Luke 3:2

ἐπὶ�. אABCD. This is the more difficult reading, and possibly for that very reason it may have been altered into the less attested ἐπ' ἀρχιερέων.

2. ἐπὶ�. ‘In the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,’ for the true reading is undoubtedly ἀρχιερέως (אABCDE, &c.). A similar expression occurs in Acts 4:6. But here St Luke is charged (on grounds as untenable as in the former instances) with yet another mistake. Annas or Hanan the son of Seth had been High Priest from A.D. 7–14, and had therefore, by this time, been deposed for many years; and his son-in-law Joseph Caiaphas, the fourth High Priest since his deposition, had been appointed about A.D. 24. The order had been as follows:—

Annas or Ananus (Hanan), A.D. 7.
Ishmael Ben Phabi, A.D. 15.
Eleazar son of Annas, A.D. 15.
Simon son of Kamhith, A.D. 16.
Joseph Caiaphas, A.D. 24 or 25.

How then can Annas be called High Priest in A.D. 27? The answer is (i.) that by the Mosaic Law the High Priesthood was held for life (Numbers 35:25), and since Annas had only been deposed by the arbitrary caprice of the Roman procurator Valerius Gratus he would still be legally and religiously regarded as High Priest by the Jews (Numbers 35:25); (ii.) that he held in all probability the high office of Sagan haccohanim ‘deputy’ or ‘chief’ of the Priests (2 Kings 25:18), or of Nasi ‘President of the Sanhedrin,’ or at least of the Ab Beth Dîn, who was second in the Sanhedrin; (iii.) that the nominal, official, High Priests of this time were mere puppets of the civil power, which appointed and deposed them at will in rapid succession, so that the title was used in a looser sense than in earlier days; (iv.) that Annas was personally a man whose age, wealth, and connexions gave him a preponderant influence. The real sacerdotal power was his. The High Priesthood was in fact at this time in the hands of a clique of some half-dozen Herodian, Sadducaean and alien families, whose ambition it was to bear the title for a time without facing the burden of the necessary duties. Hence any one who was unusually prominent among them would naturally bear the title of ‘High Priest’ in a popular way, especially in such a case as that of Hanan, who, besides having been High Priest, was a man of vast wealth and influence, so that five also of his sons, as well as his son-in-law, became High Priests after him. The language of St Luke and the Evangelists (John 11:49) is therefore in strict accordance with the facts of the case in attributing the High Priesthood at this epoch rather to a caste than to a person. Josephus (B. J. II. 20, § 4) who talks of “one of the High Priests” and the Talmud which speaks of “the sons of the High Priests” use the same sort of language. There had been no less than 28 of these phantom High Priests in 107 years (Jos. Antt. XX. 10, § 1), and there must have been at least five living High Priests and ex-High Priests at the Council that condemned our Lord. The Jews, even in the days of David, had been familiar with the sort of co-ordinate High Priesthood of Zadok and Abiathar. For the greed, rapacity and luxury of this degenerate hierarchy, see Life of Christ, II. 329, 330, 342.

ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ. Mainly, as appears from the next verse, the Arabah, the sunken valley north of the Dead Sea—el Ghôr—“the deepest and hottest chasm in the world” (Humboldt, Cosmos, I. 150), where the sirocco blows almost without intermission. “A more frightful desert it had hardly been our lot to behold” (Robinson, Researches, II. 121). See it described by Mr Grove in Smith’s Bibl. Dict. s.v. Arabah. The stern aspect and terrible associations of the spot had doubtless exercised their influence on the mind of John. See on Luke 1:80.