Herod Was Pretty Terrible (If You Didn't Know)
Dec 28: Feast of the Holy Innocents
Years ago, we were members of a parish called St. Agatha’s. In the statues and stained glass around the church, she was usually depicted with a pair of pliers.
My wife asked me why, and my first response was, “I dunno. She’s probably the patroness of mechanics or something.”
Turns out, she was tortured with pliers before being martyred. It’s pretty bad, so I won’t go into the details.
So, why is she usually portrayed holding the instrument of her torture? Well, in every Catholic church and home, we have multiple depictions of Jesus Himself on His.
Our protestant friends consider this morbid, but it’s not. It’s realistic. Life in this world isn’t perfect; bad, even horrible things happen all the time. That’s why we need Jesus. As Bishop Barron says regularly, if everything was fine, we wouldn’t need a salvation theology.
Anyway, the reason I’m telling this story is because before I started writing this Substack, I didn’t always pay attention to every single daily feast. I don’t think I’d ever heard of the Feast of the Holy Innocents before. Boy, was I in for a ride.
Reading I
1 Jn 1:5—2:2
Beloved: This is the message that we have heard from Jesus Christ and proclaim to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the Blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin. If we say, “We are without sin,” we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing. If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
My children, I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world.
We’re cleansed of sin at our baptism, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never sin again. It’s something we’ll keep doing over and over again, for the rest of our lives. You can see here, even in the first century, John warns his readers that our efforts towards holiness are never really done.
It’s why we need confession. Remember that it’s not the priest who forgives our sins, but Jesus himself. He said to St. Faustina, when inspiring her to write the Divine Mercy Chaplet, “I will stand between my Father and the dying, not as the just judge, but as a merciful savior.”
Responsorial Psalm
124:2-3, 4-5, 7cd-8
R. Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.
Had not the LORD been with us—
When men rose up against us,
then would they have swallowed us alive,
When their fury was inflamed against us.
R. Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.
Then would the waters have overwhelmed us;
The torrent would have swept over us;
over us then would have swept the raging waters.
R. Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.
Broken was the snare,
and we were freed.
Our help is in the name of the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
R. Our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler’s snare.
The Psalmist is comparing Israel’s enemies to elemental forces that can’t be controlled. The world is a violent place. You might be drowned, you might be eaten, you might be caught by a poacher.
We need God’s help, not just to save us from ourselves (as in John’s letter above), but also from the world.
Alleluia
See Te Deum
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
We praise you, O God,
we acclaim you as Lord;
the white-robed army of martyrs praise you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Huh. This is a curious Alleluia, since martyrs haven’t been mentioned in today’s readings. I wonder what the Gospel has to say…
Gospel
Mt 2:13-18
When the magi had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled,
Out of Egypt I called my son.
When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet:
A voice was heard in Ramah,
sobbing and loud lamentation;
Rachel weeping for her children,
and she would not be consoled,
since they were no more.Oof.
Herod was so angry and jealous of a rival king, he killed hundreds thousands dozens hundreds of thousands?1 too many children in Bethlehem, just in case.
Here’s the crazy thing: this isn’t even the worst thing Herod did. There’s a first century Jewish historian named Flavius Josephus, who wrote extensively about the Roman occupation, including installing Herod. He records several atrocities that Herod committed, but doesn’t mention the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem. It wasn’t even a notable mass murder on the list of Herod’s mass murders (to a non-Christian, at least).
Which isn’t to say there’s no historical evidence. Macrobius, a Roman writer, tells a story that when Augustus heard about the slaughter of boys under the age of two, including Herod’s own son, the emperor joked, “It is better to be Herod's hog, than his son.”2
These children didn’t do anything wrong, nor did their weeping mothers (Rachel being a stand-in for all Jewish mothers). But the world is evil and cruel, and not everything bad that happens is a punishment from God.
Why do bad things happen to good people? Because the world is fallen, and evil people do evil things.
And so we might want to identify with Mary and Joseph, trying to protect their child, or the grieving parents who’ve lost their child, don’t neglect trying to put yourself in Herod’s shoes. Given his power and prestige, and our own tendency towards sinfulness, what might you or I do in his position?
That is why we need a savior. That’s why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, taken to Egypt and then return to preach the Gospel and die for our sins.
According to NewAdvent.org: “The Greek Liturgy asserts that Herod killed 14,000 boys (ton hagion id chiliadon Nepion), the Syrians speak of 64,000, many medieval authors of 144,000, according to Apocalypse 14:3. Modern writers reduce the number considerably, since Bethlehem was a rather small town. Knabenbauer brings it down to fifteen or twenty (Evang. S. Matt., I, 104), Bisping to ten or twelve (Evang. S. Matt.), Kellner to about six.”
Get it? Because Jews don’t slaughter pigs? Roman humor is weird.