The Physical and Medical Aspects of Our Lord's Passion and Death - Part 2: The Courtyard of the High Priest in Jerusalem

Continuing from where I left off in the previous blog post for this series, the next scene of our LORD’s Passion to be discussed includes the events that occur in the Courtyard of the High Priest in Jerusalem. The overall timespan of the events that occur at this location will last from 1:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. on Good Friday. To set the stage, Jesus has been brought by the armed mob to the courtyard to stand an illegal trial before His opponents within the Jewish Sanhedrin. Both St. Peter and St. John the Presbyter had followed Jesus from a distance, and the Gospel of John notes that St. John the Presbyter had to convince the maid serving as gatekeeper to let St. Peter in with him as St. John the Presbyter was personally known by Caiaphas (see Jn 18:15-16). The armed mob brings Jesus to Annas ben Seth (who previously served as Jewish High Priest from A.D. 6 to A.D. 15 according to Josephus) first due to Annas being the father-in-law of Joseph Caiaphas (who served as Jewish High Priest from A.D. 18 to A.D. 36 according to Josephus). From the historical record, both Annas and Caiaphas were most likely members of the Sadducees or were at the very least highly sympathetic with this Jewish sect. And, as a side note, their probable identification as Sadducees brings an interesting element on the varying motives behind Jesus’ opponents wanting to put Him to death (and that right there is a separate article topic for another time.) According to the Gospel of John, St. Peter makes his first denial of being Jesus’ disciple before Jesus is interrogated by Annas (see Mt 26:69-70; Mk 14:54, 66-68; Lk 22:54b-57; and Jn 18:17-18). Annas questions Jesus about His disciples and His teachings throughout His Public Ministry, but the commonsense answer Jesus gives in response does not seem to please everyone present in the room. One of the Temple guards present virtue-signals in his rebuke toward Jesus and proceeds to strike Jesus in His Face (see Jn 18:19-23). Jesus then calmly calls out the Temple guard for his behavior, and no one present seems to be able to answer the rhetorical question Jesus puts before him. Before the situation can escalate further (and, sadly, the Gospels witness that it will escalate at the end of the illegal trial before the Sanhedrin), Annas sends Jesus bound to stand before Caiaphas. The episode with Annas appears to have taken place before St. Peter’s second and third denials, and the time is now around 3:00 a.m. according to the first cock crow (see Mk 14:68b-c). After Jesus is led to Caiaphas’s house, the harmonized Gospels record St. Peter’s second denial occurring, and this time it is mentioned that St. Peter does so with an oath. 

Meanwhile, the illegal trial before the Sanhedrin is in its proceedings, but strange things are reported during this event that would have alarmed and scandalized a first century devout Jewish reader. Despite Caiaphas having with him chief priests, elders, and scribes (and the Gospels state that some of the assembled men, like Sts. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, were not in favor of these details on this gathering), he cannot seem to conduct an honest trial against Jesus, which is problematic since he is trying to convince his comrades that putting Jesus to death is a moral cause and not simply out of potential pettiness or selfish self-interest. The Gospels record that the gathering kept trying to obtain proper testimony against Jesus that would validate a death sentence under Jewish law, but they found none. To further the original first century audience’s shock and scandal, the majority of the Sanhedrin members gathered under Caiaphas’s authority allowed false testimony (i.e., those present were blatantly breaking the Eighth Commandment of the Decalogue within the Law of Moses) to be given against Jesus! But, unsurprisingly, the false testimonies did not even have the indecency to agree with each other. Not even the more sophisticated of the false testimony where two perjurers came forward and deliberately lied and misrepresented what Jesus prophesied when He cleansed the Second Temple for the first time during His Public Ministry (see Jn 2:18-22 for clarification on what Jesus actually said) did not agree with each other, and thus was not enough to serve the goal Caiaphas desired of seeing Jesus be put to death. At this point, Caiaphas has had enough and decides to force the issue by directly taking matters into his own hands. It should be reminded that what Caiaphas is seeking to do is represent Jesus as a political threat to the Roman Empire before the rest of the Sanhedrin members present so that Pontius Pilate will later be convinced to crucify our LORD. Caiaphas has no interest in questioning Jesus about His Divinity when the Gospel of Mark records him asking Jesus, “Are You the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?” (Mk 14:61b). However, Jesus, who seeks to fulfill His Divine Mission of dying on the Cross to save mankind from the bondage of original sin, as well as speak the Truth about Himself as He has always done throughout His Public Ministry, proceeds to give Caiaphas an answer to this politically-charged question that Caiaphas could not have predicted. Right in Caiaphas’s astounded face, Jesus will not only answer the question given to Him, but He will also make a claim of Divinity before all present by alluding to the Book of Daniel. Jesus simply answers, “I AM; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power [i.e., God the Father] and coming with the clouds of Heaven’” (Mk 14:62). (And for those seeking more explanation on why this utterance of Jesus was a clear identification of Divinity, I highly recommend the simple to understand and well-detailed explanation given by senior Catholic Answers apologist Jimmy Akin on this episode from the Gospels.) What is Caiaphas’s response to Jesus straight up telling him, “I am the God of Israel” to the question on whether Jesus was the promised Messiah? His response is to rend his high priestly garments and falsely charge Jesus as having committed the capital sin of blasphemy to the Jewish religious and political leadership in Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin members present who did not believe Jesus’ claim of Divinity vocalize their agreement with Caiaphas’s false charge and condemn Jesus as deserving the death penalty. 

