ON ST. ZACHARIAH THE PROPHET,
IN JUDEA.
About the year of the world MMMDXL.
HISTORICAL-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.
Zachariah the prophet in Judea (S.)
BY J. S.
§ I. The cult of the holy Prophet is certain: other things concerning his relics and sepulcher are uncertain: his deeds and writings examined.
Of Zachariah the prophet, who is the eleventh among the Minor Prophets, Beda, The memory of Zachariah the prophet in the calendars on various days: Rabanus, the Little Roman, Ado, Wandelbert, and Notker recall the memory on this day very briefly. In most of the Hieronymian Martyrologies I do not find Zachariah the prophet. Nevertheless the Martyrology of the Queen of Sweden, published by us after the seventh volume of June, has on the same day thus: And the deposition of Zachariah the prophet. Usuard added a very little in this manner: Of Zachariah the prophet, who, returning as an old man from Chaldea into his fatherland, lies buried beside the prophet Haggai. The more recent martyrologists have followed Usuard's eulogy, and the same is read in today's Roman Martyrology. The Greeks, however, and the Muscovites celebrate this Zachariah chiefly in their Menæa and Menologies at the VIII of February: the Egyptians on the following day announce Zachariah by the bare name, as is also done on other days in the Egyptian and Ethiopic calendars, so that it is not altogether certain that the same man is designated by them. The Greeks in one manuscript Synaxary also make mention of Zachariah the prophet at the XVI of May, as has already been observed in the Prætermissi at that day. The Parisian Martyrology at the VI of September commends St. Zachariah in these words: Of Zachariah the prophet, who together with Haggai, likewise a prophet, exhorted the Jews under Zorobabel to the restoring of God's temple.
[2] Sozomen, book 9, chapter 17, narrates the finding of the body of St. Zachariah the prophet; a body found under Theodosius II is that of another Zachariah: some relics: and Baronius believed, in his Annotations on the Martyrology, that the man in question is the Zachariah whom he commemorates on the VI of September. But if Sozomen narrates truly, and Nicephorus following him, book 14, chapter 8, the body found is not that of this Zachariah the prophet, but of that Zachariah whom King Joash ordered to be slain, as is narrated in 2 Paralipomenon 24. For at the feet of Zachariah there was found an infant honored with a royal burial, whom they believed to be the son of the aforesaid King Joash. I do not examine whether that opinion about the boy is sufficiently founded. But I only observe that that opinion could not have arisen after the finding of the body unless it had been believed that this was the body of Zachariah the son of Joiada. Of the same Zachariah, perhaps, is the bone which, along with other relics, the emperor Lothair gave to the monastery of Prüm, as the emperor's own letters set forth in Brower's Annals of Trier at the year 855, book 8, number 114. It is indeed named in the letters A bone of Zachariah the son of Barachiah, which suits Zachariah the prophet better: but that name is now and then given also to Zachariah the son of Joiada, namely by those who believe that he was the man designated by Christ in Matthew 23, of which controversy I shall dispute below. Rayssius in the Hierogazophylacium Belgicum, page 200, reckons among the relics in the cathedral church of Bruges, dedicated to St. Donatian, relics of St. Zachariah the prophet together with relics of St. Samuel the prophet. These he probably believed to be of the Zachariah with whom we are dealing. But he designates him more clearly on page 278, where among the sacred pledges of the monastery of Liessies in Hainault he numbers some of the bones of Zachariah the prophet, who, returning as an old man from Chaldea into his fatherland, lies buried beside the prophet Haggai. These relics, therefore, are believed to be those of Zachariah the prophet.
[3] the sepulcher of Zachariah is famous, but it is uncertain whose it is: Famous in the Holy Land is the sepulcher of Zachariah, as Quaresmius writes in his Elucidation of the Holy Land, book 4, chapter 12, calling this the sixth place of the seventh pilgrimage, and describing that sepulcher thus: This sepulcher is cut out of the rock of the Mount of Olives, clinging to the ground at its roots, of quadrangular form and slightly pointed, beside the cave or crypt of St. James the son of Alphæus. It is commonly called by all in those parts the Sepulcher of Zachariah the son of Barachiah, slain by the Jews between the temple and the altar, whom our Savior mentions in St. Matthew. Cornelius de Bruyn describes the same sepulcher in almost the same manner, but a little more at length, in his Oriental Journey, page 264 of the French edition, where also a figure of it is exhibited in an accompanying plate. Further, Quaresmius doubts and inquires at length whose Zachariah's sepulcher it is: and at last concludes that it is more probably that of Zachariah the pontiff, the son of Joiada; but he does not make it certain. Gregory of Tours, book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 27, seems to speak of the same sepulcher, and to attribute it to Zachariah the father of St. John the Baptist, buried, as he holds, on the Mount of Olives together with Simeon and James the brother of the Lord. For which cause I find nothing certain about that sepulcher. But if it were established that it is one of those of which Christ spoke to the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23 ℣ 29: You build the sepulchers of the prophets, and adorn the monuments of the just, etc., that sepulcher could be believed with equal probability to be that of St. Zachariah the prophet as of any other Zachariah whatever; since he was without doubt in great honor with posterity on account of the restoration of the temple which he furthered and his distinguished prophecies. From these uncertain matters I proceed to others.
