ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why? what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person; see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and our children. Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified."

We here leave the subject, commended to the calm consideration of our readers, to whom we say, in the language of Spencer, proposing his views of the same subject,---"Si quis lumine perspicaciore donatus, hujus instituti rationes solidiores assignaverit, me minime pertinacem experietur."

ARTICLE VII.

EXPLANATION OF Ζαχαρίου υἱοῦ Βαραχίου, ΜΑΤΤ. 23: 35.

By Christ. Wilhelm Müller, Preacher at Recknitz Mecklenburg. Translated by the Junior Editor from the Theologische Studien und Kritiken.

Dr. Winer-Bibl. Realwörterbuche 2. Aufl. Th. II. p. 822, -declares himself, with the latest expositors of the above passage, for the opinion, that Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, of whose being stoned, we have an account in 2 Chr. 24 : 21, is unquestionably here meant. Even Olshausen, the faithful student of the Scriptures, finds nothing objectionable in the opinion, that Matthew confounded the name of the father of the murdered, perhaps with the father of Zechariah, one of the prophets of the Old Testament, and rather adopts it, than favor an opinion at all forced.-Bibl. Commentar I. p. 854. 3. Aufl. But, notwithstanding this agreement of the latest expositors, it seems to us that there are objections of no little weight to this interpretation. The opinion, that the

evangelist has here been guilty of a failure of memory is ever to be received with caution, and is liable to the charge of arbitrariness. Then, too, the place and time given in Chronicles seem not to suit the passage in our Evangelist. In Chronicles as above, it is said, that Zechariah was stoned in the court of the temple-in, according to the LXX., èv aůλñ oixou xugiou. And although we should concede, that the place as indicated by Matthew, μεταξὺ τοῦ ναοῦ καὶ To Avoiαorngiov-compare the parallel in Luke 11: 51,-is consonant with the representation in the Chronicles, yet we ask if the Lord in his discourse alluded to that passage in Chronicles, wherefore the extended and more exact specification of the place in the gospel? It seems not to have originated from Jewish tradition; for in the Talmud, to the question: ubinam loci interfecerunt Zachariam, the answer is the following: nec in atrio Israëlis, nec in atrio mulierum, sed in atrio sacerdotum-cf. Lightfoot Hor. Heb. ad Matt. 23: 25. The circumstantial pointing out of the locality in the gospels, itself renders the allusion to the Chronicles improbable in our estimation.

In respect to the chronological agreement also, we might find, in our most recent expositors, more subtilty than truth. Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, was put to death under king Joash about 840 B. C.; and Jesus is supposed to have meant this murder in the passage before us, forsooth, because it is the last recorded murder of a prophet in the Old Testament. But if the Lord says to his contemporaries, that all the innocent blood shed on the earth must come on them, why should he exclude from the recompense the whole period from Joash to his own day? Is it not much more natural and probable to suppose, that he took the murder of Abel as the terminus a quo, the murder of a pious (dixalos) man of that generation as the terminus ad quem, and so comprehended all innocent blood shed from the creation of the world-ἀπὸ καταβολής xóouou in Luke-to his own day? This view is supported by the fact, that the povsúrars-ye have murdered-points precisely to a deed of those then living, especially as a nice distinction between the fathers and the contemporaries of our Lord runs through the whole discourse. To remove these difficulties, De Wette remarks-exeget. Handbuch I. 1, p. 194-"¿povεúdars is spoken according to the idea of community of guilt; properly speaking, the fathers had done it

ν.

-compare Gen. 46: 4. Ps. 66: 6. Hos. 12: 5." This opinion, however, seems inadmissable, as the same personal designation, in πλρώσατε v. 32, as in ἀποκτενεῖτε καί σταυρώσετε v. 34., manifestly applies only to those addressed, and έq3 3μãs v. 35, points precisely to the same persons. The idea of communitative guilt certainly lies in the whole tenor of the discourse, but not in the word έpovsúσars, which, if what was said referred to the murder of Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, must much rather denote a community of action.

Although, on account of these objections we cannot agree with the latest interpreters of this passage, yet we must accord with them in this, that they set aside the other explanations considered by them, as arbitrary and groundless. We wonder the more, however, that they have altogether overlooked the oldest of all interpretations which finds in Zacharias the father of John the Baptist. Even Winer, who mentions it, enters into no examination of it. The learned Lightfoot, as above quoted, certainly gives his judgment there: quæ de Zacharia, Baptista patre, hic dicuntur, somnia sunt; but this cannot prevent us from making the attempt to justify again this earliest interpretation.

