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Good morning
surfing on the web I saw this website so here I am daring to use it, and for this I thank you in advance.

This is my question, banal and maybe even obvious:
If we read John 11:47-50 “So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation. “But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them,«You know nothing,nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.”».
If we compare it in an almost synoptic way with Luke 3:1-2 (read yesterday Sunday 05 12 2021 according to the Roman rite): “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert.’’

Question: why does John specify that year when the priestly office was for life, barring impediments of force majeure?
Thanking you in advance for your trouble, I look forward to your reply.

Claudio

Priest’s answer

Dear Claudio,
1. yes, initially, priesthood was for life.

But the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 BC) began to dismiss the high priests, who remained in office as a description of the civil power.

2. The historian Giuseppe Flavio in Jewish Antiquities says that the Roman emperor appointed the high priest of the temple of Jerusalem, who held office for a maximum of one year and who sometimes bought this office with money.

3. Those who finished their turn continued to be called high priests and wore the insignia.

This is why Saint Luke, speaking of the birth of Jesus, says that at that time Annas and Caiaphas were high priests (Lk 3:2).

Anna had been in office for seven years. Caiaphas, his son-in-law, remained so for 18 years, from the year 18 to the year 36 AD.

4. The Gospel of John that you reported says that in that year Caiaphas was the high priest.

It wasn’t just that year. But this is enough to imply that the office in fact lasted a year.

When it was renewed there was generally an outlay of money, as recalled by Giuseppe Flavio.

5.The same historian reports that the high priests had a monopoly on sales at the temple.

Now all male Jews had to go to the temple every year and make their offering.

Those who came from Palestine brought the animal with them to offer.

But many others who came from the diaspora and therefore from far away, bought the animals locally. Some, says Father Lagrange, offered many to ask God for a long life for the emperor.

The poor could offer a couple of turtle doves or young pigeons.

According to Giuseppe Flavio they sold them for their weight in gold.

6. It is not surprising then that when Our Lord drove out the sellers of the temple, manifesting at that moment a divine power by which no one was able to oppose his action neither among men nor among animals, he was asked with what authority he acted in that way. And he answered: “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” (Lk 19,46).

7. St. Thomas was aware of all this so much so that commenting on the passage of St. John 11,46 he writes: “In this regard it should be noted that the Lord, as shown in Leviticus (chap. 8), had established a single high priest, upon whose death a successor was to take over, who would exercise the office of pontiff for his entire life. But later, with the growth of ambition and quarrels among the Jews, it was established that there should be more high priests, who would exercise this dignity in turn, one each year. They sometimes even procured their position with money as Flavius ​​Josephus narrates. And to indicate this fact, the evangelist specifies that he was high priest “in that year””. (t/n)I bless you, I wish you all the best and I remember you in prayer.
Father Angelo