NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Massacre of the Innocents

The Massacre of the Innocents is an alleged episode of infanticide by Herod the Great, attested to in the Gospel of Matthew 2:16-18, but not mentioned in the other gospels nor in most of the early apocrypha. Image File history File links Giotto-innocents. ... Image File history File links Giotto-innocents. ... Giotto di Bondone (c. ... Peter Paul Rubens. ... In sociology and biology, infanticide is the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant of a given species, by members of the same species - often by the mother. ... Herod the Great. ... The Gospel of Matthew (literally, according to Matthew; Greek, ÎšÎ±Ï„Î¬ ÎœÎ±Î¸Î¸Î±Î¯Î¿Î½ or ÎšÎ±Ï„Î¬ ÎœÎ±Ï„Î¸Î±Î¯Î¿Î½, Kata Maththaion or Kata Matthaion) is a synoptic gospel in the New Testament, one of four canonical gospels. ... For the genre of Christian-themed music, see gospel music. ... Apocrypha (from the Greek word , meaning those having been hidden away[1]) are texts of uncertain authenticity or writings where the authorship is questioned. ...

Matthew relates that King Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the village of Bethlehem, so as to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn "King of the Jews" whose birth had been related to him by the Magi. Arabic Ø¨ÙŠØª Ù„ØÙ… Name Meaning House of Lambs Government City (from 1995) Also Spelled Beit Lahm (officially) Bayt Lahm (unofficially) Governorate Bethlehem Population 29,930 (2006) Jurisdiction 29,799 dunams (29. ... King of the Jews may refer to: One of several historical kings of the Jewish people; see Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah A title of the Jewish Messiah King Herod the Great, declared King of the Jews by the Roman Senate A title used to refer to Jesus... Three Kings, or Three Wise Men redirects here. ...

Many scholars portray this and other nativity stories as creative hagiography rather than history.^[1] Others, however, conclude that it really happened. Hagiography is the study of saints. ...

Church tradition

The episode

According to Matthew, when the Magi (popularly known as 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, feeling that his throne was in jeopardy, asked the Magi to find the child and return to tell him so that he may worship him, with the hidden intention of killing the identified child immediately. When the Magi, warned in dreams of the king's true intentions, returned home by a different route to avoid being forced to betray the child, Herod ordered the slaughter of all male children who were two years old and under.^[2] Fortunately for them, according to Matthew, Joseph, Mary and Jesus had fled to Egypt after they had been warned by an angel. Three Kings, or Three Wise Men redirects here. ... The Nativity by Caravaggio, 1609. ... King of the Jews may refer to: One of several historical kings of the Jewish people; see Kingdom of Israel and Kingdom of Judah A title of the Jewish Messiah King Herod the Great, declared King of the Jews by the Roman Senate A title used to refer to Jesus... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Satellite state. ... For other uses, see Saint Joseph (disambiguation). ... Saint Mary and Saint Mary the Virgin both redirect here. ... This article is about Jesus of Nazareth. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... This article is about the supernatural being. ...

The scale of the event

The passage specifically describes this event as happening in Bethlehem, which would probably have been a small village, and the surrounding rural areas. The Byzantine liturgy had 14,000 Holy Innocents and an early Syrian list of saints states that there were 64,000. The Catholic Encyclopedia states that these numbers were probably inflated, and that for a town of that size probably only between six and twenty children would be killed.

The prophecy of Jeremiah

According to the gospel of Matthew, the massacre fulfilled a verse of Jeremiah (31:15), interpreted as a prophecy of this event: "Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children." The Book of Jeremiah, or Jeremiah (×™Ö´×¨Ö°×žÖ°×™Ö¸×”×•Ö¼ YirmÉ™yÄhÅ« in Hebrew), is part of the Hebrew Bible, Judaisms Tanakh, and later became a part of Christianitys Old Testament. ...

