The 14,000 Holy Infants Slain by Herod in Bethlehem

The 14,000 Holy Infants Slain by Herod in Bethlehem are the first martyrs for Christ. When the time came for the greatest event, the Incarnation of the Son of God and His birth of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, the Magi of the East saw in the sky a new star, announcing the birth of the King of the Jews. At once they set out for Jerusalem to worship the Newborn, and the star showed them the way. Having worshipped the Divine Infant, they did not return to Herod at Jerusalem, as he had commanded them, but, receiving a revelation from above, departed to their own country by another way. Then Herod understood that his plan to find the Child had not succeeded, and commanded that all male children of two years and under be killed in Bethlehem and its surroundings. He reckoned that among the slain infants would be the Divine Infant, in whom he saw a rival. The slain infants became the first martyrs for Christ.

Herod's wrath fell also on Symeon the God-⁠receiver, who had testified before all in the temple to the Messiah newly born. When the holy elder died, Herod did not allow him to be buried honourably. At the king's command the holy prophet and priest Zacharias was also killed: they slew him in the temple at Jerusalem, between the altar of sacrifice and the sanctuary, because he did not show where his son John, the future Baptist of the Lord Jesus Christ, was. God's wrath soon overtook Herod himself: a cruel disease struck him and he died eaten alive by worms. Before death the impious king completed the measure of his evil deeds: he killed the high priests and scribes of the Jews, his own brother, his sister and her husband, his wife Mariamne and three sons, as well as seventy wise men, members of the Sanhedrin.

Tradition says that in all fourteen thousand children suffered. This number raises doubt among scholars today, since a town with so many infants of that age does not fit the provincial settlement called Bethlehem. A teacher of the Minsk theological schools observes that the number fourteen was significant for the Jews: it is the number of the name of David, for Hebrew letters also stood for numbers, and the sum of the letters of the name David gives fourteen; the Evangelist Matthew presents the genealogy of Jesus in three groups of fourteen names each, to show that He is a descendant of King David. So fourteen thousand, he says, may also be a stylization, and fourteen is twice seven, a number of holiness and completeness. The page adds that the infants became martyrs unknowing, by the providence of God, and that their suffering does not remain without meaning before Him. They are commemorated on 11 January, in the new style.