other place he thus addresses John of Gischala. "Who does not know the warnings of the ancient prophets? Who does not see that the oracle, which has long been advancing against this wretched city, is now at hand: for they foretold that it would be taken, when its inhabitants would stain it with their own blood? Is not the city and the whole temple filled with your dead bodies? It is therefore God, God himself, that brings upon you the Romans, like a purifying fire, and extirpates the city as abounding with such great abominations." J. W. lib. 6. c. 2. 1.

Secondly, the consideration that the men, whom our Lord here denounces, were the zealots described by Josephus, brings to light the import of the following passage, which has occasioned much perplexity to the critics. "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." Here our Lord speaks as a prophet; and assuming the usual style of prophecy, he represents them as actually guilty of that blood which they were yet to shed. That he speaks by anticipation of the murder of Zacharias, is evident from the context: for he assures those impious men, that they SHALL kill those teachers of the gospel who were to be sent to them. He in

stances Zacharias, who was to fall the last victim to their cruelty and in order to give his murder all the certainty of a real event, he represents it as actually done, though yet in futurity*. He uses the same prophetic liberty when he says, "Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” The temple was not at this time desolate; but he means, “Behold your house WILL be left desolate." To prevent the misconstruction of his · figure, and to preclude the men whom he ad

The verb in the original is in the first aoristεφονεύσατε. For the exact sense of this tense I refer to my Greek Grammar, p. 266, second edition. And I here quote the note of Havercamp on the place in Josephus. B. J. lib. 4. c. 5. §. 4. Eundum esse hunc Zachariam cum illo cujus meminit servator apud Matth. xxiii. 35. statuit L'Empereur in Cod. Talm. Middoth, p. 80. verba autem Servatoris intelligenda esse per anticipationem; et aoristum positum esse pro futuro, ov εQOVEUσate, quem occideritis; atque hujusmodi usus aoristi familiaris est Josepho, itidemque Polybio historico, ut ad eum notavit Isaacus Causabonus.

A priest, named Zacharias, is mentioned in 2 Chron. x. 24, 26. as being stoned in the court of the house of the Lord. And learned men suppose, that to this Zacharias our Saviour alludes. But this is not the case: first, because he is said to be the son of Jehoida; secondly, because it would be inappropriate to notice that Zacharias, the argumentˇrequiring that, as Abel is mentioned in the beginning, the other to be specified should be found at the end of the Jewish dispensation.

dressed from supposing that he charged them with blood which they had never shed, he adds, "Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation."

Now Josephus has actually related the event to which our Lord alludes, "The zealots at length, loathing to murder, set up in mere derision a mock tribunal, by which they determined to condemn Zacharias, son of Baruchus, one of the most eminent among the citizens. The causes, which kindled their resentment against this man, were his known hatred of wickedness and love of liberty, the hope of plunder awakened by his great wealth, and the dread of a power which threatened their dissolution. They nominated seventy of the people, to whom they gave the form, without the power, of judges. Before these they accused him of betraying the state to the Romans, and of negociating with Vespasian for that purpose. This charge was not supported by any evidence; they only expressed their conviction of the fact, and this they considered as a demonstration of its truth. Zacharias seeing that he had no hopes of acquittal, that he was brought into a snare, and not before a just tribunal, used in despair of life the greatest freedom of speech. He treated with scorn the alleged probability of the charges, and briefly: proved them to be altogether unfounded. Then

addressing himself with firmness to his accusers, he distinctly enumerated all the enormities which they had committed, and wept with loud la mentation over the disorders which they had oc casioned in the state. The zealots became tumultuous, and scarcely refrained from drawing their swords. But they wished to preserve to the end the appearance of justice, being at the same time desirous to see whether the judges, at the risk of their lives, should obey its dictates. The seventy passed on the accused the sentence of not guilty, preferring to die with him rather than incur the guilt of being his murderers. On his acquittal the zealots raised a violent clamour, and all expressed their indignation at the judges, for not understanding that they were invested only with the semblance of power. Two of the most daring, falling upon Zacharias, slew him in the middle of the temple, sarcastically saying as he fell, Thou hast also our verdict, which will a more effectually acquit thee: and they immediş ately flung his body into the valley, which lay beneath. They drove the judges from the court with insult, even smiting them with the back of their swords; and refrained from slaughtering them only that they might disperse among the people, and thus be the heralds of their slavery and degradation."

If we compare this narrative with the words

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of our Lord, they will appear to agree with great exactness. The zealots, as the apostle says, went in the way of Cain, and for this reason were sometimes called Cainists. This is the reason why our Lord mentions the blood of Abel, which the villains had shed in the person of their representative. The murder of that righteous man was at the dawn of the Jewish dispensation, and the purport of our Saviour's argument required, that he should carry forward his ideas through the whole extent of it to the last crime of the same sort. As they shed the blood of Abel by Cain who represented them; so they personally were to shed the blood of those christian teachers whom God would send to them from the first to the last. Accordingly, Jesus mentions the murder of Zacharias; and Josephus actually represents his blood as the last which the assassins had the iniquity to shed. Our Lord and Josephus moreover agree in the place of his death, and also in holding him forth as a righteous man. We may therefore conclude, that he was now a convert to the gospel...

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