In the group ranged that autumn morning around the superintending Priest was one, on whom the snows of at least sixty winters had fallen. [633] But never during these many years had he been honoured with the office of incensing - and it was perhaps well he should have learned, that this distinction came direct from God. Yet the venerable figure of Zacharias must have been well known in the Temple. For, each course was twice a year on ministry, and, unlike the Levites, the priests were not disqualified by age, but only by infirmity. In many respects he seemed different from those around. His home was not in either of the great priest-centres - the Ophel-quarter in Jerusalem, nor in Jericho [634] - but in some small town in those uplands, south of Jerusalem: the historic hill-country of Judea.' And yet he might have claimed distinction. To be a priest, and married to the daughter of a priest, was supposed to convey twofold honour. [635] That he was surrounded by relatives and friends, and that he was well known and respected throughout his district, appears incidentally from the narrative. [636] It would, indeed, have been strange had it been otherwise. There was much in the popular habits of thought, as well as in the office and privileges of the Priesthood, if worthily represented, to invest it with a veneration which the aggressive claims of Rabbinism could not wholly monopolise. And in this instance Zacharias and Elisabeth, his wife, were truly righteous,' [637] in the sense of walking, so far as man could judge, blamelessly,' alike in those commandments which were specially binding on Israel, and in those statutes that were of universal bearing on mankind. [638] No doubt their piety assumed in some measure the form of the time, being, if we must use the expression, Pharisaic, though in the good, not the evil sense of it.
There is much about those earlier Rabbis - Hillel, Gamaliel, and others - to attract us, and their spirit ofttimes sharply contrasts with the narrow bigotry, the self-glory, and the unspiritual externalism of their successors. We may not unreasonably infer, that the Tsaddiq in the quiet home of the hill-country was quite other than the self-asserting Rabbi, whose dress and gait, voice and manner, words and even prayers, were those of the religious parvenu, pushing his claims to distinction before angels and men. Such a household as that of Zacharias and Elisabeth would have all that was beautiful in the religion of the time: devotion towards God; a home of affection and purity; reverence towards all that was sacred in things Divine and human; ungrudging, self-denying, loving charity to the poor; the tenderest regard for the feelings of others, so as not to raise a blush, nor to wound their hearts; [639] above all, intense faith and hope in the higher and better future of Israel. Of such, indeed, there must have been not a few in the land - the quiet, the prayerful, the pious, who, though certainly not Sadducees nor Essenes, but reckoned with the Pharisaic party, waited for the consolation of Israel, and received it with joy when manifested. Nor could aught more certainly have marked the difference between the one and the other section than on a matter, which must almost daily, and most painfully have forced itself on Zacharias and Elisabeth. There were among the Rabbis those who, remembering the words of the prophet, [640] spoke in most pathetic language of the wrong of parting from the wife of youth, [641] and there were those to whom the bare fact of childlessness rendered separation a religious duty. [642] Elisabeth was childless. For many a year this must have been the burden of Zacharias' prayer; the burden also of reproach, which Elisabeth seemed always to carry with her. They had waited together these many years, till in the evening of life the flower of hope had closed its fragrant cup; and still the two sat together in the twilight, content to wait in loneliness, till night would close around them.