until the Babylonish captivity. During the captivity it was kept up at Babylon. After the return from Babylon, it continued at Jerusalem until the time of the Sicarii or Assassins. Then finding that these profligate wretches, whose number increased every day, sometimes escaped punishment by favour of the president or judges, it was removed to Hanothi, which were certain abodes situated, as the rabbins tell us, upon the mountain of the temple. From thence they came down into the city of Jerusalem, withdrawing themselves by degrees from the temple. Afterwards they removed to Jamia, thence to Jericho, to Uzzah, to Sepharvaim, to Bethsanim, to Sephoris, last of all to Tiberias, where they continued till the time of their utter extinction. And this is the account the Jews themselves give us of the sanhedrim.

But the learned do not agree with them in all this. Father Petavi fixes the beginning of the sanhedrim not till Gabinius was governor of Judaea, who, according to Josephus, erect- ed tribunals in the five principal cities of Judaea; at Jerusalem, at Gadara, at Amathus, at Jericho, and at Sephora or Sepphoris, a city of Galilee. Grotius places the origin of the sanhedrim under Moses, as the rabbins do; but he makes it terminate at the beginning of Herod's reign. Mr Basnage at first thought that the sanhedrim began under Gabinus; but afterwards he places it under Judas Maccabeus, or under his brother Jonathan. We see, indeed, under Jonathan Maccabeus, in the year 3860, that the senate along with the high priest sent an embassy to the Romans. The rabbins say, that Alexander Jannaeus, king of the Jews, of the race of the Asmonaeans, appeared before the sanhedrim, and claimed a right of sitting there, whether the senators would or not. Josephus informs us, that when Herod was but yet governor of Galilee, he was summoned before the senate, where he appeared. It must be therefore acknowledged that the sanhedrim was in being before the reign of Herod. It was in being afterwards, as we find from the Gospel and from the Acts. Jesus Christ in St Matthew (v. 22) distinguishes two tribunals. "Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment;" this, they say, is the tribunal of the twenty-three judges. "And whosoever shall say to his brother Raca, shall be in danger of the council;" that is, of the great sanhedrim, which had the right of life and death, at least generally, and before this right was taken away by the Romans. Some think that the jurisdiction of the council of twenty-three extended to life and death also; but it is certain that the sanhedrim was superior to this council.

From all this it may be concluded, that the origin of the sanhedrim is involved in uncertainty; for the council of the seventy elders established by Moses was not what the Hebrews understand by the name of sanhedrim. Besides, we cannot perceive that this establishment subsisted either under Joshua, the judges, or the kings. We find nothing of it after the captivity till the time of Jonathan Maccabeus. The tribunals erected by Gabinus were very different from the sanhedrim, which was the supreme court of judicature, and fixed at Jerusalem, whereas Gabinus established five at five different cities. Lastly, it is certain that this senate was in being in the time of Jesus Christ; but the Jews themselves inform us that they had then no longer the power of life and death (John, xviii. 31).