Sermon Tone Analysis

Hatred for Christ

v16 Should be magi not wisemen.

The slaughter of the innocent.

Herod had worked to determine the place of the Christ’s birth as well as the precise time.

While his actions were certainly ominous, it was not until the angel’s message to Joseph (2:13) that Herod’s murderous intentions were made explicit.

In this paragraph Herod acts on the knowledge he ascertained from the wise men and murders all of the children two years and under, and he expands his kill orders to Bethlehem and the all the region around it.

The paragraph concludes with the fourth formula quotation.

brief episode of male infanticide at Bethlehem recorded in the Infancy narrative in Matthew (Matt.

2:16–18).

King Herod, duped by the astrologers from the East who are searching for the newborn king of the Jews, goes into a rage and kills all male children two years old and under in Bethlehem and the surrounding region.

The 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus does not mention this specific incident, but does recount similar instances of Herod’s violence and paranoia (Ant.

16.11.7;

17.2.4;

6.5–6).

Although there are strong OT antecedents (e.g., Pharaoh’s slaughter of the Hebrew male infants, Exod.

1:15–22; Rachel’s traditional burial ground in Bethlehem, Gen. 35:19; her strong matriarchal role in Israelite history as reflected in Matthew’s quote from Jer. 31:15; and Israel’s forced gathering point and deportation from Ramah into exile in Babylon, Jer.

31:15), no other Gospel writer includes this story.

15  Thus says the LORD:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,

lamentation and bitter weeping.

Rachel is weeping for her children;

she refuses to be comforted for her children,

because they are no more.”

The commemoration of the massacre of the Holy Innocents, traditionally regarded as the first Christian martyrs, if unknowingly so,[19][b] first appears as a feast of the Western church in the Leonine Sacramentary, dating from about 485.

The earliest commemorations were connected with the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January: Prudentius mentions the Innocents in his hymn on the Epiphany.

Leo in his homilies on the Epiphany speaks of the Innocents.

Fulgentius of Ruspe (6th century) gives a homily De Epiphania, deque Innocentum nece et muneribus magorum ("On Epiphany, and on the murder of the Innocents and the gifts of the Magi").[c]

Today, the date of Holy Innocents' Day, also called the Feast of the Holy Innocents or Childermas or Children's Mass, varies.

It is 27 December for West Syrians (Syriac Orthodox Church, Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, and Maronite Church) and 10 January for East Syrians (Chaldeans and Syro-Malabar Catholic Church), while 28 December is the date in the Church of England (Festival),[20] the Lutheran Church and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.

In these latter Western Christian denominations, Childermas is the fourth day of Christmastide.[21]

The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the feast on 29 December.[22]