Massacre of the Innocents
narrative from the Gospel of Matthew
The Massacre (or Slaughter) of the Innocents is a story recounted in the Nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew (2:16–18) in which Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children who are two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem. It is modeled by the story of Pharaoh's attempt to kill the Israelite children in the Book of Exodus, as told in an expanded version that was current in the 1st century. Most scholars find no support for the historicity of Matthew’s account of the Massacre of the Innocents.
The Feast of the Holy Innocents, also known as Childermas, is celebrated in the Western Christian Churches on 28 December, the fourth day of Christmastide. In Eastern Christianity, the feast is celebrated on various dates, depending on the denomination.
Biblical narrative
The Gospel of Matthew tells how the Magi visit Jerusalem to seek guidance as to where the king of the Jews has been born; King Herod directs them to Bethlehem and asks them to return to him and report, but they are warned in a dream that Herod wishes to find the child and kill him, and do not do so. Matthew continues:
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
This is followed by a reference to and quotation from the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:15; Jeremiah 31:14 in the Hebrew Bible): "Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." (Matthew 2:17–18). The relevance of this to the massacre is not immediately apparent, as Jeremiah's next verses go on to speak of hope and restoration.
Historicity and theology
The historicity of the Matthew account is not accepted by most modern scholars.
“Massacre of the Innocents” enters the record as narrative from the Gospel of Matthew. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Massacre, Innocents and narrative can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q643474. The Library of Congress control number is sh85061571. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Massacre of the Innocents” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.