: [Greek: marturia] was at that
time the term used to express the supreme testimony of Christians--
martyrdom--and the epistle seems here simply to refer to the
martyrdom, the honour of which he shared with Zacharias. It is,
we think, highly improbable that, under such circumstances, the
word [Greek: marturia] would have been used to express a mere
description of the character of Zacharias given by some other writer."

This is the interpretation which is adopted by Tischendorf, Hilgenfeld,
and many eminent critics.

It will be observed that the saying that he had "walked in all the
commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless," which is supposed to
be taken from Luke i. 6, is there applied to Zacharias and Elizabeth,
the father and mother of John the Baptist, but the Gospel does not say
anything of this Zacharias having suffered martyrdom. The allusion in
Luke xi. 51 (Matt. xxiii. 35) is almost universally admitted to be to
another Zacharias, whose martyrdom is related in 2 Chron. xxiv. 21.

"Since the epistle, therefore, refers to the martyrdom of Zacharias,
the father of John the Baptist, when using the expressions which are
supposed to be taken from our third synoptic, is it not reasonable
to suppose that those expressions were derived from some work which
likewise contained an account of his death, which is not found in
the synoptic? When we examine the matter more closely we find that,
although none of the canonical gospels except the third gives any
narrative of the birth of John the Baptist, that portion of the
Gospel in which are the words we are discussing cannot be considered
an original production by the third Synoptist, but, like the rest of
his work, is merely a composition based upon earlier written
narratives. Ewald, for instance, assigns the whole of the first
chapters of Luke (i. 5-ii. 40) to what he terms 'the eighth
recognisable book.'" [141:1]

No apologetic critic pretends that the author of the third Gospel can
have written this account from his own knowledge or observation. Where,
then, did he get his information? Surely not from oral tradition limited
to himself. The whole character of the narrative, even apart from the
prologue to the Gospel, and the composition of the rest of the work,
would lead us to infer a written source.

"The fact that other works existed at an earlier period in which the
his