John 18:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Since they found no guilt in Him, they lead Him away to Caiaphas. Perhaps they hoped that he, being more cunning, would find something in Jesus worthy of death, either by catching Him in an answer or by exposing some deed.

The divine Evangelist profitably checks the course of his narrative, as one would restrain a swift-running horse, and returns again to what came before. For what reason? Before proceeding further, it was necessary to point out Peter's third denial. It had occurred in a way entirely fitting to it and corresponding to Christ's prediction. Therefore he considers it useful to return to the beginning and says that Jesus was sent from Annas to Caiaphas. He shows that Peter was questioned by the servants who were warming themselves with him. In particular, he was questioned by one belonging to the family of the servant whom Peter had struck with the sword. At this point Peter made the third denial. Then he mentions the cry of the rooster.

But let us return to what the Gospel next relates: Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

According to Matthew, He had been led to Caiaphas at once, since Caiaphas was high priest that year.

It should be understood that the two priests, that is, the two high priests, ordinarily served alternately year by year. These were Annas and Caiaphas, whom the Evangelist Luke mentions.

He does so when narrating the time when John, the Forerunner of the Lord, began to preach the Kingdom of Heaven and gather disciples.

For he says, "In the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness" (Lk 3:2).

Thus these two high priests served alternately, each in his own year, and this was the year of Caiaphas, when Christ suffered.

68. Pitiful are the bonds of the Jews. With them they do not bind Christ, but take themselves captive.

They bind Christ not in the house of a pious righteous man, but in the impious house of Caiaphas. Yet in that house the prophecy is uttered that Christ would die for all; see Mt 26:57; Jn 18:24; Jn 11:49-53; 2 Cor 5:15.

Only madmen confess the benefits of Christ, yet persecute the very Giver of those benefits.

Read also the explanation in the twenty-sixth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew on the words: "Then those who had seized Jesus led Him to Caiaphas the high priest" (Mt 26:57).

Recognizing that it was useless to continue questioning Jesus, Annas sent Him bound to the actual high priest, his son-in-law Caiaphas; see Mt 26:57 and following.

See the commentary on Jn 18:19. All this, or the greater part of it, took place at night. But was a night session of the court lawful?

According to all the ordinances of Jewish law, the administration of judgment by night was absolutely unlawful and invalid, no matter in what form it was conducted.

In one place in the Mishnah a law is set forth contrasting criminal procedure with civil procedure. It is so striking that we venture to cite it here in full, though for us only the concluding words of the paragraph are strictly important.

Civil and criminal procedures are subject to the same rules concerning examinations and investigation. But they differ in method of procedure in the following points.

If we have no clear ancient indications concerning the house of Annas, the location of the house of Caiaphas is marked very early. We possess more than one testimony that Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, already erected a church on the site of this house.

In an excerpt from the Life of Constantine and Helena, published by V. G. Vasilievsky, it is said of the holy mother of the emperor, among other things: ἐποίησε δέ και τήν αὐλήν τοῦ Καϊαφα. Nicephorus Callistus, who may have had the same copy of the Life in hand, speaks of this in his ecclesiastical history in this way: et in palatio Caiaphae Petro apostoloram principi teraplum aliud constituit. His words are confirmed by Adrichomius, Quaresmius, and Zwinner. The last held that the church of his own time had been newly built by Christians on the site built by Queen Helena.

Sepp also finds testimony in Marino Sanuto. It is true that the Bordeaux Pilgrim, who was contemporary with her, says nothing of this building of St. Helena. By this silence he gives Tobler occasion to regard all these testimonies as historically unfounded. Yet even if we agreed with the esteemed scholar, the testimony of the same Bordeaux Pilgrim would suffice for our purpose.

Having visited Jerusalem in 333, he saw the place of Caiaphas’s house outside the walls of Aelia Hadriana, on the way from Siloam to Zion: Ex, in some copies in, eadem ascenditur Sion, et paret, ubi fuit domus Caiphae sacerdotis. That is, it was approximately where the Armenian monastery described by us now stands. “And even now there is the pillar at which Christ was scourged”: Et columna adhuc ibi est, in qua Christum flagellis ceciderunt, the pilgrim adds.

Blessed Jerome, in his description of the pilgrimage of St. Paula, says among other things: “There, on Zion, they showed the column supporting the church portico, stained with the blood of the Lord, to which, they say, He was bound and scourged”: Ostendebatur illie columna ecclesiae porticum sustinens, infecta cruore Domini, ad quam vinctus dicitur et flagellatus. From the preceding words it is clear that Mount Zion is meant here, not the church of Zion.

