It had been a long time. History seemed more moribund and leaden than ever. Hope was either frozen or fanatic. Cynicism was the daily fare and optimism the dream of fools. So it was in those days of long ago. But now there was a stirring in history's corridors -- not in the throne rooms of Rome or Alexandria, not in the libraries of Athens or the armies of Caesar -- but in little backwater towns of a troublesome, rebellious, backwater country. The first of the stirrings began in Jerusalem with a tired old priest, childless and lonely in his old age, enduring the oppression of his time with his barren wife Elizabeth. While attending to his priestly duties of burning incense at the Temple altar, the old priest Zechariah had a startling vision. The archangel Gabriel appeared to him and said, …