[4] his various eulogies, partly manuscript, partly printed. Baronius in his annotations on the Martyrology asserts that there exists an encomium on the prophet Zachariah by Cosinas the Vestiarius in the Sforza library, manuscript codex number 65. I have a similar eulogy in manuscript, which Rosweyde once received from the Utrecht codex of the church of St. Salvator. But this has nothing about Zachariah which is not taken from sacred Scripture and the martyrologies, or from the commentators, and that indeed without much order or sufficient criticism. Whether the eulogy which Baronius saw is better is unknown to me: for it has not come down to us. Peter de Natalibus, book 8, chapter 42, gives a similar eulogy of Zachariah. In the book On the Lives of the Prophets, which was once attributed to St. Epiphanius, and is now more rightly denied to him by the learned, there is likewise read a eulogy of Zachariah the prophet: but neither is that of great moment, since the author of that little work, whoever he was, mixed in not a few fables into the Lives of the prophets, which were patched together unskillfully. From this source, meanwhile, seem to have flowed the things which the Greeks have in the Basilian Menology at the VIII of February, and which Usuard handed down along with them about Zachariah's being buried near Haggai. Certainly in each eulogy Zachariah is said to have prophesied various things in Chaldea, of which nothing is found in the sacred Writings. I therefore reckon as fictitious the things which Zachariah is there said to have foretold to Josedech and Salathiel concerning the sons to be born to them; to Cyrus king of the Persians and Astyages king of the Medes concerning their victories; nor do I reckon sufficiently certain what the same author asserted about Zachariah's burial beside Haggai: and at last I pass over that whole eulogy, because it contains more that is false than that is true, and that little which is true is sufficiently known from elsewhere.
[5] From the sacred Writings we have these things about Zachariah. In chapter 1 of his prophecy he calls himself Zachariah, the Saint's chief deeds from the sacred writings: the son of Barachiah the son of Addo. In Esdras 5 he is named Zachariah the son of Addo. But son here is taken for grandson, as often elsewhere in Scripture, or at any rate for one of the stock of Addo, just as Christ is called the son of David, the son of Abraham, in Matthew 1. Now Zachariah the prophet began to prophesy in the eighth month, in the second year of Darius (surnamed Hystaspes) the king, that is, in the year of the world 3534, 520 years before the birth of Christ according to the chronological arrangement of Labbé, which I do not examine. At the beginning of his prophecy he exhorts to penitence the Jewish people, who had returned from the Babylonian captivity into Judea: and then through various figures he foretells joyful things, and so the Jews
together with Haggai the prophet, who in the same year, but two months earlier, had begun to prophesy, he rouses to the restoring of the temple. Hence in Esdras 5 it is said of both: Now Haggai the prophet and Zachariah the son of Addo prophesied, prophesying to the Jews who were in Judea and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel. Then rose up Zorobabel the son of Salathiel, and Josue the son of Josedech, and began to build the temple of God in Jerusalem, and with them were the Prophets of God, helping them. Perhaps the temple was completed before Zachariah's death: for in Esdras 6 ℣ 14 these things are read: And the elders of the Jews were building and prospering, according to the prophecy of Haggai the prophet, and of Zachariah the son of Addo: and they built and set it up … and they finished this house of God unto the third day of the month of Adar, which was the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. It cannot indeed be certainly proved that Zachariah lived to almost the end of the sixth year of Darius: yet this is probable, since he wrote the seventh chapter of his prophecy in the fourth year of Darius, in the ninth month; and since afterward through seven other chapters he uttered many prophecies; and no mention is made of his death in the words cited. Therefore either he saw the temple completed, or at any rate he died not long before, and for that reason I have fixed his death about the year of the world 3540.
[6] The Saint's prophecy: some Psalms attributed to him by certain writers: There is no doubt that Zachariah prophesied many things concerning Christ and the Church; but these, with his other predictions, may be seen in the book itself, which is called by St. Jerome the most obscure book of Zachariah the prophet, and the longest among the twelve. So he in the preface of the Commentaries with which he expounded the whole book of Zachariah. Further, some believe that certain Psalms too were composed by the prophets Haggai and Zachariah, because the title of Psalm CXI is such in the Vulgate: Alleluia, of the return of Haggai and Zachariah: and the CXLV has this title: Alleluia, of Haggai and Zachariah. But an argument drawn from the names which are read in the titles of the Psalms is feeble, and seems in no way able to stand, as has been shown by various writers. Certainly the name of Moses is read in the title of Psalm 89, and not only in the Vulgate, but also in the Hebrew text, where it is the ninetieth, as may be seen in the Version of St. Jerome. Yet I showed in Moses, page 167, that that Psalm cannot probably be attributed to Moses, and the same is easily shown of the others. That argument, therefore, although it once pleased certain of the Fathers, seems abundantly refuted. Besides, the names of Haggai and Zachariah in the titles of the said Psalms are not found in the Hebrew text, nor in St. Jerome. Therefore neither those two Psalms, nor several others in whose titles the name of Zachariah is found in the Septuagint or elsewhere, would I dare to attribute to Zachariah or to Haggai.
