In general, the people among whom the Savior ministered during His mortal sojourn accepted Him and were inclined to regard Him in a prophetic light—though a true understanding of the coming Messiah as the Redeemer and Son of God had been lost over the preceding generations. It was the ecclesiastical leadership of the Jewish culture that turned on the Savior with vengeance and caused Him to be put to death. Caiaphas, the high priest, one of the Sadducees, presided over the council in which the Savior was falsely accused and condemned (see Matthew 26:3; 57).