Most modern Jews do not interpret the quotation as a prophecy at all, but as a poetic description of the Babylonian exile. This is reflected in the next verse, Jeremiah 31:16, in which God asks "Rachel" to stop crying, because her people "shall come again from the land of the enemy." The Babylonian captivity, or Babylonian exile, is the name generally given to the deportation and exile of the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. ...

Although the quotation in Matthew is from Jeremiah, the Old Syriac Sinaiticus referred to Isaiah. Some textual critics conclude that the mistake occurred in the original manuscript, and was corrected in later copies. A portion of the Codex Sinaiticus, containing Esther 2:3-8. ... Isaiah the Prophet in Hebrew Scriptures was depicted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo. ... Carmina Cantabrigiensia, Manuscript C, folio 436v, 11th century Textual criticism or lower criticism is a branch of philology or bibliography that is concerned with the identification and removal of errors from texts and manuscripts. ...

History

Currently there exists no historical or archaeological evidence of this event having actually happened aside from the account by Matthew in the Bible. The Jewish historian Josephus (c. 37-c.100) who wrote about the period, makes no mention of it. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2024x2023, 606 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Massacre of the Innocents ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (2024x2023, 606 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Massacre of the Innocents ... The Sienese School of painting flourished in Siena, Italy between the 13th and 15th centuries and for a time rivaled Florence, though it was more conservative, being inclined towards the decorative beauty and elegant grace of late Gothic art. ... A fanciful representation of Flavius Josephus, in an engraving in William Whistons translation of his works Josephus (37 â€“ sometime after 100 CE),[1] who became known, in his capacity as a Roman citizen, as Titus Flavius Josephus,[2] was a 1st-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and...

Matthew's nativity story, including the Massacre of the Innocents, is intended to show Jesus to be the prophesied Messiah, fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:15 and likening Jesus to Moses.^[3] Moses with the Tablets, 1659, by Rembrandt This article is about the Biblical figure. ...

The Massacre of the Innocents is not mentioned in the other gospels nor in the early apocrypha except for the Protoevangelium of James 22.^[4] Many scholars conclude that the account was invented to glorify Jesus.^[5] The Gospel of James, also sometimes known as the Infancy Gospel of James or the Protevangelium of James, is an apocryphal Gospel probably written about AD 150. ...

Some scholars have also suggested that the event was written into Matthew's account to mirror the story from Exodus regarding the killing of the Hebrew first born by Pharaoh. This was meant to show that Jesus was to be a new Moses, and would have readily been understood in this way by a Jewish audience.

Moreover, the theme of a cruel king perceiving a newborn baby to be a threat and seeking to kill the baby was very common in the myths of the ancient world, forming the cultural milieu in which the New Testament was composed, and many prominent figures had such a legend attributed to their birth^{[citation needed]}.

Defending the massacre's authenticity

Some scholars and Christian supporters defend the massacre as something that Herod was cruel enough to do and small enough to pass without remark outside the Gospel of Matthew.

Josephus records Herod's execution of two of his sons and his wife Mariamne because he believed they posed a threat.^[6] The execution of the two sons, whom 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. Dr. Robert H. Eisenman is a Professor of Middle East Religions and Archaeology and Director of the Institute for the Study of Judeo-Christian Origins at California State University, Long Beach; and Visiting Senior Member of Linacre College, Oxford University. ...

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.”^[7] "Such a massacre," it has been observed, "is indeed quite in keeping with the character of Herod, who did not hesitate to put to death any who might be a threat to his power."^[8]

The Catholic Encyclopedia speculates about the reason Josephus did not include an account of the slaughter: "…St. Matthew's positive statement is not contradicted by the mere silence of Josephus; for the latter follows Nicholas of Damascus, to whom, as a courtier, Herod was a hero." It also cites Maas: "Cruel as the slaughter may appear to us, it disappears among the cruelties of Herod. It cannot, then, surprise us that history does not speak of it".^[9] Nicolaus of Damascus (NikolÄos DamaskÄ“nos) was a Greek historical and philosophical writer who lived in the Augustan Age. ...