[7] but all the Psalms are reckoned by many to be David's alone. Calmet, in the Dissertation on the authors of the Psalms which he gave at the beginning of volume 2 on the Psalms, page 8, thinks that many Psalms were composed at the time of the Babylonian captivity and after the captivity, and some of them by Haggai and Zachariah. The reason is, that in many Psalms there seem to be described the things which were done at that time: for he does not think it sufficiently probable that all these were revealed to David by God, or so written down by him. For an example there may be brought forward Psalm 136, which begins in this manner: Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Sion. But to this argument Ceillier replied in the General History of the sacred writers, volume 1, page 226, and showed that several Psalms which are certainly David's would have to be denied to him, if we admitted Calmet's reasoning as legitimate: for in these also he vividly relates things to come, as though they had been present. Wherefore the argument for claiming all the Psalms for David seems the stronger, that in the New Testament the Psalms are often cited under the name of David, never under the name of any other prophet or hagiographer. Besides, the Old Testament nowhere names any other author of the Psalms besides David. I therefore think it more probable that none of the Psalms is to be attributed to Zachariah, just as none has been inserted into his writings: and this opinion is the more common among the holy Fathers and other doctors; although the contrary too has been defended by many. But that controversy will be able to be examined more accurately under David.
§ II. Whether Zachariah the prophet is he whom Christ says was slain between the temple and the altar?
[ ] [The question is proposed concerning the Zachariah slain between the temple and the altar,] Some writers think that Christ in Matthew 23 spoke of this Zachariah, when he said to the Jews: Therefore behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you will put to death and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: that upon you may come all the just blood that hath been shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel the just even unto the blood of Zachariah the son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar. The same is had in Luke XI, where the death of Zachariah is expressed in these words: Who perished between the altar and the temple. Among the holy Fathers three different opinions are found concerning the Zachariah slain between the temple and the altar, which Chrysostom reports in expounding the cited passage of Matthew: yet he neither approves nor disapproves any of them. Jerome mentions the same opinions, and seems to prefer one to the rest. To the three opinions of the ancients the moderns have added two others unknown to the ancients. Therefore, since five different Zachariahs are assigned to whom the words of Christ are adapted, nothing certain will be able to be established, but only what appears more probable can be suggested. Nevertheless I am the more pleased to elucidate this famous controversy, the more probable the opinion of those appears to me who think this Prophet expressed in the cited words of Christ.
[9] The three opinions of the ancients have some of the Fathers as their patrons: and the place of the slaughter is assigned to this end. but since the opinion of the Fathers is so various, it is not necessary to cite them one by one. For which reason I shall chiefly weigh the words of St. Jerome on chapter 23 of Matthew, where he has thus: We ask who this Zachariah the son of Barachiah is: because we read of many Zachariahs. And lest a free faculty of erring should be granted us, it was added: "Whom you killed between the temple and the altar." This observation of St. Jerome deserves that we should set forth more accurately the place where Zachariah was slain. By temple nothing here seems able to be understood except the temple properly so called, distinguished from all the courts. For if by temple all the courts at once and the other buildings pertaining to the temple in any way were designated, as I do not deny is sometimes done, Zachariah would be said to have been slain in the temple itself, not between the temple and the altar. For by altar no other is designated than the altar of Holocausts, which was set in the court of the priests before the temple properly so called. Therefore the slaying of Zachariah took place in the court of the priests, which of all the courts was nearest to the temple, or at any rate in that place where the court of the priests ought to have been, if perchance at the time of the slaying the courts had not yet been restored. First, then, we must seek a Zachariah who is the son of Barachiah: for this too was added by Christ for distinction: secondly, one who was slain in the court of the priests, not in any court whatever of the temple: or, if it is read of none that he was slain in the court of the priests, as in fact it is not read in the sacred Writings, we must inquire further concerning whose slaying carried out in such a place there is greater probability.
[10] I return to St. Jerome. In different authors, he says, I have read different things, and I ought to set down the opinions of each. [It is shown that nothing stands in the way of our believing that Zachariah the prophet was slain there,] Some say that Zachariah the son of Barachiah is he who is eleventh among the twelve prophets: and the name of the father in his case agrees: but where he was slain between the temple and the altar, Scripture does not say: especially since in his times there were scarcely ruins of the temple. It is clear, especially from what follows, that this opinion is held less probable by St. Jerome; and it is certain that the slaying of this Zachariah is not read of in Scripture, as he observes. But there is likewise nothing in the sacred Writings which makes the slaying of this Prophet between the temple and the altar improbable: for the assertion that in his times there were scarcely ruins of the temple is not accurate: for I showed at number 5 that the temple began to be restored in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, and was finished in his sixth year: and that Zachariah lived at least to the ninth month of the fourth year of the aforesaid king, and prophesied many things still afterward. It is therefore certain that Zachariah survived so long that either the structure of the temple was far advanced or completed: and since the altar had already been built before, as is narrated in 1 Esdras 3, there is nothing to hinder Zachariah's having been able to be slain between the temple and the altar: nay, a slaying carried out in that place would be far more probable at the time of the building than when the temple was finished and dedicated, if it were established that Zachariah died before the dedication: for, once the temple was dedicated, only the priests could be between the temple and the altar, but at the time of the building access to that place seems to have lain open to all; and therefore the slaying of the Prophet in that place was then easier.
