The Scene
We are in Jerusalem, during the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus is teaching in the Temple. Tension is rising. Officers have been sent to arrest him—they return empty-handed, bewildered, unable to explain why they failed in their mission: “No one ever spoke the way this man does” (John 7:46). The Pharisees are furious: the people are ignorant of the Law, they say, this crowd is cursed. Something must be done.
In this climate of collective agitation, of condemnation that seeks its motives after having reached its conclusion, a voice rises. Only one. That of Nicodemus. The same man who had come to Jesus at night, at the beginning of the Gospel (John 3:1-2). The same man who had not yet made his choice. The same man who carried within him a question he dared not fully formulate. That evening, before his peers, he spoke.
He did not proclaim his true thoughts, namely that Jesus was the Messiah, and he chose not to challenge his colleagues on theological grounds. He simply posed a question—rhetorical, precise, legal:
“Does our law condemn someone without first hearing him and knowing what he has done?”
The Legal Argument
The Greek formulation deserves attention. Nicodemus invokes hē nomos hēmōn—our law. This possessive is crucial: he is not speaking as an outsider criticizing a foreign institution. He is speaking from within, as a member of the body, as a man who shares this Law and claims its inheritance. He does not contest the authority of the Torah. He simply reiterates its requirements.
The argument rests on two verbs: akouō—to hear, in the sense of a formal hearing—and ginōskō or eidenai, depending on the manuscript—to know, to understand, in the sense of factual knowledge of the alleged acts. These two dimensions are inseparable from any judicial procedure worthy of the name: hearing the accused and establishing the facts.
It is simple, elementary, precisely the very element that collective passion was trampling underfoot.
Jewish legal tradition, whether in the texts of Deuteronomy (Deut 17:4; 19:15-18) or in the procedures codified in rabbinic treatises, indeed required a thorough investigation, witnesses, and a hearing with opposing viewpoints before any conviction. Nicodemus does not cite a specific text—he simply recalls a principle that every legal professional in the room is perfectly familiar with. No one can answer him on the substance of the matter. So they respond with contempt. “Are you also from Galilee?” (John 7:52). The man is disqualified rather than the argument refuted.
Nicodemus, or Procedural Justice as a Moral Act
What is striking about Nicodemus’s intervention is its deliberate restraint. He doesn’t say that Jesus is innocent. He doesn’t say that his accusers are fundamentally wrong. He says: before concluding, there must be a procedure. Before the sentence, there must be an investigation.
This restraint has sometimes been interpreted as cowardice—a half-measure, a timid sympathy that doesn’t dare go all the way. Saint John Chrysostom saw things differently. For him, Nicodemus acts with tact and wisdom: he strikes his adversaries with their own weapons, he refers them back to their own tradition, he makes their haste untenable on their own ground. It is a form of strategic intelligence in the fight.
We can also read something else into it: procedural defense is itself a theological act. Defending Jesus' right to a fair trial means refusing to allow the Law—given for life, for justice, for the protection of the weak against the arbitrary power of the strong—to be turned into an instrument of elimination. It means resisting the perversion of the institution by its own servants.
The Fathers saw in Nicodemus an example of the proper use of the Law: reminding us that the Torah is ordered toward justice, not persecution. That the institution exists to serve the law, not to protect itself at the expense of the law.
Nicodemus's voice today
As we still see today with priests sanctioned, removed, or even excommunicated without valid reason, there are situations where authority, good order, and the protection of the institution are falsely invoked to prevent the accused's voice from being heard. Where human, all-too-human reasons—fear of scandal, solidarity, dread of what the investigation might reveal—or reasons presented as religious—defense of the Church, respect for hierarchy, feigned obedience—are used to justify what is, in essence, nothing more than a condemnation without trial.
In these situations, Nicodemus's voice resonates with a disturbing relevance.
Nicodemus was not necessarily courageous. The Gospel of John states this unequivocally: He came to Jesus at night (Jn 3:2)—the night of one who dares not yet reveal himself. And yet, in the council chamber, before his peers, with all the reputation and comfort it cost him, he spoke with the measured voice of a man who values justice more than the approval of his fellow men.
This courage—discreet, procedural, almost technical in its formulation—is genuine courage. It does not save Jesus. It does not change the outcome. But it says something essential: there are men who, even in compromised institutions, refuse to remain silent when the evidence of injustice is there.
Necessary but insufficient
The Gospel leaves us with no illusions about the effectiveness of Nicodemus's intervention. Jesus will be judged. Jesus will be condemned. And this condemnation will be carried out precisely in violation of the procedural rules that Nicodemus had recalled—at night, hastily, with false witnesses, without the accused being able to truly hear his side of the story. Defending the law was not enough.
We know this. And yet—or rather, and this is why—the fight for the fair application of the law is not secondary. It is necessary. It is indispensable. Because procedural justice, however imperfect, however insufficient, is the condition without which truth cannot emerge. Because silencing someone before they have even spoken is already an act of violence—regardless of the subsequent outcome.
And because, in the history of salvation itself, the injustice of Jesus' condemnation was not erased by the fact that it led to the Resurrection. It remains an injustice. It remains a sin. It remains the revelation of what a religious institution that protects itself instead of serving the truth can lead to.
Nicodemus did not win that day. But he bore witness. The evangelist deemed it important to preserve this testimony—a sign that the memory of those who defend justice, even in defeat, deserves to be passed on.
When one of us is attacked by the institution or its representatives, when we are prevented from presenting our defense, when attempts are made to silence us for all sorts of reasons, Nicodemus's voice still resonates. It doesn't promise us victory. It simply reminds us that we must speak out. That to remain silent in such a case is already to consent to injustice.
The fight for justice is not enough. But it is necessary. Sometimes, it’s all we can do. And that is already a great deal.
"Does our law condemn someone without first hearing him and knowing what he has done?"
When we consider the position of certain priests of the Little Remnant, in particular, the question of Nicodemus still resonates in the hushed corridors of our ecclesiastical institutions.
NikoDemos