Origen, the father of Exegesis, says, in Tract. xxvi, in Matt., that Zacharias, the father of John, was murdered by the Jews, who was enraged because he had allowed Mary, after the birth of the Saviour, to stand in a part of the temple appropriated exclusively to virgins and in another place

Tom. xi. in Matt. p. 225, ed Huet.-he says expressly that Jesus, by the language in Matt. 23: 35, confirms a writing considered as apocryphal, ἐν ἀκοκρύφοις φερομένην-Basilices, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, and others, agree with Origen-comp. Thilo, cod. apocr. N. T. I. Proleg. LXIV. n. There is a different tradition of the murder of this Zacharias found in the Protevangelium Jacobi, capp. xx11.XXIV.-Thilo. I. 1, p. 262 sq. Zacharias is here represented as having been put to death by Herod the Great, at the time of the murder of the children of Bethlehem, because he would or could not give him information of the abode of his son John. Of this opinion was the Patriarch Peter of Alexandria, expressed in his pastoral letter a. 306-Routhii Reliq. sacr. Vol. 1. p. 341 sq., and the Nestorian Bishop Solomon of Bassora sac. 13.—Assemanni Biblioth. Orient. T. III. P. I., p. 315 sq.-who represents as the common

111.

opinion of Syrian Christians, that Zacharias, on account of his concealment of his son, was, by Herod's order, slain between the temple and altar.

These testimonies are sufficient to establish the fact of a constant tradition, during the first centuries of the Christian era, that the father of the Baptist had been murdered, although the tradition varies as to the occasion and manner of his murder. This variation, however, cannot make us suspicious as to the matter of the tradition itself, as it is universally characteristic of it, that it conjectures the occasion and attendant circumstances of any fact committed to it, and reports them in connection with the fact itself. For the truth of the fact, we have two witnesses of weight in Origen and the Protevangelium Jacobi. For no one will deny critical tact to Origen, nor accuse him of a blind credulity in tradition. If then he applies the account of the murder of Zacharias to the explanation of our passage of the Scriptures, it must have seemed to him to rest on good grounds. Of the Protevangelium Jacobi, however, the learned editor—Thilo, I.I. p. xlv.-judges, that this very ancient writing, of which already Origen, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nyssa, indeed, perhaps Justin Martyr and Clemens Alexandrinus, make mention, might contribute very much to the criticism and grammatico-historical interpretation of the New Testament. Comp. in the same, p. lxii., the favorable opinion of Combefisius. Would it not, then, betray an excessive protestant abhorrence of all tradition, if we should place in the land of dreams, an account in itself not improbable, merely because it is found in a writer of traditions? We appeal frequently and with justice to the testimony of tradition, on other points of controversy, e. g. as to the authenticity of our gospels. The only inquiry therefore is, whether the father of the Baptist suits the context of our passage; then we have in the words of Jesus, as Origen correctly remarks, a confirmation of the traditionary account of the murder of Zacharias.

That the time, in which this murder falls, agrees very well with the language of Jesus, indeed appears exclusively admissable, has been already determined above. When Jesus spake these words, about thirty years had passed away since the murdering of our Zacharias he could, therefore, adduce the same as an act of his contemporaries-spovsúdars. And what case lay nearer to him than the murdering, in the sanc

tuary, of the father of the Baptist, certainly highly respected by him? It was connected with his own earliest history, and was still in the lively remembrance of his contemporaries.

The striking designation of place in the gospels, above noticed, finds also its satisfactory explanation, when compared with the account in the Protevangelium Jacobi. In chapter 24 of this work, it is stated, that the priests had found the blood of Zacharias παρὰ τὸ θυσιαστήριου κυρίου. We might be in doubt, whether the altar of incense or the altar of burntoffering is here meant, as however in chapter 23, we read: αἷμα ἐκχύνεις παρὰ (εἰς) τα πρόθυρα τοῦ ναοῦ κυριοῦ, the altar of burnt-offering must be understood, which is known to have been in the court of the priests: so that the designation of place in the Protevangelium agrees exactly with that in the gospels.*

As all the difficulties which stand in the way of the other expositions of this passage, disappear before the interpretation here recommended, so also there would be no reason to doubt the entire correctness of the account of Matthew. For although neither in the canonical nor apocryphal gospels is it mentioned, that the father of the Baptist was a son of Barachias, it certainly cannot be concluded, from this circumstance, that Matthew's account is not according to truth. On the contrary, it is rather inferable, even from our passage, that the father of this Zacharias was called Barachias.

It only remains for us to consider more particularly the

* The reading in the Protevangelium : περὶ τὸ διάφραγμα povsúen Zaxagías, found in the text, as given by Thilo, seems to be a corruption from the reading of other codices: Tɛgi Tò Sápaupa, which is confirmed by Eustathius-compare Thilo as above quoted, p. 267. n.; for rò diápgayua is, according to Zonaras, of like signification with rò μscóroxov, which separates the court of the Gentiles from the court of the Israelites, and immediately after passing over the latter, one came into the court of the priests, at the Audiaorgiov-comp. Winer, bibl. Realw. II. p. 675.-Moreover regi rò diάpgayua does not accord with the other designations of place above quoted. On the other hand, the reading regi rò diápavua contains a very suitable designation of time, and seems to be a corruption only because the unusual word diáçavua was not understood.