[11] except only the silence of the Old Testament, to which an answer is given: Only the silence of the Scriptures concerning the slaying of Zachariah the prophet seems able to be objected. But to this it can be answered that most of the slayings of the Prophets have been passed over in the Old Testament. Certainly it is not from the Old Testament alone that we know the things which the Apostle wrote about the slayings of the prophets in Hebrews chapter XI ℣ 37: They were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword. Yet these are certain and undoubted. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and others are believed to have been taken off by a violent death, even though this is nowhere related of them in the Old Testament. Why then can the same not be believed of Zachariah, even if it is not read in the Scripture of the old Law? Certainly Christ himself seems to have sufficiently asserted his death, when he called him the son of Barachiah, which does not fit the others; especially since by those words he reproached the Jews with the slaying of the prophets, so as sufficiently to suggest that far more prophets were killed by their fathers than are read to have been slain in the Old Testament. Stephen too, in Acts 7 ℣ 52, reproaches the Jews with many slayings of prophets in these words: Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them who foretold of the coming of the Just One. No prophet, so far as I know, is read of in the Old Testament as slain who foretold the coming of Christ. Yet the Holy Spirit testifies that they were slain: and we know that the coming of Christ was foretold by Zachariah. Therefore the silence of the Old Testament cannot stand much in the way, and we can deservedly think that the slaying of Zachariah was omitted there, just as the slaying of Isaiah, of Jeremiah, and of very many others was passed over.
[12] [reasons which persuade that Zachariah the prophet is designated by Christ's words.] Let us therefore briefly gather the chief reasons and conjectures which can impel us to understand Christ's words of Zachariah the prophet. The first and chief of all is that the Lord called Zachariah the son of Barachiah: for this Zachariah alone is known to have had Barachiah for a father, one perhaps excepted, who cannot probably be understood, as I shall show below. For this cause the words of St. Jerome fit Zachariah the prophet excellently, with only the ending changed: And lest a free faculty of erring should be granted us, it was added: The son of Barachiah: for the name of his father Barachiah seems to have been added by Christ, that this Zachariah might be distinguished from the others. The second reason is that no Zachariah besides this one was properly a prophet, whereas he of whom Christ speaks seems to have been a prophet. For he had reproached the Jews with the slaying of prophets and just men; and therefore of the two whom he mentioned, the one was probably a prophet, namely Zachariah, the other of the number of the just, as is evident of Abel. Thirdly, it cannot be doubted that Zachariah the prophet was often present with those building the temple: it is also evident from his predictions, in which he foretold many exceedingly unhappy and sad things for the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. We have therefore concerning Zachariah the prophet that he was often with men of the lowest sort in that place where the slaying was committed, and that he performed those things on occasion of which many prophets were slain, so that we cannot wonder if he too was cut down by a raging people, and indeed in the place assigned. Wherefore the opinion that he was designated by Christ appears to me the more probable, the less probable all the others appear, of which I shall now treat.
[13] St. Jerome mentions and refutes the second opinion thus: [The second opinion, concerning Zachariah the father of John the Baptist, is refuted,] Others will have it that Zachariah, the father of John (the Baptist), is understood, approving from certain dreams of the apocrypha that he was slain for this reason, because he had preached the coming of the Savior. This, since it has no authority from the Scriptures, is despised with the same ease with which it is proved. That opinion is overthrown by a twofold argument: for neither is that Zachariah known to have been the son of Barachiah, nor is his slaying established, much less a slaying between the temple and the altar, which is not probable in the time of that Zachariah, since it would have had to be carried out by the priests themselves. Origen, who is among the chief patrons of this opinion, in chapter 23 of Matthew strives to defend it by a tradition of little probability, writing thus: He speaks of Zachariah the father of John, of whom indeed we cannot show through the canonical Scriptures either that he was the son of Barachiah, or that the scribes and Pharisees killed him between the temple and the altar. But there has come to us a certain tradition of this sort, that there is a certain place in the temple where virgins indeed are permitted to stand and pray to God: but those who have known the marriage-bed of a man were not permitted to stand in it. Now Mary, after she had borne the Savior, entering in to adore, stood in that place of the virgins. And when those who knew that she had already borne a son forbade her, Zachariah stood and said to those forbidding her, that she is worthy of the place of the virgins, since she is a Virgin. Therefore, as though most manifestly Zachariah were acting against the Law and permitting a woman to stand in the place of the virgins, the men of that generation slew him between the temple and the altar. This whole tradition appears improbable and fabulous, and St. Jerome, so far as I conjecture, reckoned even this among the dreams of the apocrypha, although he himself refuted another cause of the slaying brought forward by other writers.
