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Bible Dictionaries
Chief Priests
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or CHIEF PRIESTS (ἀρχιερεῖς).—In the Gospels ἀρχιερεύς properly denotes the individual who for the time being held the office of Jewish high priest; and when the word occurs in its singular form, ‘high priest’ is the almost invariable rendering it receives throughout the NT, both in Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 (in Luke 3:2 ἐπὶ ἀρχιερέως Ἄννα καὶ Καιάφα is rendered in Authorized Version ‘Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests,’ and in Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.’ In Acts 19:14 ἀρχιερεύς, as applied to ‘one Sceva, a Jew,’ is rendered ‘chief of the priests’ in Authorized Version, ‘a chief priest’ in Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885). For a general treatment of the office of the ἀρχιερεύς in NT times, and also of the use of the word as a title of Christ by the author of Hebrews, reference must be made to art. High Priest. But in the Gospels and Acts the word occurs very frequently in the plural form (cf. Josephus Vita, 38, BJ iv. iii. 7, 9, 10, and passim), and on all such occasions, both in Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885, it is translated ‘chief priests.’ It is these ἀρχιερεῖς, not the ἀρχιερεύς proper, with whom we are concerned in the present article.
The precise meaning of ἀρχιερεῖς, as we meet it in the Gospels and Josephus, is not easily determined. A common explanation used to be that these ‘chief priests’ were the heads or presidents of the twenty-four courses into which the Jewish priesthood was divided (1 Chronicles 24:4, 2 Chronicles 8:14, Luke 1:5; Luke 1:8; Josephus Ant. vii. xiv. 7), or at least that these heads of the priestly courses were included under the term (see, e.g., the Lexicons of Cremer and Grimm-Thayer, s.v. ἀρχιερεύς; Alford on Matthew 2:4). It is true that some support for this view may be found in the expressions ‘all the chief ( Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘chiefs’) of the priests’ (2 Chronicles 36:14, Nehemiah 12:7), ‘the chief priests’ ( Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘the chiefs of the priests,’ Ezra 10:5). But it is noticeable, as Schürer pointed out (‘Die ἀρχιερεῖς im NT’ in SK [Note: K Studien und Kritiken.] for 1872), that in the LXX Septuagint the word ἀρχιερεῖς is never used of the heads of the priestly courses, and that the nearest approximations to this term are such phrases as ἄρχοντες τῶν πατριῶν τῶν ἰερέων (1 Chronicles 24:6) ἄρχοντες τῶν ἱερέων (Nehemiah 12:7). And most scholars now take the view that the ἁρχιερεῖς were high priests rather than ‘chief priests,’ not leading representatives from the general body of the priesthood, but members of an exclusive high priestly caste.* [Note: In accordance with this view, Dr. Moffatt, in his Historical New Testament, renders ἁρχιερεῖς; ‘high priests,’ a plan which has also been adopted by the editor of The Corrected English New Testament (1905).]
As applied to this high priestly class, the word ἀρχιερεῖς would seem to denote primarily the official high priest together with a group of ex-high priests. For by NT times the high priestly office had sunk far from its former greatness. It was no longer hereditary, and no longer held for life. Both Herod and the Roman legates deposed and set up high priests at their pleasure (Josephus Ant. xx. x. 1), as the Seleucidae appear to have done at an earlier period (2 Maccabees 4:24; Josephus Ant. xii. v. 1). Thus there were usually several ex-high priests alive at the same time, and these men, though deprived of office, still retained the title of ἀρχιερεῖς and still exercised considerable power in the Jewish State (cf. Josephus Vita, 38, BJ ii. xii. 6, iv. iii. 7, 9, 10, iv. iv. 3). In the notable case of Annas, we even have an ex-high priest whose influence was plainly greater than that of the ἀρχιερεύς proper (cf. Luke 3:2, John 18:13; John 18:24, Acts 4:6).
But Schürer further maintains that, in addition to the ex-high priests, the title was applied to the members of those families from which the high priests were usually chosen—the γένος ἀρχιερατικόν of Acts 4:6. It appears from a statement of Josephus that the dignity of the high priesthood was confined to a few select families (BJ iv. iii. 6); and that this was really the case becomes clear upon an examination of the list which Schürer has compiled, from the various references given by the Jewish historian, of the twenty-eight holders of the office during the Romano-Herodian period (HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] ii. i. 196 ff., 204). Above all, in one passage (BJ vi. ii. 2) Josephus, after distinguishing the υἱοὶ τῶν ἀρχιερέων from the ἀρχιερεῖς themselves, apparently combines both classes under the general designation of ἀρχιερεῖς. Schürer accordingly comes to the conclusion, which has been widely adopted, that the ἀρχιερεῖς of the NT and Josephus ‘consist, in the first instance, of the high priests properly so called, i.e. the one actually in office and those who had previously been so, and then of the members of those privileged families from which the high priests were taken’ (op. cit. p. 206). These, then, were in all probability the ‘chief priests’ of the Authorized and Revised Versions. They belonged to the party of the Sadducees (Acts 5:17; Josephus Ant. xx. ix. 1), and were, formally at least, the leading personages in the Sanhedrin.† [Note: When ἁρχιερεῖς are mentioned in the NT along with γραμματεῖς and πρεσβύτεροι, they almost invariably occupy the first place.] But in NT times their influence, even in the Sanhedrin, was inferior to that of the scribes and Pharisees, who commanded the popular sympathies as the high priestly party did not (Josephus Ant. xiii. x. 6, xviii. i. 4; cf. Acts 5:34 ff; Acts 23:6 ff.).
Literature.—Schürer, HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] ii. i. pp. 174–184, 195–206, and ‘Die ἀρχιερεῖς im NT’ in SK [Note: K Studien und Kritiken.] , 1872, pp. 593–657; Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, i. p. 322 t.; Ewald, HI [Note: I History of Israel.] vii. p. 479 ff.; Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, artt. ‘Priests and Levites’ and ‘Priest in NT’; Hauck-Herzog, PRE [Note: RE Real-Encyklopädie fur protest. Theologic und Kirche.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , art. ‘Hoher Priester’; Jewish Encyc., art. ‘High Priest.’
J. C. Lambert.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Chief Priests'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/c/chief-priests.html. 1906-1918.
