{Jewish Sects and Orders}
THE SANHEDRIN. The word is a Hebraized form of the Greek sunedrion, "council": in the Talmud it is called bethdin, "house of judgement." The germ of this institution seems to have been in the appointment by Jehoshaphat of a court in Jerusalem, consisting of priests, Levites, and heads of families, "for the judgement of the LORD and for controversies." Of this court there were presidents - the high priest in matters ecclesiastical, the head of the tribe of Judah in matters secular (2 Chronicles 19:8-11). Nothing more of the court appears in the historical books.
The Greater Sanhedrin, or general council of the people, consisted, after the Mosiac precedent (Numbers 11:16), of seventy-one members, viz, the 24 Chief Priests, or heads of courses, 24 Elders, representing the laity, and 22 Scribes, or Lawyers, together with the high priest, who, if "endowed with wisdom," was the President (Nasi). It met in the hall of the temple, caled Gazzith, or "Squares," sitting every day excepting Sabbaths and festivals. Twenty-three were a quorum, without whose presence no business could be transacted. The Sanhedrin is sometimes described by phrases such as "the chief priests and the elders of the people" (Matthew 27:1), "their rulers and elders and scribes" (Acts 4:5), and, most generally, "chief priests and the scribes with the elders" (Luke 20:1). John appears to use the word "Pharisees" as a designation of the Sanhedrin (9:13; 11:46, etc.).
The chief function of the Sanhedrin was to watch over the religious life of the nation, taking special cognizance of the purity of the priesthood and their families, investigating alleged cases of departure from the faith. Is also adjudicated in ecclesiastical and secular disputes, and acted even as a check upon the highest authorities in Church or State. This Herod himself in his younger days was summoned before the Sanhedrin to answer for his severities when governor of Galilee.
The Sanhedrin had power to punish by fine or imprisonment, stripes or death; but under the Romans the right of carrying out a capital sentence was taken away, or rigidly restricted (John 18:31). Stephen's martyrdom was a mob proceeding.
A Lower Sanhedrin - of 23 where the adults exceeded 120, and of 3 elsewhere - was organized in every town, subject to the Greater Sanhedrin (Matthew 5:22).