hough
young he 'rivalled the testimony borne to the elder Zacharias ([Greek:
sunexisousthai te tou presbuterou Zachariou marturia]), for verily
([Greek: goun]) he had _walked in all the commandments and ordinances of
the Lord blameless_.' Here we have the same words and in the same order,
which are used of Zacharias and Elisabeth in St Luke (i. 6). Moreover,
it is stated lower down of this same martyr, that he was 'called the
paraclete (or advocate) of the Christians, having the Paraclete in
himself, the Spirit more abundantly than Zacharias.' This maybe compared
with Luke i. 67, 'And Zacharias his father was filled with the Holy
Ghost.'

The meaning of the expression 'The testimony of Zacharias' ([Greek: te
tou Zachariou marturia]) has been questioned. It might signify either
'the testimony borne to Zacharias,' _i.e._ his recorded character, or
'the testimony borne by Zacharias,' _i.e._ his martyrdom. I cannot doubt
that the former explanation is correct; for the connecting particle
([Greek: goun]) shows that the assertion is intended to find its
justification in words which immediately follow, '_he walked in all the
commandments_,' etc. I need not however dwell on this point, for the
author of _Supernatural Religion_ himself adopts this rendering [255:1].
Yet with an inconsistency, of which his book furnishes not a few
examples, though he not only adopts this rendering himself, but silently
ignores the alternative, he proceeds at once to maintain a hypothesis
which is expressly built upon the interpretation thus tacitly rejected.

An early tradition or conjecture identified the Zacharias, who is
mentioned in the Gospels as having been slain between the temple and the
altar (Matt. xxiii. 35), with this Zacharias the father of the Baptist.
And in the extravagant romance called the Protevangelium, which is
occupied mainly with the birth, infancy, and childhood of our Lord, the
Baptist's father is represented as slain by Herod 'at the vestibule of
the temple of the Lord' [256:1]. Our author therefore supposes that
these Christians of Gaul are quoting not from St Luke, but from some
apocryphal Gospel which gave a similar account of the martyrdom of
Zacharias.

Whether this identification which I have mentioned is true or false it
is unnecessary for my purpose to inquire. Nor again do I care to discuss
the question whether or not the authors of this letter accepted it, and
so believed the Baptist's father to have fallen