qualifying addition, are often used in a laxer sense than is here contended for*.

III. Acts, v. 36. "For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be some body; to whom a number of men, abour four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered and brought to nought."

Josephus has preserved the account of an impostor of the name of Theudas, who created some disturbances, and was slain; but according to the date assigned to this man's appearance (in which, however, it is very possible that Josephus may have been mistaken†), it must have been, at the

Livy, speaking of the peace which the conduct of Romulus had procured to the state, during the whole reign of his successor (Numa), has these words:-" Ab illo enim profectis viribus datis tantum valuit, ut, in quadraginta deinde annos, tutam pacem haberet:" yet afterwards in the same chapter, "Romulus," he says, "septem et triginta regnavit annos. Numa tres et quadraginta."

+ Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament (Marsh's translation), vol. i. p. 61.

Liv. Hist. c. i. sect. 16.

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least, seven years after Gamaliel's speech, of which this text is a part, was delivered. It has been replied to the objection*, that there might be two impostors of this name: and it has been observed, in order to give a general probability to the solution, that the same thing appears to have happened in other instances of the same kind. It is proved from Josephus, that there were not fewer than four persons of the name of Simon within forty years, and not fewer than three of the name of Judas within ten years, who were all leaders of insurrections: and it is likewise recorded by this historian, that, upon the death of Herod the Great (which agrées very well with the time of the commotion referred to by Gamaliel, and with his manner of stating that time," before these days"), there were innumerable disturbances in Judea. Archbishop Usher was of opinion, that one of the three Judases above-mentioned was Gamaliel's Theudas; and that with a less varia tion of the name than we actually find in

* Lardner, part. i. vol. ii. p. 922.

+ Antiq. 1. xvii. c. 12. sect. 4.
Annals, p. 797.

the Gospels, where one of the twelve apostles is called, by Luke, Judas; and by Mark, Thaddeus*. Origen, however he came at his information, appears to have believed that there was an impostor of the name of Theudas before the nativity of Christ.

IV. Matt. xxiii. 34. "Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city; 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."

There is a Zacharias, whose death is related in the second book of Chronicles†, in

* Luke, vi. 16. Mark, iii. 18.

+ Orig. cont. Cels. p. 44.

‡ "And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the com

a manner which perfectly supports our Saviour's allusion. But this Zacharias was the son of Jehoiada.

There is also Zacharias the prophet; who was the son of Barachiah, and is so described in the superscription of his prophecy, but of whose death we have no ac

count.

I have little doubt, but that the first Zacharias was the person spoken of by our Saviour: and that the name of the father has been since added, or changed, by some one, who took it from the title of the prophecy, which happened to be better known to him than the history in the Chronicles.

There is likewise a Zacharias, the son of Baruch, related by Josephus to have been slain in the temple a few years before the destruction of Jerusalem. It has been in

mandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? Because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath also forsaken you. And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones, at the commandment of the king, in the court of the house of the Lord." 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, 21.

sinuated, that the words put into our Saviour's mouth contain a reference to this transaction, and were composed by some writer, who either confounded the time of the transaction with our Saviour's age, or inadvertently overlooked the anachronism,

Now suppose it to have been so; suppose these words to have been suggested by the transaction related in Josephus, and to have been falsely ascribed to Christ; and observe what extraordinary coincidences (accidentally, as it must in that case have been) attend the forger's mistake.

First, that we have a Zacharias in the book of Chronicles, whose death, and the manner of it, corresponds with the allusion.

Secondly, that although the name of this person's father be erroneously put down in the Gospel, yet we have a way of accounting for the error, by showing another Zacharias in the Jewish Scriptures, much better known than the former, whose patronymic was actually that which appears in the text.