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CHAP. II.

TWO OBJECTIONS TAKEN FROM THE SILENCE OF JOSEPHUS.

1. He has not mentioned the slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem: II. Nor of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

ST. MATTHEW says, chap. ii. 16," Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceedingly wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.”

It is objected to this, that if there had been so cruel a slaughter made by Herod, of innocent infants at Bethlehem, a place not far from Jerusalem, it is very unlikely it should have been omitted by Josephus, who has written the history of the Jews, and particularly of the reign of Herod.

To this I answer: I. This appears to me to be at the best an objection of a very extraordinary nature. The most exact and diligent historians have omitted many events that happened within the compass of those times of which they undertook to write: nor does the reputation which any one historian has for exactness, invalidate the credit of another, who seems to be well informed of the facts he relates. Suetonius, Tacitus, and Dio Cassius, have all three written of the reign of Tiberius: but it is no objection against the veracity of any one of them, that he has mentioned some things of that emperor, which have been omitted by the rest. No more is it any objection against St. Matthew, that he has related an action of Herod not mentioned by Josephus.

2. There have been as great cruelties committed by many eastern princes; nor was there ever any man more likely than Herod to give the orders here mentioned by St. Matthew. When he had gained possession of Jerusalem by the assistance of the Romans, and his rival Antigonus was taken prisoner, and in the bands of the Roman general Sosius, and by him carried to Mark Antony, Herod by a large sum of money persuaded Antony to put him to death. Herod's great fear was, that Antigonus might some time Joseph. Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 16. sect. ult.

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revive his pretensions, as being of the Asmonean family. Aristobulus, brother of his wife Mariamne, was murdered b by his directions at eighteen years of age, because the people at Jerusalem had shown some affection for his person. In the seventh year of his reign from the death of Antigonus, he put to death Hyrcanus, grandfather of Mariamne, then eighty years of age, and who had saved Herod's life when he was prosecuted by the sanhedrim; a man, who in his youth and in the vigour of his life, and in all the revolutions of his fortune, had shown a mild and peaceable disposition. His beloved wife, the beautiful and virtuous Mariamne, had a public execution, and her mother Alexandra was put to death soon after. Alexander and Aristobulus, his two sons by Mariamne, were strangled in prison by his order, upon groundless suspicions, as it seems, when they were at man's estate, were married, and had children. I say nothing of the death of his eldest son Antipater: if Josephus's character of him be just, he was a miscreant, and deserved the worst death that could be inflicted.

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In his last sickness, a little before he died, he sent orders throughout Judea, requiring the presence of all the chief men of the nation at Jericho. His orders were obeyed, for they were enforced with no less penalty than that of death. When these men were come to Jericho, he had them all shut up in the Circus, and calling for his sister Salome, and her husband Alexas, he told them, My life is now but 'short: I know the dispositions of the Jewish people, and 'nothing will please them more than my death. You have 'these men in your custody; as soon as my breath is out ' of my body, and before my death can be known, do you 'let in the soldiers upon them and kill them. All Judea and every family will then, though unwillingly, mourn at my death.' Nay, Josephus says, That with tears in his eyes he conjured them, by their love to him, and their fidelity to God, not to fail of doing him this honour; and they promised they would not fail.'

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These orders indeed were not executed; but, as a modern historian of very good sense observes, 'The history of this

c Ant. l. xv. c. e Ibid. sect. 8. 6 Τους δε τους φρερεμένες

b Antiq. 1. xv. c. 3. sect. 3. De Bell. 1. i. c. 22. 6. de Bell. ubi supra. d Ant. xv. c. 7. sect. 5, 6. f Ant. lxvi. c. 11. sect. 6. De Bell. 1. i. c. 27. ανδρας επειδαν εκπνεύσω, ταχιςα κτείνατε περιζήσαντες τους πρατιώτας, ἵνα πασα Ιουδαία και πας οικος ακων επ' εμοι δακρυση. De Bell. 1. i. c. 33. sect. 6.

