This is a question on which the records of antiquity afford no light,
that can be trusted; and it is therefore left to be settled entirely by
_internal_ evidence. There are indeed ancient stories, that he wrote it
nine years after the ascension,――that he wrote it fifteen years after
that event,――that he wrote it while Peter and Paul were preaching at
Rome,――or when he was about leaving Palestine, &c., all which are about
equally valuable. The results of the examinations of modern writers,
who have labored to ascertain the date, have been exceedingly various,
and only probabilities can be stated on this most interesting point
of gospel history. The most probable conjecture on this point is one
based on the character of certain passages in Christ’s prophecy of the
destruction of Jerusalem, which by their vividness in the evangelist’s
record, may be fairly presumed to have been written down when the
crisis in Jewish affairs was highest, and most interesting; and when
the perilous condition of the innocent Christians must have been
a matter of the deepest solicitude to the apostles,――so much as to
deserve a particular provision, by a written testimony of the impending
ruin. A reference made also to a certain historical fact in Christ’s
prophecy, which is known on the testimony of Josephus, the Jewish
historian, to have happened about this time, affords another important
ground for fixing the date. This is the murder of Zachariah, the son
of Barachiah, whom the Jews slew between the temple and the altar. He
relates that the ferocious banditti, who had possessed themselves of
the strong places of the city, tyrannized over the wretched inhabitants,
executing the most bloody murders daily, among them, and killing, upon
the most unfounded accusations, the noblest citizens. Among those thus
sacrificed by these bloody tyrants, Josephus very minutely narrates the
murder of Zachariah, the son of Baruch, or Baruchus, a man of one of
the first families, and of great wealth. His independence of character
and freedom of speech, denouncing the base tyranny under which the
city groaned, soon made him an object of mortal hatred, to the military
rulers; and his wealth also constituted an important incitement to his
destruction. He was therefore seized, and on the baseless charge of
plotting to betray the city into the hands of Vespasian and the Romans,
was brought to a trial before a tribunal constituted by themselves,
from the elders of the people, in the temple, which they had profaned
by making it their strong hold. The righteous Zachariah, knowing
that his doom was irrevocably sealed, determined not to lay aside his
freedom of speech, even in this desperate pass; and when brought by his
iniquitous accusers before the elders who constituted the tribunal, in
all the eloquent energy of despair, after refuting the idle accusations
against him, in few words, he turned upon his accusers in just
indignation, and burst out into the most bitter denunciations of their
wickedness and cruelty, mingling with these complaints, lamentations
over the desolate and miserable condition of his ruined country.
The ferocious Zealots, excited to madness by his dauntless spirit of
resistance, instantly drew their swords, and threateningly called out
to the judges to condemn him at once. But even the instruments of their
power, were too much moved by the heroic innocence of the prisoner, to
consent to this unjust doom; and, in spite of these threats, acquitted
him at once. The Zealots then burst out, at once, into fury against
the judges, and rushed upon them to punish their temerity, in declaring
themselves willing to die with him, rather than unjustly pronounce
sentence upon him. Two of the fiercest of the ruffians, seizing
Zachariah, slew him in _the middle of the temple_, insulting his last
agonies, and immediately hurled his warm corpse over the terrace of the
temple, into the depths of the valley below.
This was, most evidently, the horrible murder, to which Jesus referred
in his prophecy. Performed thus, just on the eve of the last, utter
ruin of the temple and the city, it is the only act that could be
characterized as the crowning iniquity of all the blood unrighteously
shed, from the earliest time downwards. It has sometimes been supposed
by those ignorant of this remarkable event, that the Zachariah here
referred to, was Zachariah, son of Jehoiada, who in the reign of Joash,
king of Judah, was stoned by the people, at the command of the king,
in the outer court of the temple. But there are several circumstances
connected with that event, which render it impossible to interpret
the words of Jesus as referring merely to that, although some of
the coincidences are truly amazing. That Zachariah was the son of
_Jehoiada_,――this was the son of _Baruch_ or _Barachiah_;――that
Zachariah was slain in the outer court,――this was slain “in the midst
of the temple,”――that is, “between the temple and the altar.” Besides,
Jesus evidently speaks of this Zachariah as a person yet to come.
“Behold, I send to you prophets, and wise men, and writers; and some of
them you _shall_ kill and crucify; and some of them you shall scourge
and persecute; that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon
the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah,
the son of Barachiah, whom _ye slew_ between the temple and the altar.
All these things shall come upon this generation.” It is true that here,
the writer, in recording the prophecy, now referring to its fulfilment,
turns to the Jews, charging it upon them as a crime already past, when
he writes, though not at the time when the Savior spoke; and it is
therefore, by a bold change of tense, that he represents Jesus speaking
of a future event, as past. But the whole point of the discourse
plainly refers to future crimes, as well as to future punishment.
