Was Caiaphas buried in Crete?

This week is Megali Evdomada – Easter Week for the Orthodox Church – and the run-up to Easter weekend is marked not only by a series of services in the churches but by Easter-themed cultural events of all kinds. The TV stations are showing nightly films and programmes on the life of Christ and other Christian themes, and the newspapers are filled with seasonal references

Among other cultural events in Chania, this evening Wednesday 12th April there is a musical presentation entitled “Easter Week, a melodic journey towards the Resurrection”, at the Mikis Theodorakis Theatre (details here) at 8.00 for 8.30 pm, while there is a performance of the Messe Brève by Léo Delibes at the Megalo Arsenali (details here) at 9.00 pm.

A piece of Biblical history with relevance for Crete was related on Monday 10th April by a regular contributor to the Haniotika Nea, Antonis Plymakis. His piece is a shortened version of an item which first appeared on the newspaper’s website on 14th April 2017, which we give here. The notion that the High Priest of the Jews Caiaphas was buried in Crete is not so far-fetched if one considers that St Paul visited the island twice on his missionary journeys.

Giotto di Bondone, "Christ before Caiaphas"
Giotto di Bondone, “Christ before Caiaphas”, 1304-06

“As is well known, Joseph ben Caiaphas was the High Priest of the Jews and presided over the session of the Sanhedrin which condemned Christ to death. He also vigorously persecuted the Apostles. He held the position of High Priest from the years 18 to 36 CE.

“Formerly in Greece his name was synonymous with hypocrisy and injustice. However, according to an old tradition in Crete his tomb lies on the island. Summoned to Rome along with Pontius Pilate to account for some wrongdoings, he fell ill while passing off Crete and in addition the ship he was on was wrecked, and he died in the region of Heraklion, where he was buried.

“According to the tradition they buried him seven times, but as many times the Cretan soil refused to accept him and ‘rejected his ill-omened body’. Finally the Cretans got together and buried him under a pile of stones, and this became ‘the tomb of Caiaphas’. Up to the year 1882, it remained south of the city of Heraklion at the entrance to Knossos. Some confirmation of the fact is provided by a reference in an apocryphal Gospel, and the fact that the tomb was known to date from Roman times.

“Indeed, an old settlement which was created near Knossos was called ‘Kaiafa’ and is referred to in the Byzantine period as one of the fiefs of the Archbishop, also in a Venetian text of 1208 and in contracts and Turkish documents.

Richard Pococke in oriental costume
Richard Pococke in oriental costume, by Jean Étienne Liotard, 1738. The British traveller, who visited the Middle East, Asia Minor and Greece extensively between 1737 and 1741, reported seeing a “square building” at the site of the supposed tomb of Caiaphas at Knossos.

“In 1739 the English traveller Richard Pococke mentioned that there was a square building on that spot. The village is not mentioned in the Egyptian censuses of 1834 and 1881, but the place name was known until recently to the area’s inhabitants.”
(Haniotika Nea, 04/03/17)