If this testimony is compared with the remark of the Bordeaux traveler cited above, one may also see here an indication of the site of Caiaphas’s house, again placed on Zion. Theodosius knew that the column on which, “as on soft wax, the shoulders, hands, and fingers” of the Lord Jesus Christ were imprinted after the scourging had formerly been in the house of Caiaphas. In his time, however, it was already shown in “holy Zion.” Antoninus Martyr also points it out in the basilica of Zion. In Arculf, the place of the pillar of scourging is marked on his plan of the Zion basilica in the middle of its building.

This is no longer the general name of a locality, the southern hill on which ancient Jerusalem was situated, but the name of a church. In the expression of Theodosius himself, it was “the mother of all churches, which our Lord Jesus Christ founded with the apostles.” It was always sought on the site of the present group of buildings with the mosque of Nebi Daud.

Here, as we have already seen, a very ancient Christian tradition pointed to the place of the Lord’s Mystical Supper and the washing of the feet. Here also, according to tradition, Jesus Christ appeared to His disciples after the Resurrection. Here they also received the Holy Spirit. The house of Caiaphas is placed in one relation or another to this “mother of all churches.”

Thus, according to the same Theodosius, “from holy Zion to the house of Caiaphas, which is now the church of St. Peter, there are about fifty paces”: De sancta Sion ed Domum Caiaphe, que est modo ecclesia sancti Petri, sunt plus minus passus numero 1. The church of Peter appears on the site of Caiaphas’s house, not because of a confusion between the names Kaiphas and Kephas, as Sepp thinks, but because tradition assigned to this place the Apostle’s denial.

Thus in another monument of the same period we read: “From there, that is, from the church of Zion, one comes to the house of Caiaphas, where St. Peter denied; there is the great basilica of St. Peter”: inde vadis ad domum Caiphe, ubi negavit sanctus Petrus: ubi est basilica grandis sancti Petri. In Bernard, on Mount Zion, the church of “St. Simeon” is indicated. Judging by the significance given there to this church, it must be regarded as identical with the famous church of Zion.

Near it, to the east, stood a church in honor of St. Stephen, on the site of his death. “Directly to the east is a church in honor of blessed Peter, on the place where he denied the Lord”: In directum autem ad orientem est ecclesia in honore beati Petri in loco, in quo Dominum negavit. This last church undoubtedly corresponds to the house of Caiaphas.

Epiphanius does not know of a church on the site of Peter’s denial. But he does mention a small four-column structure with remains of coals from the fire by which the Apostle warmed himself while speaking with the maidservant. These four “small pillars,” perhaps a kind of chapel, as V. G. Vasilievsky, the editor of the monument, supposes, are indicated in the very building of holy Zion, “which is the praetorium.” A remark about the latter is added there.

This strange combination of the house of Caiaphas with the praetorium, probably caused by some misunderstanding, is encountered as early as the end of the fourth century. Perhaps it arose from an incorrect reading of Jn 18:28: ad Caipham in praetorium, instead of a Caipha in praetorium.

Later it is repeated after a long interval among the Crusaders. At that time the testimonies sometimes speak for the conjunction of Pilate’s praetorium with the house of Caiaphas. At other times, regarding the latter as a separate building on the basis of Lk 22:54, they place it near the praetorium. Sometimes the praetorium is represented as the place where the Sanhedrin gathered to judge the Lord Jesus Christ.

Later we shall see that this is not the praetorium of Pilate now shown in the large building of the Serai, the palace, but another place on Zion. Thus the testimonies concerning this conjunction or adjacency of Caiaphas’s house with Pilate’s praetorium do not argue against, but rather in favor of, the authenticity of the presently indicated site of the high-priestly palace.

Finally, from the fourteenth century onward, reports begin of the building of a church of the Savior on this site, Ecclesia s. Salvatoris. The foundation of the present monastery is also thought to belong to this time. The monastery had long been in Armenian possession. In 1482, because of their poverty, they almost sold it.

Being friendly in character, the owners of the monastery allow Catholics once a year, on the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit, to celebrate the Catholic Mass on the small altar by the prison of Jesus Christ. Exact information concerning this latter place can be found from the second half of the fifteenth century. Already then it was a small chapel on the right side near the altar, connected with the church by a small door. Albert of Saxony speaks of this. According to Fabri, only one person could fit in this chapel. It remains in the same position in later testimonies.

In the sixteenth century there appears a desire to define more precisely the place of the Apostle Peter’s denial. It was marked sometimes by a tree encased with stones in the middle of the church courtyard. At other times it was marked by an orange tree growing there, or by an olive tree. Later, a stone pillar with a rooster on top served as its memorial. In the previous century an orange tree was again seen on this place.

