a martyr. I am disposed
on the whole to think that they did. This supposition, which however
must remain uncertain, would give more point to the parallelism with
Vettius Epagathus. But it is a matter of little or no moment as regards
the point at issue. The quotation found in St Luke's Gospel has
(according to the interpretation which our author rightly receives) no
reference whatever to the martyrdom; and therefore affords no ground for
the assumption that the document from which it is taken contained any
account of or any reference to the death of the Baptist's father.

But, granting that the writers of this letter assumed the identification
(and this assumption, whether true or false, was very natural), our
Third Gospel itself does furnish such a reference; and they would thus
find within the limits of this Gospel everything which they required
relating to Zacharias. The author of _Supernatural Religion_ indeed
represents the matter otherwise; but then he has overlooked an important
passage. With a forgetfulness of the contents of the Gospels which ought
surely to suggest some reflections to a critic who cannot understand how
the Fathers, 'utterly uncritical' though they were, should ever quote
any writing otherwise than with the most literal accuracy, he says,
'There can be no doubt that the reference to Zacharias in Matthew, in
the Protevangelium, and in this Epistle of Vienne and Lyons, is not
based upon Luke, _in which there is no mention of his death_' [257:1].
Here and throughout this criticism he appears to have forgotten Luke xi.
51, 'the blood of Zacharias which perished between the altar and the
temple.' If the death of the Baptist's father is mentioned in St
Matthew, it is mentioned in St Luke also.

But, if our author disposes of the coincidences with the Third Gospel in
this way, what will he say to those with the Acts? In this same letter
of the Gallican Churches we are told that the sufferers prayed for their
persecutors 'like Stephen the perfect martyr, _Lord, lay not this sin to
their charge._' Will he boldly maintain that the writers had before them
another Acts containing words identical with our Acts, just as he
supposes them to have had another Gospel containing words identical with
our Third Gospel? Or will he allow this account to have been taken from
Acts vii. 60, with which it coincides? But in this latter case, if they
had the second treatise which bears the name of St Luke in their hands,