ZACHARIE, ZAKARIE. Zechariah was a prophet in Israel from the second year of King Darius's reign to the end of that reign, 520-485 B.C.

The Parson, condemning the rich adornment of horses, quotes Zechariah 10:5: "God seith by Zacharie the Prophete, 'I wol confounde the ryderes of swich horses,'" ParsT 434. The passage may have been influenced by Peraldus, Tractatus de viciis (1236). Zacharie calls the Virgin an open well to wash the sinful soul of his guilt, ABC 177-178. This is an interpretation of Zechariah 13:1: "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness." The ABC is a translation of the hymn to the Virgin in Guillaume de Deguilleville's Le Pèlerinage de la vie humaine (c. 1355).

Zacharie, the OF and ME variant, appears initially, ABC 177; Zakarie, a spelling variant, appears in ParsT 434.