The burial of the dead body of the criminal immediately followed execution, but interment could not take place in the family burial ground. Near each town in ancient Palestine were two cemeteries; in one of them were buried those criminals who had been executed by beheading or strangling; in the other were interred those who had been put to death by stoning or burning. The bodies were required to remain, thus buried, until the flesh had completely decayed and fallen from the bone. The relatives were then permitted to dig up the skeletons and place them in the family sepulchers. CHAPTER III HEBREW CRIMINAL LAW--COURTS AND JUDGES The Hebrew tribunals were three in kind: the Great Sanhedrin; the Minor Sanhedrin; and the Lower Tribunal, or the Court of Three. The Great Sanhedrin, or Grand Council, was the high court of justice and the supreme tribunal of the Jews. It sat at Jerusalem. It numbered seventy-one members. Its powers were legislative, executive, and judicial. It exercised all the functions of education, of government, and of religion. It was the national parliament of the Hebrew Theocracy, the human administrator of the divine will. It was the most august tribunal that ever interpreted or administered religion to man. _The Name._--The word "Sanhedrin" is derived from the Greek ([Greek: synedrion]) and denotes a legislative assembly or an ecclesiastical council deliberating in a sitting posture. It suggests also the gravity and solemnity of an Oriental synod, transacting business of great importance. The etymology of the word indicates that it was first used in the later years of Jewish nationality. Several other names are also found in history to designate the Great Sanhedrin of the Jews. The Council of Ancients is a familiar designation of early Jewish writers. It is called Gerusia, or Senate, in the second book of Maccabees.[78] Concilium, or Grand Council, is the name found in the Vulgate.[79] The Talmud designates it sometimes as the Tribunal of the Maccabees, but usually terms it Sanhedrin, the name most frequently employed in the Greek text of the Gospels, in the writings of the Rabbins, and in the works of Josephus.[80]