Caiaphas

Caiphas, Caÿphas, Chaifas, Chaÿphas, Chayphas

In the Book of Matthew, the high priest of Jerusalem who tried and condemned Jesus, and handed him over to Pilate (Pontius Pilate).

In the Grail histories, Caiaphas imprisons Joseph of Arimathea after Joseph entombs the body of Christ. He stuck Joseph in the bottom of a dark well and ordered that he be given nothing to eat or drink. He was therefore astonished when, 42 years later, the Roman Emperor Vespasian delivered Joseph from the prison looking as youthful as the day he was put in (Joseph had been sustained by the Grail).

Vespasian tried Caiaphas for his crime, and then set him adrift at sea in a rowboat, with no food or water. God kept him alive, in ravenous hunger and thirst, and he was later met by Galahad, Bors, and Perceval during the Grail Quest.

Two sixteenth-century versions of Joseph’s life give Caiaphas a confederate named Annas.