* Και ὁ μεν μετα δακρυων ποτνιωμένος, και τη συγγενες την εύνοιαν και πισιν τ8 θεια προσκαλων, επεσκηπτε μη ητιμωσθαι αξιων· κακεινοι ωμολόγουν Taрaßηorodai. Ant. lib. xvii. cap. 6. sect. 5. iPrideaux,

Conn. Part. ii. p. 655.

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his most wicked design, takes off all objection against the 'truth of murdering the innocents, which may be made 'from the incredibility of so barbarous and horrid an act. For this thoroughly shows, that there can nothing be imagined so cruel, barbarous and horrid, which this man ⚫ was not capable of doing.'

It may be also proper to observe, that almost all the executions, which I have instanced in, were sacrifices to his state-jealousy and love of empire. And the slaughter, which St. Matthew has given an account of, was made upon the occasion of tidings brought to Jerusalem, of the birth of one who was 66 King of the Jews."

3. Josephus has given us an account of a terrible execution made in Herod's court, and at Jerusalem, about this very time, upon the occasion of some predictions, that God was about to take away the kingdom from Herod. I think it was made at the very same time with the slaughter of the infants. St. Matthew relates only what was done at Bethlehem, Josephus what happened at Jerusalem. The silence of Josephus about the former, and of St. Matthew about the latter, may be in a good measure accounted for by these two or three considerations.

(1.) St. Matthew was not concerned to relate state matters, but barely to give the history of Jesus Christ; and therefore all that he was obliged to take notice of upon this occasion, was the attempts made upon the life of Jesus. Josephus's is a political history of the Jewish nation, and therefore the executions at court might be more suitable to his design.

(2.) All writers of good sense and candour, who have written the history of such jealous and cruel princes as Herod, have been obliged, both out of a regard to themselves and their readers, to omit some of their odious and offensive actions, and to pass by some parts or circumstances of those transactions which they mention.k And I cannot help paying a particular respect to the evangelists for the many instances of their candour and goodness, and for this in particular, that none of them strove to brand the memory of Herod, who sought the life of Jesus, with the many cruelties of his reign, or the dreadful circumstances of his death; and that Matthew, who alone has informed us of the murder of the infants, confined his narration to

* Neque sum ignarus, a plerisque scriptoribus omissa multorum pericula et pænas, dum copiâ fatiscunt, aut quæ ipsis nimia et moesta fuerant, ne pari tædio lecturos adficerent, verentur. Tacit. An. 1. vi. c. 7.

that, and passed by all the other tokens, which, I doubt not, Herod showed at this time, of a most odious jealousy.

Nor would I blame Josephus barely for the omission of the barbarities committed at Bethlehem. He has related many cruel actions of Herod to have related them all would probably have appeared spite and ill will, rather than faithfulness or impartiality. It is evident, there were many put to death at Jerusalem, beside those he nameth in the account of that execution. Possibly, the omission of the murder of the infants may be owing to those reasons I have here hinted, namely, a fear of being charged with a design to load Herod unreasonably, or a fear of rendering his history disagreeable, by too particular a detail of cruel

actions.

(3.) I have thus far endeavoured to account for Josephus's silence in the way of apology for him, and should be glad to leave the matter here: but his strange way of speaking, and that in two places of his works, of an execution at Jerusalem about this time, though according to his own account and acknowledgment it was very severe and terrible, will not permit me to conclude here. Supposing, then, that execution to have been made on account of discourses, which happened at Jerusalem upon the rumour of the birth of Jesus, I think, that since Josephus was determined in the main to vindicate Herod upon that occasion, he was obliged, for his own honour, to say nothing of what was done at Bethlehem. The slaughter of the infants, from two years old and under, of a whole city, town, or village, and the district round about it, whatever colours an historian might have put upon it, would have appeared to all mankind, but prejudiced and hardened Jews, an horrid inhumanity.

