CHAPTER VII.
The Tribunal of Caiphas.
To enter Caiphas's tribunal persons had to pass through a large court, which may be called the exterior court; from thence they entered into an inner court, which extended all round the building.

The building itself was of far greater length than breadth, and in the front there was a kind of open vestibule surrounded on three sides by columns of no great height.

On the fourth side the columns were higher, and behind them was a room almost as large as the vestibule itself, where the seat of the members of the Council were placed on a species of round platform raised above the level of the floor.

That assigned to the High Priest was elevated above the others; the criminal to be tried stood in the centre of the halfcircle formed by the seats.

The witnesses and accusers stood either by the side or behind the prisoner.