[14] Origen himself saw how weak that tradition is, an answer is given to Origen's argument. and therefore he tried to prove his opinion by another argument, continuing thus: Nevertheless let us demand a reason of those who do not believe a tradition of this kind, how it is that Jesus reproaches them not as sons of those who slew the prophets, and Zachariah also on Zachariah's account, but as those who themselves slew Zachariah between the temple and the altar. If therefore the word of Christ is true, which he says to the scribes and Pharisees then present: "Whom YOU KILLED between the temple and the altar," it is not possible that that Zachariah be understood who is one of the twelve. This reason equally opposes all the opinions by which some Zachariah is established who did not live with Christ. But the word you killed is not so referred to those present that the Lord meant to say that Zachariah was slain by those very men who were then hearing him speak: but you killed rather means your nation or the Jewish people killed. That manner of speaking is frequent in the Scriptures, and the preceding words, that upon you may come all the just blood, etc., must be expounded in the same way, namely so that upon you means upon your nation, and this can easily be shown of many other passages of Scripture. Wherefore the opinion of Origen and others about Zachariah the father of John the Baptist seems to lack a fit foundation, and to be less probable, although it has had many followers.
[15] The third opinion, concerning Zachariah the son of Joiada Of the third opinion, which he seems to think more probable than the rest, St. Jerome discourses thus: Others will have this to be that Zachariah who was slain by Joash king of Juda between the temple and the altar, as the History of Kings narrates. But it must be observed that this Zachariah is not the son of Barachiah, but the son of Joiada the priest. Whence also Scripture relates: "Joash did not remember his father Joiada, that he had done him good." Since therefore we both hold to a Zachariah, and the place of the slaying agrees; we ask why he is called the son of Barachiah, and not of Joiada? Barachiah in our tongue is called "blessed of the Lord": and the justice of the priest Joiada is signified in the Hebrew speech. In the Gospel which the Nazarenes use, we find written "son of Joiada" in place of "son of Barachiah." Thus far St. Jerome, to whose words, saving the honor of that most learned Father, we shall add our own observations, in order to examine the foundations of this opinion, which I am not ignorant has pleased many moderns. The death of the said Zachariah is related in 2 Paralipomenon 24 ℣ 20 and following in these words: The spirit of God therefore clothed Zachariah the son of Joiada the priest, and he stood in the sight of the people, and said to them: Thus saith the Lord God: Why transgress you the commandment of the Lord, which will not be for your good, and have forsaken the Lord, to make him forsake you? And they gathered themselves together against him, and stoned him at the king's commandment in the court of the house of the Lord. And king Joash did not remember the kindness that Joiada his father had done to him, but killed his son. And when he died, he said: The Lord see and require it.
[16] is likewise refuted as less probable: The place where the slaying was carried out is the court of the house of the Lord or of the temple, and since Zachariah stood in the sight of the people, no other court seems able to be understood than the court of the people. But the altar was not in the court of the people, but in the court of the priests, which lay in the middle between the court of the people and the temple. Therefore this Zachariah does not seem to have been slain between the temple and the altar, and so I do not see in what way the place of the slaying agrees. Next, since Barachiah is a proper name, and one sufficiently used in the Old Testament; and since another Zachariah is found, and he a most well-known prophet, whose father was called Barachiah; it is not probable that Christ wished by that name to designate Joiada the priest, with his own proper name passed over: for the name of Barachiah suited Joiada no more than it did other just men; and it was calculated to draw hearers or readers into error, since from the whole phrase nothing else can be gathered than that it is a proper name, and is used as such. What is added about the Gospel which the Nazarenes use is not of great moment: for St. Jerome himself judged that that reading was not to be followed, but that the common reading of all the other codices was to be preferred, when he rendered the New Testament according to the Greek authority. This opinion, therefore, I think less probable, because Zachariah the son of Joiada does not seem to have been slain in the place designated by Christ, nor does the difficulty seem able to be removed with sufficient probability which at once strikes the eye against this Zachariah from the name of his father Barachiah.
