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

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

The Massacre

According to the Gospel of Matthew 2:16–18:

"When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” — New International Version.

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. He ordered the murder of all male children in Bethlehem under the age of two, to be secure. However, Joseph, Mary and Jesus had fled to Egypt after they had been warned by an angel, the theme of the "Flight into Egypt."

Jesus was not an infant, but a toddler, at the time of the Massacre. The amount of time the Magi would have needed to complete their journey to Bethlehem, Jesus would have been between one and two years old, therefore Herod would order the death of boys two years and younger.Matthew 2 repeatedly refers to Jesus as "the young child."

The imagery of the Nativity was popularized by Francis of Assisi, though no

Historicity

Though many readers follow the author of Matthew in identifying a prophetic allusion from Jeremiah 31:15, others see this episode as expressly crafted for the purpose of recording apparently fulfilled prophecy. The Massacre of the Innocents is not mentioned in the other gospels nor in the early apocrypha. Nor is the episode mentioned by Josephus, who among other atrocities, records Herod's execution of two of his sons by his wife Marianme because he believed they posed a threat. (The Jewish War (I.535–7) and Jewish Antiquities (16.121–7, 356). The episode was notorious and displeased Herod's patrons in Rome.

The execution of the two sons, who Josephus describes as the “young men,” has been represented by Robert Eisenman as the original that inspired the account in Matthew: "Here Herod really did kill all the Jewish children who sought to replace him, as Matthew 2:17 would have it, but these were rather his own children with Maccabean blood." (Eisenman 1997 p. 49). Other scholars, however, note that Herod’s murder of the “young men” reveals the deep-seated suspicion and jealousy that Matthew portrays as Herod’s motivation for the Massacre of the Innocents and therefore renders the account “historically plausible.” (Witherington 2001 p. 71). 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

It was probably a pun in Greek: hus being pig and huios meaning son.

Unlike Matthew, 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. Because of Macrobius’ conflation of two different accounts and the fact that he shows no other signs of dependence on Matthew, New Testament scholar Paul Barnett has posited that Macrobius was relying on an independent source. (Barnett 1993 p. 103). However, given the popularity of Matthew among Christians, the spread of Christianity by that time, and the late date in which Macrobius wrote, Raymond E. Brown conclude that Macrobius' reference is derivative of the Matthean account, though not directly dependent on it.

If the event is historical, given the small size of "Bethlehem and its vicinity," it did not involve a large number of boys age two and under. Albright estimates the area had about 300 people at the time. Brown notes that the population may have been no more than a thousand. Given the birth rate and high infant mortality rate of the time, either of these figures would mean at most only a few dozen children killed. This would not have been a particularly large atrocity for the period in general and Herod in particular and thus might have escaped mention by Josephus and others.

The early churches had much higher estimates for the number killed. The Byzantine liturgy had 14,000 Holy Innocents and an early Syrian list of saints states that there were 64,000. Modern scholars consider these numbers implausible.

Feast days

The commemoration of the massacre of these "Holy Innocents" -- considered 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 faith 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 Iberoamerica, 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.

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 .

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 hectic Massacre of the Innocents is one of the most valuable paintings in the world, after being purchased by Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet for £49.5 million GBP (then equal to some $76.7 million USD) at a 2002 Sotheby's auction (see List of most expensive paintings). This painting was donated to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto by Kenneth Thomson.

References

• Paul Barnett, 1993. Is the New Testament Reliable? (ISBN: 0830818340)
• Robert Eisenman, 1997. James the Brother of Jesus : The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Viking/Penguin)
• Ben Witherington, 2001. New Testament History: A Narrative Account (Baker Academic)

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