. In accordance with the analogy of the later Rabbinical courts of justice, Jewish tradition conceives of the supreme Sanhedrim as having been merely a collegiate body composed of scribes. This is what, down to the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, it certainly never was. On the contrary, it is certain, from the concurrent testimony of Josephus and the New Testament, that, till the very last, the head of the sacerdotal aristocracy continued to preside over the Sanhedrim. And