Massacre of the Innocents

The Gospel of Matthew tells how the Magi visit Jerusalem to seek guidance as to where the king of the Jews has been born; King Herod directs them to Bethlehem and asks them to return to him and report, but they are warned in a dream that Herod wishes to find the child and kill him, and do not do so. Matthew continues:

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.

— Matthew 2:16

This is followed by a reference to and quotation from the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:15) (Jeremiah 31:14 in the Hebrew Bible): "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." (Matthew 2:17–18). The relevance of this to the massacre is not immediately apparent, as Jeremiah's next verses go on to speak of hope and restoration.[4]

The story of the massacre is found in no gospel other than Matthew, nor is it mentioned in the surviving works of Nicolaus of Damascus (who was a personal friend of Herod the Great), nor in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, despite his recording many of Herod's misdeeds, including the murder of three of his own sons.[2] The early 5th-century account of Macrobius–that "on hearing that the son of Herod, king of the Jews, had been slain when Herod ordered that all boys in Syria under the age of two be killed, [Augustus] said, 'It’s better to be Herod’s pig than his son'"–has been discounted as extra-biblical evidence for the event due to its later authorship, possible influence by the gospel narrative, and the confused nature of the account.[5] In view of the lack of independent confirmation that the event ever occurred, many scholars consider it folklore inspired by Herod's reputation.[6] Despite this, historian Paul L. Maier has contended that the story's invention would have been a liability for Christians and–by pointing to Herod's violent actions and plans–argued that "one of the most doubted episodes in the New Testament has stronger historical credibility than it has thus far been accorded in critical scholarship."[7]

The author appears to have modeled the episode on the biblical story of Pharaoh's attempt to kill the Israelite children in the Book of Exodus, as told in an expanded version that was current in the 1st century.[8] In that expanded story, Pharaoh kills the Hebrew children after his scribes warn him of the impending birth of the threat to his crown (i.e., Moses), but Moses' father and mother are warned in a dream that the child's life is in danger and act to save him.[9] Later in life, after Moses has to flee, like Jesus, he returns when those who sought his death are themselves dead.[9]

The Greek liturgy asserts 14,000 Holy Innocents, while an early Syrian list of saints asserts 64,000. Coptic sources assert 144,000 and that it took place on 29 December.[10] The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907–1912, recognising that Bethlehem was too small a town to provide such numbers, reduced the victims to between six and twenty children in the town, with a dozen or so more in the surrounding areas.[lower-alpha 1]

Medieval liturgical drama recounted Biblical events, including Herod's slaughter of the innocents. 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 Ordo Rachelis tradition of four plays includes the Flight into Egypt, Herod's succession by Archelaus, the return from Egypt, as well as the Massacre, all centered on Rachel weeping in fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy. These events were likewise in one of the medieval N-Town Plays.

The "Coventry Carol" is a Christmas carol dating from the 16th century. The carol was performed in Coventry in England as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. The play depicts the Christmas story from chapter two in the Gospel of Matthew. The carol refers to the Massacre of the Innocents, in which Herod ordered all male infants two years old and under in Bethlehem to be killed.[11] The lyrics of this haunting carol represent a mother's lament for her doomed child. The author is unknown. The oldest known text was written down by Robert Croo in 1534, and the melody dates from 1591.[12] The carol is traditionally sung a cappella.

The 17th century Dutch Christmas song O Kerstnacht, schoner dan de dagen, while beginning with a reference to Christmas Night, is about the Massacre of the Innocents. In 1974, the Dutch progressive rock band Focus recorded the first two verses of the song for their album Hamburger Concerto.

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. It was an alternative to the Flight into Egypt in cycles of the Life of the Virgin. It decreased in popularity in Gothic art, but revived in the larger works of the Renaissance, when artists 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.[13] The horrific subject matter of the Massacre of the Innocents also provided a comparison of ancient brutalities with the brutalities of the early modern period, during the period of religious wars that followed the Reformation – Bruegel's versions show the soldiers carrying banners with the Habsburg double-headed eagle.[14]

The 1590 version by Cornelis van Haarlem also seems to reflect the violence of the Dutch Revolt. Guido Reni's early (1611) Massacre of the Innocents, in an unusual vertical format, is at Bologna.[15] The 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.[16] Another, his grand Massacre of the Innocents is now at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Ontario. The French painter Nicolas Poussin painted The Massacre of the Innocents (1634) at the height of the Thirty Years' War.

The Childermass, after a traditional name for the Feast of the Holy Innocents, is the opening novel of Wyndham Lewis's trilogy The Human Age. In the novel The Fall (La Chute) by Albert Camus, the 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. A similar interpretation is given in José Saramago's controversial The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, but there attributed to Joseph, Jesus' stepfather, 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).

The song "Long Way Around The Sea", from the 1999 Christmas EP by the indie-rock band Low, tells the story from the perspective of the magi during their journey from Herod to the newborn Jesus, and the warning from the angel not to return.

The Massacre is the opening plot used in the 2006 film The Nativity Story (2016). It is also dramatized in season 1 of the television miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977).

The Cornish poet Charles Causley used the subject for his poem The Innocents' Song, which as a folk song has been performed by Show of Hands with music by Johnny Coppin (on their album Witness); and by Keith Kendrick and Sylvia Needham.

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  Giotto, Massacre of the Innocents
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  Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Massacre of the Innocents
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  Cornelis van Haarlem, Massacre of the Innocents, 1590, Rijksmuseum
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  Rubens, Massacre of the Innocents, 1610–11, Toronto
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  Guido Reni, Massacre of the Innocents
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  Jacopo Tintoretto, Massacre of the Innocents
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  François-Joseph Navez, The massacre of the innocents, 1824
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  The scream from Ramah, 2001 stamp of the Faroe Islands
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  The Massacre of the Innocents at Bethlehem, by Matteo di Giovanni
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  Triumph of the Innocents by William Holman Hunt
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  10th-century illuminated manuscript

• Chapel of the Milk Grotto
• Church of the Nativity § Tombs
• Coventry Carol
• Flight into Egypt
• Jesus and Messianic prophecy § Jeremiah 31:15
• Star of Bethlehem