The multitude who heard him, indeed, no doubt considered him as
pointing, in this particular mention of names, only to a past event;
and notwithstanding the difference of minor circumstances, probably
interpreted his words as referring to the Zachariah mentioned in 2
Chronicles, who was stoned for his open rebukes of the sins of king
and people;――a conclusion moreover, justified by the previous words
of Jesus. He had just been denouncing upon them the sin of their
fathers, as the murderers of the prophets, whose tombs they were now
so ostentatiously building; and if this wonderful accomplishment of his
latter words had not taken place, it might reasonably be supposed, that
he spoke of these future crimes only to show that their conduct would
soon justify his imputation to them of their fathers’ guilt; that they
would, during that same generation, murder similar persons, sent to
them on similar divine errands, and thus become sharers in the crime
of their fathers, who slew Zachariah, the son of Jehoiada, in the
outer temple. But here now is the testimony of the impartial Josephus,
a Jew,――himself a contemporary learner of all these events, and an
eye-witness of some of them,――who, without any bias in favor of Christ,
but rather some prejudice against him,――in this case too, without the
knowledge of any such prophecy spoken or recorded,――gives a clear,
definite statement of the outrageous murder of Zachariah, the son of
Baruch or Barachiah, who, as he says, exactly, was “slain in the middle
of the temple,”――that is, half-way “between the temple-courts and the
altar.” He mentions it too, as the last bloody murder of a righteous
man, for proclaiming the guilt of the wicked people; and it therefore
very exactly corresponds to the idea of the crime, which was “to fill
up the measure of their iniquities.” This event, thus proved to be
the accomplishment of the prophecy of Jesus, and being shown moreover,
to have been expressed in this peculiar form, with a reference to
the recent occurrence of the murder alluded to,――is therefore a most
valuable means of ascertaining the date of this gospel. Josephus dates
the murder of Zachariah in the month of October, in the thirteenth
year of the reign of Nero, which corresponds to A. D. 66. The Apostle
Matthew then, must have written after this time; and it must be settled
by other passages, _how long after_, he recorded the prophecy.
The passage containing the prophecy of ♦the death of Zachariah,
is in Matthew xxiii. 35; and that of “the abomination of
desolation,” is in xxiv. 15.
♦ remove duplicated word “the”
This interesting event is recorded by Josephus; (History of
Jewish War, IV. v. 4;) and is one of the numerous instances
which show the vast benefit which the Christian student of the
New Testament may derive from the interesting and exact accounts
of this Jewish historian.
Another remarkable passage occurring in the prophecy of Jesus to his
disciples, respecting the ruin of the temple, recorded by Matthew
immediately after the discourse to the multitude, just given, affords
reasonable ground for ascertaining this point in the history of this
gospel. When Jesus was solemnly forewarning Peter, Andrew, James and
John, of the utter ruin of the temple and city, he mentioned to them,
at their request, certain signs, by which they might know the near
approach of the coming judgment upon their country, and might thus
escape the ruin to which the guilty were doomed. After many sad
predictions of personal suffering, which must befall them in his
service, he distinctly announced to them a particular event, by the
occurrence of which they might know that “the end was come,” and might
then, at the warning, flee from the danger to a place of safety. “When
ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by
Daniel the prophet, (_whoso READETH, let him understand_,) then let
them that are in Judea flee to the mountains.” This parenthetical
expression is evidently thrown in by Matthew, as a warning to his
_readers_, of an event which it behoved them to notice, as the token of
a danger which they must escape. The expression was entirely local and
occasional, in its character, and could never have been made a part of
the discourse by Jesus; but the writer himself, directing his thoughts
at that moment to the circumstances of the time, called the attention
of his Christian countrymen to the warning of Jesus, as something which
they must understand and act upon immediately. The inquiry then arises
as to the meaning of the expression used by Jesus in his prophecy. “The
abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, as standing
in the holy place,” unquestionably refers to the horrible violation of
the sanctity of the holy places of the temple, by the banditti, styling
themselves “_Zealots_ for their country,” who, taking possession of
the sanctuary, called in the savage Idumeans, a heathen people, who not
only profaned the temple, by their unholy presence, but defiled it with
various excesses, committing there a horrible massacre, and flooding
its pavements with blood. This was the abomination to which both
Daniel and Matthew referred, and which the latter had in mind when
he mentioned it to his brethren to whom he wrote, as the sign which
_they in reading should understand_, and upon the warning, flee to
the mountains. These horrible polluting excesses are the only events
recorded in the history of the times, which can with such certainty and
justice be pronounced the sad omens, to which Jesus and his evangelist
referred. They are known to have occurred just before the death of
Zachariah; and therefore also show this gospel to have been written
after the date above fixed for that event. That it must have been
written _before_ the last siege of Jerusalem, is furthermore manifest
from the fact, that, in order to have the effect of a _warning_, it
must have been sent to those in danger before the avenues of escape
from danger were closed up, as they certainly were after Titus had
fully encompassed Jerusalem with his armies, and after the ferocious
Jewish tyrants had made it certain death for any one to attempt to pass
from Jerusalem to the Roman camp. To have answered the purpose for
which it was intended, then, it must have been written at some period
between the murder of Zachariah, which was in the winter of the year 66,
and the march of Titus from Galilee to Jerusalem, before which place he
pitched his camp in the month of March, in A. D. 70. The precise point
of time in these three years it is impossible to fix; but it was, very
probably, within a short time after the commission of the bloody crimes
to which he refers; perhaps in the beginning of the year 67.
This view of these passages and the circumstances to which they
refer, with all the arguments which support the inferences drawn
from them, may be found in Hug’s Introduction, (Vol. II. § 4.)
He dates Matthew’s gospel much later than most writers do; it
being commonly supposed to have been written in the year 41, or
in the year 61. Michaelis makes an attempt to reconcile these
conjectures, by supposing that it was written in Hebrew by
Matthew, in A. D. 41, and translated in 61. But this is a mere
guess, for which he does not pretend to assign a reason, and
only says that he “can see no impropriety in supposing so.”
(Introduction, III. iv. 1, 2.)
Eichhorn suggests, that a reason for concluding that Matthew
wrote his gospel a long time after the events which he relates,
is implied in the expression used in chap. xxvii. 8, and xxviii.
15. “It is so called, _to this day_,”――“It is commonly reported,
_to this day_,”――are expressions which, to any reader, convey
the idea of many years intervening between the incidents and
the time of their narration. In xxvii. 15, also, the explanation
which he gives of the custom of releasing a prisoner to the
Jews on the feast-day, implies that the custom had been so
long out of date, as to be probably forgotten by most of his
readers, unless their memories were refreshed by this distinct
explanation.