Extra-biblical references

Assumption of Moses

This passage from the Assumption of Moses, dating to the first century, has been interpreted as a reference to the massacre of the innocents. E. Stauffer wrote, “Therefore the paragraph about the murder of ‘the young’ can only be pointing to a massacre of children en masse in the Pharaonic manner.”^[10] The Hasmoneans (Hebrew: , Hashmonaiym, Audio) were the ruling dynasty of the Hasmonean Kingdom (140 BCEâ€“37 BCE),[1] an autonomous Jewish state in ancient Israel. ... The Assumption of Moses (otherwise called the Testament of Moses) is a Jewish apocryphal pseudepigraphical work of uncertain date and authorship. ...

Macrobius

In the fourth century, the Roman philosopher Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius gave the following comment in his Saturnalia: Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Roman grammarian and Neoplatonist philosopher, flourished during the reigns of Honorius and Arcadius (395â€“423). ...

It was probably a pun in Greek: hus being pig and huios meaning son. Macrobius places the massacre in the Roman province of Syria (which at that time included Judaea) and combines it with the separate killing of one of Herod's sons. However, since Herod, as a nominal adherent to Judaism, would not eat pork, his pigs were safe, unlike his sons.

In art

Medieval mystery plays recounted Biblical events, including Herod's slaughter of the innocents. One in particular, The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, performed in Coventry, England, included a haunting song about the episode, now known as the Coventry Carol. The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years. ... Rubens may be: Look up Rubenesqe in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Mystery plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. ... The Coventry Carol is a Christmas carol dating from the 16th Century. ...

The theme of the "Massacre of the Innocents" has provided artists of many nationalities 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.^[11] The horrific subject matter of the Massacre of the Innocents also provided a comparison of ancient brutalities with early modern ones during the period of religious wars that followed the Reformation. Lapith and a Centaur: a metope from the Parthenon In Greek mythology, the Lapiths were a legendary race, whose home was in Thessaly on the mountain Pelion. ... This article is about the mythological creatures. ...

Three artists of 3 distinct European ethnicities figure into this early seventeenth century fascination with the topic as Catholics and Protestants slaughtered each other. First, Italian painter Guido Reni's early (1611) Massacre of the Innocents, in an unusual vertical format, is at Bologna.^[12] Second, Flemish painter 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.^[13] Another, his grand Massacre of the Innocents is now at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Third and finally, from 1632 through 1634, French painter Nicolas Poussin painted The Massacre of the Innocents at the height of the Thirty Years' War. Autoportrait Abduction of Deianira, 1620-21 Guido Reni (November 4, 1575, Calvenzano di Vergato, near Bologna - August 18, 1642, Bologna) was a prominent Italian painter of high-Baroque style. ... Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 â€“ May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish and European painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. ... Peter Paul Rubens. ... The main entrance to the AGO The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is an art museum on the eastern edge of Torontos downtown Chinatown district, on Dundas Street West between McCaul Street and Beverley Street. ... Poussin redirects here. ...

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. For other uses, see Camus. ...

A rather similar interpretation is given in José Saramago's controversial The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, but there attributed to Joseph, Jesus' father, rather than to Jesus himself. As depicted by Saramago, Joseph knew of Herod's intention to massacre the children of Bethlehem, but failed to warn the townspeople and chose only to save his own child. Guilt-ridden ever after, Joseph finally expiates his sin by letting himself be crucified (an event not narrated in the New Testament). This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (original title: O Evangelho Segundo Jesus Cristo) is a novel by the Portuguese author JosÃ© Saramago. ...