In a word, the objection against this relation of St. Matthew must be founded on the silence of the Greek and Roman historians, or of Josephus. As for the silence of the former; the Roman republic or empire about this time was so vast, that the affairs of many dependent princes have been lost in the crowd. Tacitus goes over the history of the Jews, from Pompey's conquest of Judea to the government of Felix, mentioned in the Acts, in one short chapter.

One of those passages with observations upon it may be seen above, p. 292, 293. It is the passage I referred to, p. 140, &c. as deserving a particular attention. If the reader has not yet observed it, I would now recommend it to his perusal. The other passage will be found toward the latter end of sect. 1. of the next chapter to this. See in the index Josephus, his account of a 'terrible execution at Jerusalem.'

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Of Herod he says, The kingdom he received from Antony was enlarged [or confirmed] by Augustus. And that ' after his death, his kingdom was divided between three of 'his sons ;'m without so much as naming the sons of Herod, who arrived at sovereign power, and succeeded their father. Strabo says, Herod obtained the title of king first from Antony, and then from Augustus. Some of his sons he put to death, as guilty of designs against himself: others 'he appointed his successors, dividing his kingdom among 'them. But his sons were not happy, for they fell under some accusations: one of them was banished into Gaul, ' and the other two, by means of a great deal of submission, 'with much difficulty kept their several tetrarchies.' He does not so much as name those sons whom Herod killed, nor those that succeeded him. It is with a like brevity, that some other writers have mentioned Herod. Dio Cassius's history of affairs about the latter part of Herod's reign is wanting. I leave it to any one to judge, whether it be reasonable to expect the particular fact at Bethlehem from historians, who plainly content themselves with delivering the successions of princes, without relating their affairs, or so much as recording all their names.

As for Josephus, his silence is no more an objection against St. Matthew, than the silence of other writers is against him. Josephus has said a great deal of Herod's liberality to foreigners, to Antioch, Berytus, Tyrus, Sidon, Damascus, and many other cities in Syria; to the Athenians, Lacedæmonians, Rhodians, and other people of Greece. Of his benefaction to the Eleans, he says, 'It was a common ' benefit not to Greece only but to all the world :o and that he was so remarkable for his liberality, that Augustus and Agrippa often said, Herod's kingdom was too small for him, and that he deserved to be king of all Syria and Egypt.'P I suppose people to take these things upon

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Regnum ab Antonio Herodi datum, victor Augustus auxit [al. sanxit]. Post mortem Herodis, nihil expectato Cæsare, Simon quidam regium nomen invaserat. Is a Quintilio Varo obtinente Syriam punitus. Et gentem coërcitam liberi Herodis tripartito rexere. Tacit. Hist. 1. v. c. 9.

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* Ηρώδης-ώστε και βασιλευς εχρημάτισε, δοντος το μεν πρωτον Αντώνιο την εξεσίαν, ύτερον δε και Καίσαρος το Σεβαςε' των δε υἱων της μεν αυτός ανειλεν, ως επιβάλευσαντας αυτή τες δε τελευτων διαδοχες απέλιπε, μερίδας αυτοις αποδες" - » μεν τοι ευτυχησαν οἱ παιδες, αλλ' εν αιτίαις εγενοντο καὶ ὁ μεν εν φυγή διετέλεσε, παρα τοις Αλλοβροξι Γαλαταις λαβων οικησιν· οἱ δε θεραπεις πολλῇ μολις ευρόντο καθοδόν, τετραρχίας αποδοθεισης ἑκατερῳ. Strabo. I. xvi. p. 765. ed. Casaub. Antiq. 1. xvi. c. 5. sect.

3, 4. De Bell. 1. i. cap. 21. sect. 11, 12. Το δε Ηλείοις χαρισθεν, & μόνον κοινον της Ελλάδος, αλλ' όλης της οικεμένης δωρον. Ibid. sect. 12.

- Και φασιν αυτόν τε Καισαρα και Αγρίππαν πολλακις ειπειν, ὡς αποδέοι τα

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