“ The aristocratic and Sadducean element now again preponderated, as appears from Josephus and from the New Testament, in which “chief priests” and “rulers” are synonymous expressions. But with these there sat also “scribes” or trained legal doctors of the Pharisees and other notables, who are simply called “elders” (Mark xv. 1) . The Jewish tradition which regards the synedrium as entirely composed of rabbins sitting under the presidency and vice-presidency of a pair of chief doctors, the nāsī and āb bēth dīn, is inconsistent with the evidence of Josephus and the New Testament. ”

“ The exact measure of its authority must have varied from time to time at first with the measure of autonomy left to the nation by its foreign lords and afterwards with the more or less autocratic power claimed by the native sovereigns. ”