[17] Calmet on Matthew chapter 23 ℣ 35 reports another opinion, [a fourth opinion, concerning another Zachariah, who also is in Latin called the son of Barachiah,] recently, as it seems, invented: for no ancient writer is cited for it. Of King Ozias in 1 Paralipomenon 26 ℣ 5 these things are read: And he sought the Lord in the days of Zachariah, who understood and saw God. There was therefore some Zachariah, a seer or prophet, in the time of King Ozias. Again, in the time of King Achaz the same (as the patron of that opinion believes) Zachariah is mentioned in Isaiah 8 ℣ 2 in these words: And I took unto me faithful witnesses, Urias the priest, and Zachariah the son of Barachiah. This Zachariah, therefore, since he is the son of Barachiah, the author thinks could have been designated by Christ. But, as Calmet also observes, it is not probable that the same Zachariah is mentioned in both places. For Ozias, whose counselor that Zachariah the prophet was, reigned fifty-two years, and after him Joatham sixteen years, so that that Zachariah must have been very long-lived if he lived to the times of Achaz, who obtained the kingdom after Joatham. Therefore that Zachariah the son of Barachiah, of whom Isaiah speaks, is probably a different man from the prophet and counselor of Ozias; and he is known to us by one deed only.
[18] For which cause it is not even probable that that Zachariah, it is refuted as improbable. the witness of Isaiah, was designated by Christ's words. For we cannot doubt that the Lord recalled to the Jews a man famous and known among the Jews. But such is not that Zachariah, who is neither known to have been a prophet, nor to have grown famous by a reputation for piety, justice, or deeds well done. Besides, not only is the slaying of that Zachariah unknown, but not the least reason or occasion can be assigned on account of which he should be believed to have been slain, and least of all between the temple and the altar. Finally, not even the name of the father of that Zachariah is entirely the same in Hebrew with the name of the father of Zachariah the prophet, but the one differs from the other by one letter, as Gaspar Sanctius already observed in writing on chapter 1 of Zachariah, where he treated this question diligently, and assigned the difference of each name. The studious reader will be able to consult the said commentator, who has abundantly discussed certain other reasons of lesser moment brought forward for the several opinions, which for brevity's sake I have judged should be omitted. I have followed his opinion in such a way that I have adopted from that same writer only the chief arguments, or at any rate those which seemed to me to outweigh the rest, and have set them forth in my own manner.
§ III. A certain other opinion of the moderns is examined and refuted as improbable.
[ ] [Certain moderns think that Zachariah the son of Baruch, who was slain by the Zealots long after Christ,] The said Calmet brings forward a fifth opinion also, and with Tillemont
seems to prefer it to all the rest. To me, if I may frankly speak my mind, it seems the least probable of all, nor in any respect consonant with the sacred Writings. They assign Zachariah the son of Baruch, who long after the death of Christ was slain by the Zealots, as Josephus relates in book 5 On the Jewish War, chapter 1, according to Rufinus' division; but in the Greek, book 4, chapter 19. Let us hear of his slaying, that we may then examine the arguments and foundations of this modern opinion. Josephus, having related the cruelty of the Idumæans and Zealots, by which twelve thousand of the Jewish nobles perished, asserts that they turned from that indiscriminate slaughter to a certain form of judicial proceedings, continuing thus: And so, when they had determined to kill a certain Zachariah, the son of Baruch, one of the illustrious (for they were provoked because he was too hostile to the most wicked and friendly to the upright, and likewise wealthy), and hoped not only for the plundering of his fortunes, but also that a man powerful to cast them down would be removed, they summon seventy of the most respectable of the commons by order, under the appearance of judges, though lacking authority, and before them accuse Zachariah, as though he were betraying affairs to the Romans; and that he had sent to Vespasian for the sake of treason. But since the accusation was frivolous, and Zachariah had defended himself with great freedom, he was acquitted by the common verdict of the judges, as Josephus relates more fully, adding these things: But when he was acquitted, a clamor of the Zealots is raised, and all indeed were angry at the judges, who had not understood the pretense of the authority given them. But two of the most daring, attacking Zachariah, kill him in the midst of the temple, … and straightway cast him from the temple into the valley below. And the judges, for the sake of insult, striking them with the flat of their swords, drove them from the circuit of the temple. Thus far Josephus, from whom nothing has been omitted which can be of use for the elucidation of the controversy.
[20] [they hold to have been foretold by Christ's words. The arguments of this opinion,] Now let us hear the arguments brought forward by Calmet, who adopted the reasonings of Tillemont, volume 1 of the Emperors, article 54; and added his own. If we believe Calmet, these words of Christ: Therefore behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you will put to death and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues, etc., add much weight to the aforesaid opinion: for since there presently follows, That upon you may come all the just blood, etc.; he thinks that by the words all the just blood there is understood also the blood of Christ and of the Apostles and finally of all the just who were slain up to the destruction of Jerusalem, so that he will have Zachariah be the last man slain by the Jews before the destruction of the city, just as Abel was the first unjustly slain. Further, if anyone should ask why Christ said, Whom you killed, as though Zachariah had already been slain before; he answers that Christ speaks as a prophet, and uses the past for the future. He contends besides that all the circumstances in that Zachariah agree with the words of the Gospel; first, the name of the father: for Baruch, he says, is the same name as Barachiah, because the Hebrews are wont to join to proper names the name of God, Jah. Secondly, the place rightly agrees with his judgment, because that Zachariah is read to have been slain in the midst of the temple. Thirdly, the time, in the same man's judgment, rightly designates this Zachariah: for he was slain a little before the destruction of the temple and the dispersion of the Jews, which is the end of the threat leveled at them by the Son of God. These arguments of the said opinion are read set forth in Calmet.
