While Jesus was teaching the people in the temple, the Pharisees gathered expecting their servants to arrest Jesus and bring him to them. The high priests are named in the plural, even though a high priest would preside the High Council during his lifetime. But the Roman rulers would dismiss these men from time to time. For that reason there were several high priests at the time of Jesus deposed by Rome; all belonging to the priestly families. These men were Sadducees and tended to free thought, unsympathetic to the legalism of the Pharisees.
Pharisees sat alongside the priests in the Council. As legalists they rejected Greek thinking, and made the law the basis for the faith and works of their party. They were hard-hearted, honoring God by severity towards themselves and others.
Both, Pharisees and Sadducees, were angered by the failure to arrest Jesus. The disciples did not defend him, nor did the people guard him, but his words impressed all, and so they did not dare to fetter him, since they were aware of God’s power flowing through him.
At that the Pharisees were aroused and cried against the temple guards, "Have you too joined up in the ranks of this deluder? Not one of the honorable members of the Council has believed in him. No upright believer would follow this Galilean."
Many indeed loved Jesus, but they were simple folk, despised, wicked or immoral. He had sat down at table and honored them by his presence. But the pious despised such folk, and counted them accursed. They viewed them with legalistic spectacles. In reality it was this despised lot that followed Jesus. Some of them had confessed their sins before John the Baptist. So the rulers hated the masses, forgetting that they spoke the same language and held the same customs. All the people form a union whatever conflicts and divisions exist between the classes.