Feast days

The commemoration of the massacre of these "Holy Innocents"—considered by some Christians as the first martyrs for Christ^[14]—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 or 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 slaughtered children on December 28; and the Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates them on December 29 (using the Julian calendar). For other uses, see Martyr (disambiguation). ... An image from the Sacramentary of Charles the Bald (Sacramentary of Metz) of about 870 The Sacramentary is a book containing the prayers that the priest recited at Mass. ... Events Peter the Fuller is excommunicated by a synod in Rome. ... December 27 is the 361st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (362nd in leap years). ... Catholic Church redirects here. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Church of England logo since 1998 The Church of England is the officially established Christian church[1] in England, and acts as the mother and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion. ... The Lutheran movement is a group of denominations of Protestant Christianity by the original definition. ... is the 362nd day of the year (363rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Topics in Christianity Movements Â· Denominations Ecumenism Â· Relation to other religions Preaching Â· Prayer Music Â· Liturgy Â· Calendar Symbols Â· Art Â· Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul Â· Church Fathers Constantine Â· Athanasius Â· Augustine Anselm Â· Aquinas Â· Palamas Luther Â· Calvin Â· Wesley Arius Â· Marcion of Sinope Archbishop of Canterbury Â· Pope Coptic Pope Â· Ecumenical Patriarch Christianity Portal This box: The... is the 363rd day of the year (364th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Julian calendar was a reform of the Roman calendar which was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and came into force in 45 BC (709 ab urbe condita). ...

In Spain and Ibero-America, December 28 is a day for pranks, equivalent to April Fool's Day in many countries. Pranks are known as inocentadas and their victims are called inocentes, or alternatively, the pranksters are the "inocentes" and the victims should not be angry at them, since they could not have committed any "sin". Various Catholic countries have a tradition (no longer widely observed) of role reversal between children and their adult educators, plausibly a christinianized version of the Roman annual feast of the Saturnalia (when even slaves played 'masters' for a day). In some cultures it is said to be an unlucky day, when no new project should be started. Ibero-America is a term used to refer collectively to the countries in the Americas which were formerly colonies of Spain or Portugal. ... is the 362nd day of the year (363rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... For other uses, see Saturnalia (disambiguation). ...

Notes

^ Paul L. Maier, "Herod and the Infants of Bethlehem", in Chronos, Kairos, Christos II, Mercer University Press (1998), 171
^ That criterion 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.
^ Harris, Stephen L. Understanding the Bible, 2nd Ed. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. 274
^ Protoevangelium of James at newadvent.org.
^ Robert Eisenman, James The Brother of Jesus, 1997, I.3 "Romans, Herodians and Jewish sects" discusses Mariamne, the last representative of the Maccabean line, by whom Herod had two sons, whom he put to death. "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!" (p. 49); see also E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, 87-88
^ Josephus, The Jewish War I.535–7 and Jewish Antiquities 16.121–7, 356.
^ Josephus, Antiquities 15.2.
^ Francis Wright Beare, The Gospel According to Matthew, Camelot Press, Southampton, 1981.
^ Maas, "Life of Christ" (1897), 38 (note); the author shows, as others have done, that the number of children slain may not have been very great
^ E. Stauffer, Jesus and His Story (London: SCM, 1960), 39.
^ Getty Collection
^ Reni's painting at the Web Gallery of Art
^ The Massacre of the Innocents in Cuzco Cathedral is clearly influenced by Rubens. See CODART Courant, Dec 2003, 12. (2.5 MB pdf download)
^ Feast of the Holy Innocents, Encyclopædia Britannica

Stephen L Harris is Professor and Chair, Department of Humanities and Religious Studies at California State University, Sacramento. ...

References

William Foxwell Albright (May 24, 1891 - September 19/20, 1971) was an evangelical Methodist archaelogist, biblical authority, linguist and expert on ceramics. ... The Anchor Bible Series is a scholarly and commercial co-venture that has been setting a high standard since the early 1960s, when individual volumes of the series began publication. ... Eduard Schweizer was a Swiss New Testament scholar who taught at the University of Zurich for an extended period. ...

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