[21] But while I diligently weigh each of these statements, the former appear to me improbable, some of which and the three latter altogether false. I shall begin with these. First, it is false that Baruch and Barachiah are the same name. That the Hebrews join the name of God, Jah, to proper names is not true in such a sense that it should be reckoned the same name whether that be added or taken away. The name Baruch is simple, and is expounded by St. Jerome as blessed; the name Barachia or Barachias is compound, and means blessed of the Lord: nor are the names Baruch and Barachias any more the same among the Hebrews than the names Carus and Deocarus are the same among the Latins, even though the Latins also add the name Deus to proper names, as is done in the name Deocarus just cited, and in not a few others everywhere known. Secondly, what is said about the place of that Zachariah's slaying agreeing with Christ's words also seems false: for although he is said to have been slain in the midst of the temple, it will not on that account be probably believed that he was slain between the temple and the altar, or in the court of the priests: but it can scarcely be doubted that he was slain in the court of the Gentiles or in the court of the Jews. For, although the Zealots profaned the temple, yet since they wished to be seen to keep the form of a trial in Zachariah's case, it is not probable that the judges were brought into the court of the priests, and the trial carried out there. Nay, the judges themselves, who could be induced by no fear to condemn the innocent Zachariah, would probably have been unwilling to enter the court of the priests, which they were not ignorant was unlawful for them. Therefore, since Zachariah was slain in the very place of the trial, it is not probable that he was slain between the temple and the altar.
[22] Thirdly, what is said about the time of this slaying agreeing with Christ's words seems certainly false. are proved false. The Lord spoke of a slaying already carried out, not of some future slaying: for it is altogether improbable, and asserted without foundation, that Christ there used the past for the future. That is foreign to the style of the Gospels, nor will any passage be brought forward where the Lord so spoke. Christ foretold many future things in the Gospels; but always in such a way that anyone could easily understand that future things were being foretold, and not that past things were being narrated. Thus this passage too, whom you killed, the holy Fathers and other ancient doctors understood of a past, not of a future slaying: and that the cited words are altogether so to be explained is shown by all the accompanying words in which future things are foretold: Some of them you will put to death, etc.: and presently ℣ 36, All these things shall come upon this generation: and again ℣ 38, Your house shall be left to you desolate. So in the following chapter very many things are foretold by Christ, but always in such a style and manner that anyone understands that future things are being foretold. Wherefore the patrons of that new interpretation ought to have proved that Christ the Lord used that style of the prophets of the Old Testament by which the future is designated by the past, before it should be asserted: for, although Christ was the greatest of all the prophets, and had things future as clearly in view as things past, it cannot rightly be inferred from that that he spoke of future things in the manner in which he spoke of past ones, since from the style of the Gospels, and from six hundred predictions related therein, the contrary manifestly appears.
[23] Calmet's chief argument is weighed, But, says Calmet: Since Abel was the first unjustly slain, and Zachariah the last; and since among those unjustly slain by the Jews the disciples of Christ also are numbered, we cannot understand another Zachariah than the son of Baruch, unless we wish to leave empty a wide space of time to which the Lord's threat extends. The objection is rather obscure, and needs some elucidating. The author explains Christ's words unto the blood of Zachariah as unto the time of Zachariah, as though Christ were threatening the Jews with the punishment of all the slayings which had been or were to be committed from the death of Abel to the death of Zachariah. Now that punishment was the destruction of the city and the temple, which very many other evils were to precede, besides the eternal punishment of those who were to die in their sins. He will therefore have it that by Zachariah is designated the last just man slain by the Jews before the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. But first I answer that it is not even established whether that Zachariah the son of Baruch is to be numbered among the just: for he was more probably a Jew, not a Christian, and therefore not just either. Josephus indeed speaks honorably of Zachariah; but the same man adorns with a far more honorable eulogy Ananus the pontiff, by whose agency St. James was slain. Therefore from Josephus' eulogy we can gather nothing more than that he was a Jew, and a man honored among the Jews, especially since the Christians left Jerusalem before Zachariah's death.
[24] and it is proved that it cannot help his opinion: Secondly, that Zachariah certainly was not a prophet, or one of those of whom Christ said: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, etc. Who then would prudently believe that the death of that Zachariah is reproached to the Jews by Christ, who speaks of the death of the prophets and of his own disciples? This reason alone, therefore, clearly shows that that Zachariah is not the last just man slain by the Jews before the destruction of the city. But if our adversaries should wish, wrongly and improbably, to contend that even the Jews of that time were numbered among the just by the Lord, let them read Josephus, and they will find that many others were slain a little later who are praised by Josephus no less or even more, so that not even in that way can Zachariah be held the last. Thirdly, so many evils were overwhelming Jerusalem when Zachariah was slain, and so much blood of the nobles and chief men was being poured out in the city by the Idumæans and Zealots, that the evils foretold by Christ had already then begun, and those slayings of the nobles were rather a part of the evils foretold than a cause.
