theocratic type: the Sinedrio or Sanhedrin.

It was translated from a

collegiate body included by seventy members and presided over by the High Priest.

others, it had judicial functions, although it lacked the gladii power (power to order the execution of a
person)1

, was a kind of aristocratic Senate included, by equivalent pieces, by 3 different sets or classes.

1st. The elders or family heads of each clan or tribe;

The priestly class (Sadducees), from which the High Priest was chiefly chosen.

educated, wealthy, cosmopolitan, and culture-influenced caste

They felt bound exclusively by the Law drawn up (Pentateuch) however not by the

For them, the keys to the religious life of Israel lay in the Redacted Law and in the

They denied the afterlife and believed that salvation would be

—unlike the Pharisees—conservatives were

and defenders of the status quo that exists, and faithful to the political power of Rome.

political force was consolidated in the era of the Roman leaders, of whom in the time of Jesus

High priest. Out of the assembly of the Sadducees came

periodically the high priests throughout the last seventy years of the Jewish state.