Annas and Caiaphas

It was in their time, then—in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, as the evangelist says, and in the fourth year of the governorship of Pontius Pilate, while Herod, Lysanias and Philip were tetrarchs over the rest of Judea—that our Savior and Lord, Jesus, the Christ of God, being about thirty years old as he began, came to John’s baptism and then made the beginning of his proclamation of the good news. [a] The divine Scripture says that he spent the whole time of his teaching under the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, showing that the whole period of his teaching was completed within the years between their two terms of service. Since he began during the high priesthood of Annas and continued until Caiaphas took office, the whole interval comes to not even four years. [b] For the ordinances of the law were already in some way being done away with from that time. The rule had been dissolved by which the service of God belonged to a man for life and by succession from his ancestors. Instead the Roman governors entrusted the high priesthood now to one man and now to another, and none of them held it for more than one year. [c]

Josephus records that four high priests in succession came after Annas, up to Caiaphas. In the same book of the Antiquities he says: “Valerius Gratus removed Ananus from the priesthood and declared Ishmael, the son of Phabi, high priest. Not long after, he removed him too and appointed Eleazar, the son of Ananus the high priest, as high priest. When a year had passed he removed him as well and handed the high priesthood to Simon, the son of Camithus. This man too held the honor no more than a year, and Joseph, also called Caiaphas, succeeded him.” So the whole period of our Savior’s teaching is shown to be not even four full years, since from Annas to the appointment of Caiaphas four high priests in four years each served a single year. And the Scripture of the Gospel rightly noted Caiaphas as high priest of the year in which the Savior’s passion was accomplished. From it, too, the time of Christ’s teaching is shown to agree with the inquiry we have just made. [d]

Not long after the beginning of his proclamation, our Savior and Lord called the twelve apostles. These alone, of all his disciples, he named apostles, as a special honor. And again he appointed seventy others, and sent them out two by two ahead of him into every place and town where he himself was about to go. [f]