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| The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.
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Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of
Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.
1. When
Christ was born, according to the prophecies, in Bethlehem of Judea, at
the time indicated, Herod was not a little disturbed by the enquiry of
the magi who came from the east, asking where he who was born King of
the Jews was to be found,—for they had seen his star, and this
was their reason for taking so long a journey; for they earnestly
desired to worship the infant as God,144
| 144 οἷα θεῷ
προσκυνῆσαι. Eusebius adds the words οἷα θεῷ,
which are not found in Matt. ii.
2 and 11, where προσκυνῆσαι
is used. | —for he
imagined that his kingdom might be endangered; and he enquired
therefore of the doctors of the law, who belonged to the Jewish nation,
where they expected Christ to be born. When he learned that the
prophecy of Micah145
announced that
Bethlehem was to be his birthplace he commanded, in a single edict, all
the male infants in Bethlehem, and all its borders, that were two years
of age or less, according to the time which he had accurately
ascertained from the magi, to be slain, supposing that Jesus, as was
indeed likely, would share the same fate as the others of his own
age.
2. But the child anticipated the
snare, being carried into Egypt by his parents, who had learned from an
angel that appeared unto them what was about to happen. These things
are recorded by the Holy Scriptures in the Gospel.146
3. It is worth while, in
addition to this, to observe the reward which Herod received for his
daring crime against Christ and those of the same age. For immediately,
without the least delay, the divine vengeance overtook him while he was
still alive, and gave him a foretaste of what he was to receive after
death.
4. It is not possible to relate
here how he tarnished the supposed felicity of his reign by successive
calamities in his family, by the murder of wife and children, and
others of his nearest relatives and dearest friends.147
| 147 Herod’s reign was very successful and prosperous, and for
most of the time entirely undisturbed by external troubles; but his
domestic life was embittered by a constant succession of tragedies
resulting from the mutual jealousies of his wives (of whom he had ten)
and of their children. Early in his reign he slew Hyrcanus, the
grandfather of his best-loved wife Mariamne, upon suspicion of treason;
a little later, Mariamne herself was put to death; in 6 b.c. her sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, were condemned
and executed; and in 4 b.c., but a few days
before his death, Antipater, his eldest son, who had been instrumental
in the condemnation of Alexander and Aristobulus, was also slain by his
orders. These murders were accompanied by many others of friends and
kindred, who were constantly falling under suspicion of
treason. | The account, which casts every other
tragic drama into the shade, is detailed at length in the histories of
Josephus.148
5. How, immediately after his
crime against our Saviour and the other infants, the punishment sent by
God drove him on to his death, we can best learn from the words of that
historian who, in the seventeenth book of his Antiquities of the Jews,
writes as follows concerning his end:149
| 149 Josephus, Ant. XVII. 6. 5. |
6. “But the disease of
Herod grew more severe, God inflicting punishment for his crimes. For a
slow fire burned in him which was not so apparent to those who touched
him, but augmented his internal distress; for he had a terrible desire
for food which it was not possible to resist. He was affected also with
ulceration of the intestines, and with especially severe pains in the
colon, while a watery and transparent humor settled about his
feet.
7. He suffered also from a
similar trouble in his abdomen. Nay more, his privy member was
putrefied and produced worms. He found also excessive difficulty in
breathing, and it was particularly disagreeable because of the
offensiveness of the odor and the rapidity of respiration.
8. He had convulsions also in
every limb, which gave him uncontrollable strength. It was said,
indeed, by those who possessed the power of divination and wisdom to
explain such events, that God had inflicted this punishment upon the
King on account of his great impiety.”
9. The writer mentioned above
recounts these things in the work referred to. And in the second book
of his History he gives a similar account of the same Herod, which runs
as follows:150
| 150 B.
J. I. 33. 5 and 6. | “The disease then seized upon his
whole body and distracted it by various torments. For he had a slow
fever, and the itching of the skin of his whole body was insupportable.
He suffered also from continuous pains in his colon, and there were
swellings on his feet like those of a person suffering from dropsy,
while his abdomen was inflamed and his privy member so putrefied as to
produce worms. Besides this he could breathe only in an upright
posture, and then only with difficulty, and he had convulsions in all
his limbs, so that the diviners said that his diseases were a
punishment.151
| 151 ποινὴν
εἰναι τὰ
νοσήματα
λέγειν.
