He was an Israelite priest (not the high priest, as is commonly asserted in the Protoevangelium of James [v.] and by many of the Fathers such as St Epiphanius, St Ambrose, St Augustine, and St Bede), of the class of Abijah [v.], husband of St Elizabeth [v.], who was barren.
While officiating one day, in the time of Herod the Great, Z. was offering incense on the altar of incense in the Temple of Jerusalem, when the angel Gabriel [v.] appeared to him and promised him the birth of a son, whom he was to call John, and who would be the precursor of the Messiah. Z., doubting, asked for a sign and received one that was also a punishment, being struck dumb (and perhaps also deaf) until the angelic promise was fulfilled (Lk 1:5-25). Z. received the Virgin Mary into his home (probably at ‘Ain Karim [v.]), where she assisted Elizabeth during the last three months of her pregnancy. At the circumcision of the promised son, when asked what name should be given him, Z. wrote on a tablet: “His name is John,” and, having recovered his speech, he praised God with the Benedictus [v.]: Lk 1:40, 57-
80. Feast: 5 Nov
See pl. CLVIII.APOCALYPSE OF ZACHARIAS. - Apocryphal work mentioned in De LX libris et quinam extra illos sunt (PG 1, 516) between the Apocalypse of Zephaniah and that of Ezra. The Stichometry of Nicephorus (11th cent.) also lists among the Old-Testament apocrypha a book of “Zacharias, father of John,” of 500 stichs. It would therefore concern the father of the Precursor.
There are indeed various remnants of a legend about Z., father of the Baptist; traditions regarding Z.’s death amplify the saying of Jesus (Mt 23:35; Lk 11:51) about Z. “slain between the sanctuary and the altar.” Thus the unoriginal (non-original) ending of the Protoevangelium of James (chs. 22-24) tells how Z. was slain by Herod and his blood (not his body) found in the temple. A. Berendts maintains that the Apocalypse of Z. was written in the 3rd or 4th cent. and included, besides this ending, the Account of the Birth of John the Baptist and of the Slaying of his Father Z., which he discovered in the Russian Četij Minei under 5 Sept. But since an Apocalypse cannot be the title of a narrative work, Bardenhewer admits that there may also have existed an apocryphon on Z. the prophet of the Old Testament; of this, however, no trace is to be found.