The Massacre of the Innocents
Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents and Holy Family’s Flight to Egypt
King Herod had all Bethlehem boys under 2 murdered in an attempt to kill the new King of the Jews, but the Holy Family has fled to Egypt.
In his Gospel, Matthew writes that, on their way to visit the newborn Christ, the Magi had gone via Jerusalem, to King Herod, in Jerusalem.
Herodes, Hordos or Herod the Great stemmed from a wealthy Jerusalem family. He identified himself as a Jew but was friendly with the Roman invaders. When Judaea was conquered by the Parthians, he fled to Rome, where the Roman Senate elected him “King of the Jews”. He returned and conquered Judaea and ruled as a “client-King” from 30 BC to ca. 4 BC.
(Herod the Great should not be confused with his son and successor Herod Antipas, who according to Luke 23:6-12, mocked Christ at the Passion, asking him to perform a miracle, then sending him back to Pilate to be sentenced.)
Herod waived taxes and provided aid to his people, supported the Jews in Rome, and expanded the Second Temple in Jerusalem (he also financially helped the Olympics). But he also put to death his first wife, a brother-in-law, even one of his sons, and there were assassination attempts. Increasingly paranoid, he tried to silence the Pharisees, a Jewish group that announced that the coming of the Messiah would end his rule.
Matthew writes that the “Magi from the East” told Herod they were looking for “he that is born King of the Jews”. A troubled Herod consulted with his priests, who said the prophecy placed the newborn in Bethlehem. So Herod said to the Magi: “when you have found him, bring me word, that I also may come and worship him” (Matthew 2:8). But the Magi were warned by God and avoided Jerusalem.
So Herod ordered all male children in Bethlehem two years old and younger executed (Matthew 2:16). This is called the “Slaughter” or “Massacre of the Innocents”. In the meantime, though, an angel had warned Joseph to take his family and flee to Egypt.
Did this really happen? The earliest mention is in the Saturnalia by Macrobius, a 4th century Roman philosopher, where all 2-year-old boys in the whole of Syria, including the king’s own son, are killed off. A Syrian text counts 64,000 Innocents, the current Byzantine liturgy 14,000. But Bethlehem being a small town, the number of victims was no higher than 20. Perhaps this is why sources more contemporary with Matthew didn’t find the event worth mentioning.
Still, Christians commemorate those children as the “first martyrs” with the Feast of the Massacre of the Innocents, on 28 December.
