century), was that forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the Sanhedrin moved from the Temple and held its sessions in a shop. There is no reason to doubt this statement, Schürer notwithstanding. But R. Isaac bar Abdimi added to it: “This implies that they no longer judged capital cases.” This second statement is seemingly not an historical tradition, but only an inference drawn on the theory that capital sentence could be pronounced only in the special hall of the Sanhedrin in the Temple. This inference is disproved by a number of historical facts, which show that the Rabbinical courts had competence in capital cases in Roman times until the destruction of the Temple and of the Jewish State in 70 C. E. Josephus mentions the reluctance of the Pharisees to impose the death penalty, contrasting them in this regard with the Sadducees.[189] He states further that when a Sadducee became a judge, he would adopt Pharisaic norms of judgment, because the public would not otherwise tolerate him.[190] Elsewhere[191] he mentions that the Essenes punish blasphemy by death. These three notices, although not necessarily referring to post-Christian times, are significant when taken in connection with the following facts. Up to the time of the destruction of the Temple, the Romans granted to the Jews the right to put to death any foreigner, even a Roman citizen, who passed beyond the Temple limits,[192] and there is no warrant for Schürer’s supposition that this right could be exercised only after obtaining the sanction of the procurator.[193] Certainly under King Agrippa, 41-44 C. E., this Jewish law of capital punishment was in force.[194] The story of the trial of Stephen[195] and the different accounts of the trials of Paul before the Sanhedrin,[196] although they are often untrustworthy, presuppose the competence of the Sanhedrin to judge capital cases at a period later than the year 30 C. E. Anan, the Sadducean high priest for three months in 62 C. E., is said by Josephus to have imposed and carried out the death penalty.[197] Rabbi Eleazar ben Zadok cannot have seen the burning of the high priest’s daughter[198] prior to 40 C. E., since in the year 70 C. E. he was still a young man. There seems therefore to be no valid reason for doubting the statement of R. Joseph, R. Hiyya and the school of Hezekiah, that the Roman government allowed the Jewish courts a measure of jurisdiction in capital cases up to the time of the destruction of the Temple in 70 C. E.,[199] but that after that date the Jewish courts were no longer allowed this jurisdiction. Origen (d. 254 C. E.) says that the Jewish law can no longer punish the murderer or stone the adulteress because the Roman government has assumed these rights.[200] The Didascalia[201] also remarks, that the Jewish law of capital punishment is no longer in force. The Talmud testifies uniformly that the Jewish courts had no power over life and death after the year 70 C. E.