Now only the tradition remains that Peter’s denial took place in this very courtyard. Finally, in connection with this, beginning in the fourteenth century, a tradition also developed about the place of the rooster’s crowing during the Apostle Peter’s denial. Sometimes a tree was named as this place, sometimes a column, the remains of which were shown. At present not even the image of the rooster on the church doors remains, though it was still seen at the beginning of the present century.

As for the stone said to have closed the entrance to the holy tomb, other testimonies assign it a different purpose. The Apostle Peter sat upon it and bitterly wept over his denial. On it also the bound Lord Jesus Christ was guarded.

Thus we see how, beginning from a very early time, the tradition persistently held that here, in the southwestern part of the city, must have been the place where the house of the high priest Caiaphas stood. Such antiquity and stability already speak in favor of the tradition. Apart from this, however, we find very important confirmation for it in the book of Nehemiah.

There the house of “Eliashib the high priest” is mentioned, Neh 3:20-22. It stood not far from the city wall, south of the tower of the upper royal palace, Neh 3:25; cf. Jer 32:2, which occupied the site of the present citadel. Unruh’s supposition is very probable: in this very extensive high-priestly palace lived both Eliashib’s predecessors and his successors in office. Among the latter was Caiaphas, the acting high priest in the year of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

His father-in-law Annas, though called high priest in the Gospel, had in fact long since ceased to hold that office. Consequently he did not live in this high-priestly palace. He was a rich and most influential man at that time. There is nothing improbable in the thought that his own palace stood somewhere not far from the place now occupied by the Armenian women’s monastery, likewise in the southwestern part of the city.

Having thus determined the site of the houses of Annas, cf. Jn 18:13, and Caiaphas, let us now return to the path the Lord Jesus Christ took in the night of His sufferings from the garden of Gethsemane. His enemies had to hurry greatly. They had only one night and the morning of the next day at their disposal.

This circumstance is very important for us. In view of it, we must suppose that the via captivitatis was the shortest route in time between the garden of Gethsemane and the indicated site of the house of the high priest Annas. If the guard had led the Lord Jesus Christ through the Golden Gate, as some have thought, they would have had to pass through almost the whole city.

The present Golden Gate, known among the Arabs as the Eternal Gate, Bab ed-Dahariyeh, is in the eastern city wall. Through it one could enter the area of the Haram, if it were not completely blocked. It may reliably be regarded as the site of the ancient gate of the same name. It is not named in Nehemiah among the city gates. For this reason Blessed Jerome regards it only as an outer gate of the temple, not as a city gate.

For our purpose there is no need to decide the difficult question whether there was a special wall on the eastern side of ancient Jerusalem where the wall of the temple court ran, or whether the latter also served there as the city wall, Bell. jud. IV, 4, 6-7. Nor need we decide to which of these two walls the Golden Gate belonged.

The whole difference would be this: in the first case, having passed through the Golden Gate in the city wall, the guard had to turn south in order to go around the eastern wall and part of the southern wall of the temple court. In the second case, from the Golden Gate they would have had to pass through the very court of the temple. The shortening of the way here would have been insignificant.

South of the temple were the buildings which, together with the southeastern tower and the extensive underground chambers beneath it, bore the name Ophel. Here, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, lived the so-called Nethinim, the temple servants who performed the lower and more difficult duties attached to it, Neh 3:26-27; 11:21.

Annas sent Him bound, that is, in the same condition in which the Lord had been brought to him (Jn 18:12), to Caiaphas.

He was sent through the inner courtyard (see the note on Jn 18:15), where the fire had been laid, and where Peter was, having already denied the Lord once (Jn 18:17, 18, 25).

Like everyone taken for trial, the Savior had been burdened with bonds already in the garden of Gethsemane (Jn 18:12; cf. Acts 21:33).

It is doubtful that He stood in bonds while answering Annas. At least this was not customary, and when they led Him to Pilate, according to the Evangelist, they bound Him again (Mt 27:2).

After the Nazarene Teacher had been accused of nothing by Annas, it was not an act of humanity on the high priest's part to weigh down the innocent One with bonds.

If they sent Him to Caiaphas, it was only in order to end the trial with a bloody death. So much the greater the honor for Annas!

My hearers, if we too encounter Annases with a cold and even evil soul toward the faith, let us pity them.

Apparently, after the Lord's answer in verses 20 and 21, Annas was thrown into confusion by Him and did not question the Lord further.

He saw no need for this, since the sentence of the Lord's death had already been determined beforehand with the agreement of the malicious members of the Sanhedrin.

Annas sends the Lord bound before the lawful tribunal and the high priest Caiaphas. By this he lets them know that he has not departed from the decision known to them.

This figurative manner of expressing thoughts and messages has always been used in the East. Thus Herod also, finding no guilt in the Lord, does not write to Pilate, but clothes the Lord in a bright robe (Lk 23:11).