Josephus, according to the text of Hudson, reads ποινὴν
εἶναι τῶν
σοφιστῶν τὰ
νοσήματα
λέγειν, which is
translated by Traill, “pronounced his maladies a judgment for his
treatment of the Sophists.” Nicephorus (H. E. I. 15)
agrees with Eusebius in omitting the words τῶν
σοφιστῶν, but he is not an independent witness. Whether Hudson’s
text is supported at this point by strong ms.
authority I do not know. If the words stood in the original of
Josephus, we may suppose that they were accidentally omitted by
Eusebius himself or by one of his copyists, or that they were thrown
out in order to make Josephus’ statement better correspond with
his own words in Ant. XVII. 6, quoted just above, where his
disease is said to have been a result of his impiety in general, not of
any particular exhibition of it.
On the other hand, the
omission of the words in Ant. XVII. 6 casts at least a suspicion
on their genuineness, and if we were to assume that the words did not
occur in the original text of Josephus, it would be very easy to
understand their insertion by some copyist, for in the previous
paragraph the historian has been speaking of the Sophists, and of
Herod’s cruel treatment of them. |
10. But he, although wrestling
with such sufferings, nevertheless clung to life and hoped for safety,
and devised methods of cure. For instance, crossing over Jordan he used
the warm baths at Callirhoë,152
| 152 Callirhoë was a town just east of the Dead Sea. | which flow into
the Lake Asphaltites,153
| 153 τὴν
᾽Ασφαλτῖτιν
λίμνην. This is
the name by which Josephus commonly designates the Dead Sea. The same
name occurs also in Diodorus Siculus (II. 48, XIX. 98). | but are themselves
sweet enough to drink.
11. His physicians here thought
that they could warm his whole body again by means of heated oil. But
when they had let him down into a tub filled with oil, his eyes became
weak and turned up like the eyes of a dead person. But when his
attendants raised an outcry, he recovered at the noise; but finally,
despairing of a cure, he commanded about fifty drachms to be
distributed among the soldiers, and great sums to be given to his
generals and friends.
12. Then returning he came to
Jericho, where, being seized with melancholy, he planned to commit an
impious deed, as if challenging death itself. For, collecting from
every town the most illustrious men of all Judea, he commanded that
they be shut up in the so-called hippodrome.
13. And having summoned
Salome,154
his sister, and her husband, Alexander,155
| 155 Alexander, the third husband of Salome, is always called Alexas by
Josephus. | he said: ‘I know that the Jews will
rejoice at my death. But I may be lamented by others and have a
splendid funeral if you are willing to perform my commands. When I
shall expire surround these men, who are now under guard, as quickly as
possible with soldiers, and slay them, in order that all Judea and
every house may weep for me even against their will.’”156
| 156 B.
J.I. 13. 6 (cf. Ant. XVII. 6. 5).
This terrible story rests upon the authority of Josephus alone, but is
so in keeping with Herod’s character that we have no reason to
doubt its truth. The commands of Herod, however, were not carried out,
the condemned men being released after his death by Salome (see
ibid. §8). |
14. And after a little Josephus
says, “And again he was so tortured by want of food and by a
convulsive cough that, overcome by his pains, he planned to anticipate
his fate. Taking an apple he asked also for a knife, for he was
accustomed to cut apples and eat them. Then looking round to see that
there was no one to hinder, he raised his right hand as if to stab
himself.”157
| 157 B.
J.I. 33. 7 (cf. Ant. XVII. 7).
Herod’s suicide was prevented by his cousin Achiabus, as Josephus
informs us in the same connection. |
15. In addition to these things
the same writer records that he slew another of his own sons158
| 158 B. J.I. 33. 7 and 8 (cf. Ant.
XVII. 7). Antipater, son of Herod and his first wife Doris, was
intended by his father to be his successor in the kingdom. He was
beheaded five days before the death of Herod, for plotting against his
father. He richly deserved his fate. | before his death, the third one slain by
his command, and that immediately afterward he breathed his last, not
without excessive pain.
16. Such was the end of Herod,
who suffered a just punishment for his slaughter of the children of
Bethlehem,159
| 159 Eusebius gives here the traditional Christian interpretation of
the cause of Herod’s sufferings. Josephus nowhere mentions the
slaughter of the innocents; whether through ignorance, or because of
the insignificance of the tragedy when compared with the other bloody
acts of Herod’s reign, we do not know. | which was the result of his plots
against our Saviour.
17. After this an angel appeared
in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and commanded him to go to Judea with the
child and its mother, revealing to him that those who had sought the
life of the child were dead.160
To this the
evangelist adds, “But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in
the room of his father Herod he was afraid to go thither;
notwithstanding being warned of God in a dream he turned aside into the
parts of Galilee.”161
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