death of Jesus, so memorable to the writer, took place, and that it does not exclude the possibility of his having been high priest for successive years also.(1) This explanation, however, is quite arbitrary and insufficient, and this is shown by the additional error in representing Annas as also high priest at,the same time. The Synoptists know nothing of the preliminary examination before Annas, and the reason given by the writer of the fourth Gospel why the soldiers first took Jesus to Annas: "for he was father-in-law to Caiaphas, who was high priest that same year,"(2) is inadmissible. The assertion is a clear mistake, and it probably originated in a stranger, writing of facts and institutions with which he was not well acquainted, being misled by an error equally committed by the author of the third Gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles. In Luke iii. 2, the word of God is said to come to John the Baptist: "in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas" [------], and again, in Acts iv. 6, Annas is spoken of as the high priest when Peter and John healed the lame man at the gate of the Temple which was called "Beautiful," and Caiaphas is mentioned immediately after: "and Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest." Such statements, erroneous in themselves and not understood by the author of the fourth Gospel, may have led to the confusion in the narrative. Annas had previously been high priest, as we know from Josephus,(3) but nothing is more certain than the fact that the title was not continued after the office was resigned; aud Ishmael {417} Eleazar, and Simon, who succeeded Annas and separated his term of office from that of Caiaphas, did not subsequently bear the title. The narrative is a mistake, and such an error could not have been committed by a native of Palestine,(1) and much less by an acquaintance of the high priest.(2) There are also several geographical errors committed which denote a foreigner. In i. 28, the writer speaks of a "Bethany beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing." The substitution of "Bethabara," mentioned by Origen, which has erroneously crept into the vulgar text, is of course repudiated by critics, "Bethany" standing in all the older codices. The alteration was evidently proposed to obviate the difficulty that, even in Origen's time, there did not exist any trace of a Bethany beyond Jordan in Peræa. The place could not be the Bethany near {418}