Massacre of the Innocents

''For the painting by Peter Paul Rubens, see "Massacre of the Innocents (Rubens)".

The Massacre of the Innocents is the name given to the infanticide in Bethlehem mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, but not mentioned in the other gospels nor in the early apocrypha. According to Christian tradition, the described events fulfilled a prophecy of Jeremiah.

According to Matthew, when the Three Wise Men sought out the birth of Jesus, they first visited Herod the Great to ask if he knew the correct location. On hearing the Magi ask for He that is born King of the Jews, Herod, the Roman client-king in Judea, felt his throne was in jeopardy, and so ordered the slaughter of all male children who were two years old and under, which probably actually refers to people under just 12 months old, as the likely Hebrew origin of the phrase would refer to people who haven't started their second year. Fortunately for them, according to Matthew, Joseph, Mary and Jesus had fled to Egypt after they had been warned by an angel.

The passage specifically describes this event as happening to the rural areas around the village of Bethlehem, and Bethlehem itself, which would likely have been a small village. The Byzantine liturgy had 14,000 Holy Innocents and an early Syrian list of saints states that there were 64,000.

Historicity

Matthew identifies a prophetic allusion from Jeremiah 31:15. The Massacre of the Innocents is not mentioned in the other gospels nor in the early apocrypha.

Josephus records Herod's execution of two of his sons by his wife Mariamne because he believed they posed a threat. (The Jewish War (I.535–7) and Jewish Antiquities (16.121–7, 356). The execution of the two sons, who Josephus describes as young men, has been represented by Robert Eisenman as the original that inspired the account in Matthew, since his two sons were the Jewish children that Herod believed had sought to replace him.

Josephus records several examples of Herod’s willingness to commit such acts to protect his power against perceived threats, but suggests that not all such acts were recorded, as he summarizes that Herod “never stopped avenging and punishing every day those who had chosen to be of the party of his enemies.” Antiquities 15.2.

The earliest extrabiblical reference to the Massacre of the Innocents is by Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, a Roman philosopher of the 4th century. The reference is found in Macrobius’ The Saturnalia:

When Augustus heard that Herod king of the Jews had ordered all the boys in Syria under the age of two years to be put to death and that the king's son was among those killed, he said, "I'd rather be Herod's pig than Herod’s son." -Macrobius, The Saturnalia, trans. Percival Davies (New York 1969), page 171.

It was probably a pun in Greek: hus being pig and huios meaning son. Macrobius places the massacre in a Syrian province and combines it with the separate killing of one of Herod's sons. Palestine was considered a Syrian province during Roman occupation and could justify Macrobius' use of Syria.

It is also worth noting that the Book of Matthew's account of the Massacre of the Innocents bears close resemblance to a similar event in the life of Moses, as told in Exodus 1:15-22. The Pharaoh, concerned with the growing number of Israelites, gives a command that Hebrew midwives kill all boys, and later that all his subjects throw baby boys into the Nile. Also in the Matthew account, Joseph is warned in a dream to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt from Herod's wrath. Luke, the only other gospel to address the birth of Jesus, does not mention either event.

The prophecy of Jeremiah

The massacre of the innocents is explained by Matthew as fulfilling a prophecy of an old testament prophet, which most ancient manuscripts of Matthew identify as Jeremiah, but the Old Syriac Sinaiticus manuscript has it being Isaiah. The quotation is clearly based on Jeremiah 31:15, so identifying the quote as from Isaiah is a clear error, though some scholars feel this error was in the original text of Matthew, as in this case preserved by the Old Syriac Sinaiticus, with the text being corrected by later copyists.

In art

The theme of the "Massacre of the Innocents" has provided artists with opportunities to compose complicated depictions of massed bodies in violent action. Artists of the Renaissance took inspiration for their "Massacres" from Roman reliefs of the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs to the extent that they showed the figures heroically nude Guido Reni's early (1611) Massacre of the Innocents, in an unusual vertical format, is at Bologna [http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/r/reni/1/innocent.html.

Peter Paul Rubens painted the theme more than once. One version, now in Munich, was engraved and reproduced as a painting as far away as colonial Peru ^*. Another, his grand Massacre of the Innocents is now at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.

In the famous novel The Fall by Albert Camus, this incident is argued by the main character to be the reason why Jesus chose to let himself be crucified - as he escaped the punishment intended for him while many others died, he felt responsible and died in guilt.

Feast days

The commemoration of the massacre of these "Holy Innocents" -- considered by Christians as the first martyrs for Christ -- first appears as a feast of the western church in the Leonine Sacramentary, dating from about 485. The feast is also called Childermas, Children's Mass, and Holy Innocents' Day, and is celebrated on different dates by different traditions: The Syrians and Chaldeans commemorate them on December 27; the Roman Catholic Church (using red vestments on this day since 1961, and violet or red with older missals), the Church of England, and the Lutheran Church commemorate the children on December 28; and the Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates them on December 29.

In Spain and Ibero-America, December 28 is a day for pranks, equivalent to April Fool's Day in many countries. Prank victims are called inocentes. In some cultures it is said to be an unlucky day and no new project should be started.

References

Albright, W.F. and C.S. Mann. "Matthew." The Anchor Bible Series. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1971.
Clarke, Howard W. The Gospel of Matthew and its Readers: A Historical Introduction to the First Gospel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003.
Robert Eisenman, 1997. James the Brother of Jesus : The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Viking/Penguin)
Goulder, M.D. Midrash and Lection in Matthew. London: SPCK, 1974.
Jones, Alexander. The Gospel According to St. Matthew. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1965.
Schweizer, Eduard. The Good News According to Matthew. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975

External links

Catholic Encyclopedia: Holy Innocents
Images of the "Massacre of the Innocents"