It has been insinuated 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.
Every one who thinks upon the subject will find these to be
circumstances which could not have met together in a mistake which did
not proceed from the circumstances themselves.
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