[25] then the words of Scripture objected by him are elucidated, Now indeed those words must be considered a little more attentively: That upon you may come all the just blood that hath been shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel the just even unto the blood of Zachariah the son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar: and it must be asked whether by them are included all the slayings of the just which were to be perpetrated by the Jews up to the destruction of the temple; as Calmet contends. He thinks this follows from the preceding words: Therefore behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you will put to death, etc. But to me the contrary seems the case, and this will become manifest, I think, if we accurately weigh what precedes, and inquire on what occasion and for what cause the Lord foretold the slaying of his disciples. The scribes and Pharisees boasted that they shrank from the slayings of the prophets, as Christ himself testifies at ℣ 30 in these words: And you say: If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. This hypocrisy of theirs, as St. Chrysostom accurately observes, the Lord refutes, first indeed by foretelling his own slaying in these words at ℣ 32: And you fill up (that is, you will fill up) the measure of your fathers. For he utters these words, as Chrysostom witnesses, not commanding, but foretelling what was to be, namely his own slaying. Then again at ℣ 34 he explains more fully in what way they were filling up the measure of their fathers with equal or worse crimes, and foretells the slayings of his disciples in the words just cited at ℣ 34: And some of them you will put to death and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city.
[26] These so many crimes and slayings of the just having been foretold,
which by the gravity of the offense, and from the occasion on which they were spoken their true meaning is drawn out, especially on account of the slaying of Christ, not only equaled but far surpassed the slayings of the past, the Lord had sufficiently refuted the hypocrisy of those who said that they shrank from the slaying of the prophets. Therefore from all these things he concludes against them, and foretells that on account of those crimes by which they were to surpass the crimes of their forefathers, they would pay so great a penalty as if they themselves were atoning for all the crimes of their forefathers. Take the words: That upon you may come all the just blood that hath been shed upon the earth, etc. That is: On account of your crimes already recalled it will come to pass that you shall pay as great a penalty as all the slayings of the just hitherto perpetrated deserve, which you say you detest. For the passage cannot be so expounded that we should believe the Jews were punished for the crimes of their parents or forefathers, as commentators everywhere acknowledge; and Calmet himself also. Hear Chrysostom: Not that anyone pays the penalty of another's sin: but that those who, after many others had fallen into sins and been chastised, are made no better, and perpetrate the same things as they, justly pay those same penalties. And a little before: But if anyone should say: Why did they suffer the gravest of all things? I should answer, because they perpetrated the gravest crimes of all.
[27] From these things I further infer against Calmet that by those words, All the just blood, are not comprehended those slayings which Christ was foretelling to the Jews, but only past ones. by which Calmet's whole foundation collapses. For if All the just blood signified both past and future slayings at once, the Jews would have paid for their own and for others' sins together. But according to Ezechiel chapter 18 ℣ 20: The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son. Therefore it seems necessary to say that by the words All the just blood only past slayings are signified: for to this too the intention of Christ in speaking is directed, that both by the prediction of future slayings and by the mention of the punishment to be inflicted on account of them, he may show the scribes and Pharisees to be equal to their parents or superior to them in wickedness. Christ therefore foretells that the Jews will pay that penalty which all the slayings of the just perpetrated by their forefathers deserved, because they themselves were about to deserve the same by their own crimes as well: but he does not seem to say that they were to be visited with an accumulated punishment for their own and their parents' crimes together: and from this observation Calmet's whole foundation collapses. By the same observation too the opinion of Rupert is sufficiently refuted, who in book 4 of his Commentaries on the Apocalypse suspected that by Zachariah, the son of Barachiah, James the brother of the Lord could be understood, relying on almost the same foundation.
[28] An observation bearing on the whole controversy. For the rest, I briefly warn the studious reader that I have deliberately abstained from that argument by which the patrons of nearly every opinion strive to show that the Zachariah whose case they defend is in some manner the last of the prophets slain by the Jews. I have abstained, I say, from that argument, although it is everywhere produced by those who patronize the opinion which I think more probable. For I confess that it is uncertain to me whether the Lord wished to mention Zachariah as the last of the prophets slain by the Jews, or for some other cause. Certainly that phrase, from the blood of Abel the just even unto the blood of Zachariah, does not necessarily designate the first and the last slain. Many phrases of this kind are found in sacred Scripture. In Genesis 6 ℣ 7 the Lord says: I will destroy … man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth, from man even to beasts, from the creeping thing even to the fowls. Again in chapter 7 ℣ 23 all substance is said to have been destroyed from man even to beast. Exodus XI ℣ 5: Every firstborn in the land of the Egyptians shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sitteth on his throne, even to the firstborn of the handmaid that is at the mill. Very many similar passages can be adduced: nor yet is it anywhere signified who was slain in the first place, or in the last. Therefore, although it is certain that Abel is the first of those who were unjustly slain, it cannot on that account be certainly inferred that Zachariah is the last, since the antithesis may be of another kind.