QUESTION 1

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, {30} And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. {31} Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. {32} Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers." (Mat 23:29-32)

What is Jesus most ptobebly referring to when he says: "Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers"?

ANSWER 1

Jesus spoke these words shortly before His passion, death and resurrection. His murder would be arranged by the children who killed the prophets, but they were to murder no mere prophet, but the God-man, the Son of David. this act of wickesness truly "filled up the cup" of their fathers - it was infinitely worse and more wicked.

QUESTION 2

"That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." (Matthew 23:35)

Who was Zacharias? Describe the circumstances of his death, and a miracle that occured as a testament against his murder.

ANSWER 2

St Zacharias was the son of St John the Baptist. When Herod desired to kill all the infants in Bethlehem and the surrounding area, he tried to kill the Holy Baptist John. the boy had fled into the hills with his mother, as Zacharias was fulfilling his priestly obligatoins in the temple in Jerusalem. He refused to tell the whereabouts of his son, and was slain. his blood stainsed the stones in the courtyard, and could not be washed out.