(iv) Furthermore, there is evidence to show that the Rabbis, like the author of the first Gospel, confused or, disregarding chronology, identified the pre-exilic victim with Zechariah the prophet of the Restoration. The Targum on Lam. ii. 20 (“Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?”) runs, “Is it also fit that they should slay a priest and prophet in the Temple of the Lord, as ye slew Zacharias the son of Iddo ... in the house of the Sanctuary, on the day of Expiation?” (Lightfoot l. c.). The Midrash (tr. Wünsche) interprets the same passage of Lam. of Zechariah son of Jehoiada.
(v) What is the intended series or line of which Zechariah is the last representative? Abel is naturally the first, but, chronologically, Z. ben Jehoiada was not the last prophet whose murder is recorded in the O.T.; Uriah (Jer. xxvi. 20 ff.) was later. The usual explanation that his murder stands last in the arrangement of the Hebrew Bible with Chronicles at the end is unsatisfactory; the books of the O.T. still circulated separately in the first century of our era. Moore’s answer is “It is not because the death of Z. was the last crime of the kind in Jewish history that it is named in the Gospel, but because it was in popular legend the typical example of the sacrilegious murder of a righteous man, a prophet of God, and of the appalling expiation God exacted for it.” But the identification of the victim with the prophet of the Restoration suggests another answer. Zechariah ben Berechiah did in fact stand chronologically at the end of the prophets; as Josephus writes (§ [63]), the succession failed after Artaxerxes (i. e. Ahasuerus). The context in Matthew relates to the ancient prophets; the later generation that built the prophets’ tombs is set over against that of the forefathers who murdered them. That the final instance of such murder should be drawn from recent (to say nothing of future) history would be inappropriate. The son of Bariscæus was no prophet or priest and “as a layman would have no business in the part of the court between the temple and the altar” (Moore).
For the opposite view see Wellhausen Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, ed. 2 (1911), pp. 118 ff. His main points are that Chronicles was a learned, not a popular, book and not likely to have been known to or quoted by Christ (but Christ is apparently quoting at second hand from one of those apocryphal books which were essentially popular), and that the rabbinical legend is in its origin unconnected with the story in Chronicles and really an echo (Nachklang) of the episode in Josephus, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans having here, as elsewhere, been confused with the earlier destruction by the Babylonians.
VI. Note on § ([50]). Portents and Oracles
With this passage should be compared the following allusions in Roman writers:—
Tacitus Hist. V. 13. “Portents had occurred; but that nation, at once a prey to superstition and an enemy of religious rites, regards it wrong to avert such omens by sacrifices or votive offerings. There were visions of armies joining battle in the heavens with armour glowing red,[[433]] and the Temple in an instant was all lit up with fire from the clouds. The doors of the sanctuary opened of a sudden and there was heard a voice of superhuman strength saying that the gods were departing, and at the same moment a mighty commotion of departing beings. Yet few saw a fearful meaning in these things. Many were firmly persuaded that their ancient priestly lore contained a prediction that at that very time the East was to wax strong and persons proceeding from Judæa were to become masters of the world. This enigmatic utterance had foretold of Vespasian and Titus, but the common people, with the usual ambition of humanity, read it as predicting this high destiny for themselves, and even disaster failed to bring home to them its true meaning.”
Suet. Vesp. 4. “An ancient and rooted belief had spread throughout the whole of the East that persons proceeding from Judæa were destined at that time to become masters of the world. The prophecy, as after events proved, had reference to the Roman Emperor, but the Jews appropriated it to themselves and plunged into revolt.”
For interesting discussions on Josephus and Tacitus and the (Messianic) prophecy the reader is referred to the articles by Norden and Corrsen mentioned at the head of [Note II].
VII. Note on § ([63]). The Twenty-two Books of Scripture
This passage is important in connexion with the history of the O.T. canon. The language of Josephus implies that the canon had long since been closed, the test of canonicity being antiquity. Nothing written later than Artaxerxes (i. e. Ahasuerus) has full credentials. The mention of Artaxerxes must refer to the book of Esther, which Josephus thus regards as the latest addition to the collection. The statement differs in some respects from what is believed to be the oldest Palestinian tradition, but there is no reason to doubt that the unnamed 22 books are other than those comprised in the modern Hebrew Bible.