The accusations against Christ were numerous, both in and out of court; and it will help to simplify matters and to arrive at a clear understanding, if, in the very beginning, the distinction be made and held in mind between _judicial_ and _extra-judicial_ charges. By judicial charges are meant those made at the time of the examination of Jesus by the Sanhedrin, assembled at night in the palace of Caiaphas. By extra-judicial charges are meant those made out of court at divers times and places in Jerusalem, Galilee, and elsewhere by the accusers of the Christ, and especially by the spies who dogged His footsteps during the last days of His ministry on earth. Ordinarily, it would be proper, in a work of this kind, to consider only charges made after the trial of the accused had begun, and jeopardy had attached. All others are extra-judicial and are entitled to only passing notice. It would be proper to omit them altogether, if they did not serve to throw much light upon the specific charges at the trial. An excellent summary of the extra-judicial charges brought against Jesus at various times in His career, is given in Abbott's "Jesus of Nazareth," p. 448: "It was charged that He was a preacher of turbulence and faction; that He flattered the poor and inveighed against the rich; that He denounced whole cities, as Capernaum, Bethsaida, Chorazin; that He gathered about Him a rabble of publicans, harlots, and drunkards, under a mere pretense of reforming them; that He subverted the laws and institutions of the Mosaic commonwealth, and substituted an unauthorized legislation of His own; that He disregarded not only all distinctions of society, but even those of religion, and commended the idolatrous Samaritan as of greater worth than the holy priest and pious Levite; that, though He pretended to work miracles, He had invariably refused to perform them in the presence and at the request of the Rabbis of the Church; that He had contemned the solemn sanctions of their holy religion, had sat down to eat with publicans and sinners with unwashen hands, had disregarded the obligations of the Sabbath, had attended the Jewish feasts with great irregularity or not at all, had declared that God could be worshiped in any other place as well as in His Holy Temple, had openly and violently interfered with its sacred services by driving away the cattle gathered there for sacrifice." These different charges were doubtless present in the minds and hearts of the members of the Sanhedrin at the time of the trial, and probably influenced their conduct and entered into their verdict. But only one or two of these accusations can be said to have any direct connection with the record in this case, and, consequently, can be only indirectly considered in discussing its merits.