This is where we get to the next instance of physical injuries suffered by Jesus during His Passion and Death. The Gospels record that some present in the house begin to spit on Jesus, blindfold Him, and punch and slap Him while mockingly asking our LORD, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck You?” (see Mt 26:67-68; Mk 14:65; and Lk 22:63-65); later on, the Temple guards will proceed to greet Jesus with blows and reviling. To make matters worse, it is also at this moment that St. Peter is recorded as giving his third denial of being our LORD’s disciple. And this denial was the worst in offense as a unique detail recorded in the Gospel of Mark has St. Peter uttering curses in his third denial (see Mk 14:70-72). Who was St. Peter cursing in this instance? It could not have been his accusers since he is trying to get them to not turn against him. That only leaves one target of St. Peter’s cursing: our LORD Jesus Christ. What better proof, in St. Peter’s mind as he let fear lead him to cowardice, can he give in proving he is not one of Jesus’ disciples to the hostile crowd than publicly wishing evil to be afflicted upon Jesus? No wonder, when you harmonize the Gospels, does St. Luke the Evangelist also provide his unique detail of Jesus turning and looking at St. Peter following the nature of his third denial (see Lk 22:59-62). It is also at this time that the cock crows a second time, which means the time is now 4:00 a.m. on Good Friday. St. Luke also states that following the third denial, the men who held Jesus in custody continued to ridicule and beat Him. While not explicitly recorded in the Gospels, between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. (the latter time being when the drama of our LORD’s Passion continues), it is not unreasonable to assume that the beaten and battered Jesus was confined to a temporary prison cell. For the damage that these physical assaults would have caused on our LORD’s Face (using the details provided from the Shroud of Turin), I will wait on describing them until we get to the Via Crucis, as more injuries on Jesus’ Face will occur later on during His Passion.

As soon as the morning comes (i.e., 6:00 a.m.), the Sanhedrin members gather once more to hold a council and have Jesus brought before them. Jesus is asked once more if He is the promised Messiah, and our LORD responds, “If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I question, you will not respond. But from this time on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the Power of God” (Lk 22:67-69). Jesus is then asked again if He is claiming to be God, and Jesus doubles down with the oddly-worded answer, “You say that I am” (Lk 22:70). The Sanhedrin members then state they have no further need for testimony and have heard the alleged false charge of blasphemy from Jesus’ own mouth (Lk 22:71). This passage strikes me as curious, because it seems to suggest either that the Sanhedrin was wanting a confirmation of the charge against Jesus they can later bring towards Pilate, or, and this would be unlikely given the context of the narrative, perhaps some were hoping Jesus would recant His earlier declaration to Caiaphas. Either way, Jesus has doubled down on His claim to be God, and His opponents within the Sanhedrin believe they have what they need to get Pilate to condemn Jesus to death by crucifixion. On a side note, it should be noted that it is at this moment in time that the Gospel of Matthew records Judas Iscariot expressing remorse for his actions and subsequently committing suicide after the chief priests and elders refuse to take back the thirty pieces of silver they paid Judas to betray Jesus to them (see Mt 27:3-10). 

And, with that, I have reached the end of the second part to this series. For the next blog post, I will go over the gruesome details of what our LORD suffered during the Scourging at the Pillar and Crowning of Thorns.