Eusebus Pamphilia Parts 1,2 and 3

BOOK I CHAPTER VIII The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death. 89 same tribe with him, since, according to the law of Moses, intermarriages between different tribes were not permitted.137 For the command is to marry one of the same family138 and lineage,139 so that the inheritance may not pass from tribe to tribe. This may suffice here.

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,140—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.141 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.142 The account, which casts every other tragic drama into the shade, is detailed at length in the histories of Josephus143.

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:144 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 137 The law to which Eusebius refers is recorded in Num. xxxvi. 6, 7. But the prohibition given there was not an absolute and universal one, but a prohibition which concerned only heiresses, who were not to marry out of their own tribe upon penalty of forfeiting their inheritance (cf. Josephus, Ant. IV. 7. 5). It is an instance of the limited nature of the law that Mary and Elizabeth were relatives, although Joseph and Mary belonged to the tribe of Judah, and Zacharias, at least, was a Levite. This example lay so near at hand that Eusebius should not have overlooked it in making his assertion. His argument, therefore in proof of the fact that Mary belonged to the tribe of Judah has no force, but the fact itself is abundantly established both by the unanimous tradition of antiquity (independent of Luke’s genealogy, which was universally supposed to be that of Joseph), and by such passages as Ps. cxxxii. 11, Acts ii. 30, xiii. 23, Rom. i. 3.

138 δήμου.

139 πατριᾶς 140 οἷα θεῷ προσκυνῆσαι. Eusebius adds the words οἷα θεῷ, which are not found in Matt. ii. 2 and 11, where προσκυνῆσαι is used.

141 Matt. ii.

142 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.

143 In the later books of the Antiquities and in the first book of the Jewish war.

144 Josephus, Ant. XVII. 6. 5.