The Death of Herod

When Christ had been born in Bethlehem of Judea at the time we have shown, as the prophecies foretold, magi came from the east asking where the one born King of the Jews might be. They had seen his star, they said, and this was the reason for their long journey, since they were eager to worship the newborn child as God. Herod was greatly disturbed by their question, believing that his own rule was in danger. He asked the teachers of the law among the nation where they expected the Christ to be born, and when he learned that the prophecy of Micah named Bethlehem beforehand, he ordered by a single decree that the boys still at the breast in Bethlehem and all its surrounding region, two years old and under, should be killed, according to the time he had carefully learned from the magi. He supposed, naturally enough, that Jesus would certainly share the same fate as the others of his age. [a] But the child escaped the plot. He was carried into Egypt, because his parents had learned beforehand what was coming through the appearance of an angel. These things the sacred Scripture of the Gospel also teaches. [b]

It is worth looking, besides, at the wages Herod received for his daring crime against Christ and the children of his age. At once, without even a short delay, divine justice came after him while he was still alive, and showed him a foretaste of what would receive him after he departed this life. How he darkened the supposed good fortune of his reign with one disaster after another in his own house—the bloody murders of his wife and children and of the rest of his closest kin and dearest friends—it is not possible to list here. The story of those things outdoes every tragic drama, and Josephus has told it at length in his histories of Herod. [c] But how, at the very time of his plot against our Savior and the other infants, a scourge sent by God seized him and drove him to his death, it is well to hear in the historian’s own words. In the seventeenth book of his Jewish Antiquities he describes the end of Herod’s life word for word in this way: [d] “Herod’s disease grew more and more bitter, God exacting punishment for his lawless deeds. A low fire burned in him, which did not show much heat to those who touched him but added greatly to his inward suffering. He had a terrible craving for food, which there was no way to keep from satisfying. His intestines were ulcerated, with dreadful pains especially in the colon, and a clear, watery fluid gathered about his feet. There was a similar affliction in his abdomen, and also a rotting of his private parts that bred worms. He could breathe only sitting upright, and this was most unpleasant, both from the foul smell and from his rapid gasping. He was seized with convulsions in every limb, of a violence beyond bearing. Those who were inspired, and whose wisdom it was to foretell such things, said that God was exacting this penalty from the king for his great impiety.” [e]

This is what the writer just named records in the work mentioned. In the second book of his Histories he gives a similar account of the same man, writing as follows: “From then on the disease spread through his whole body and divided it among various torments. He had a low fever, an unbearable itching over the whole surface of his skin, and constant pains in his colon. His feet were swollen as in dropsy, his abdomen was inflamed, and his private parts were rotting and breeding worms. Besides this he could breathe only sitting upright, and with difficulty, and he had convulsions in all his limbs, so that the diviners said his diseases were a punishment. [f] But though he was wrestling with so many sufferings, he still clung to life, hoped to recover, and thought up cures. He crossed the Jordan and used the hot springs at Callirrhoe, which flow out into the Dead Sea but are sweet enough to drink. [g] There his physicians decided to warm his whole body with hot oil. When he had been lowered into a tub full of oil, he fainted and turned his eyes up like a man in a faint. His attendants raised an outcry, and at the noise he came to. But from then on he gave up hope of recovery, and ordered fifty drachmas apiece to be given to the soldiers, and large sums to his officers and friends. [h] He went back and came to Jericho, already sunk in black melancholy and all but threatening death itself; and he went on to plot an unlawful deed. He gathered the notable men of every village from all Judea and ordered them shut up in what was called the hippodrome. Then he summoned his sister Salome and her husband Alexas, and said: ‘I know the Jews will celebrate my death like a feast. But I can be mourned by others, and have a splendid funeral, if you are willing to carry out my orders. As soon as I breathe my last, surround these men who are under guard with the soldiers and kill them at once, so that all Judea and every house will weep over me, even against their will.’” [j]

A little further on Josephus says: “Again, racked by want of food and by a convulsive cough, and beaten by his pains, he tried to forestall his fate. He took an apple and asked for a knife as well, for he used to cut up apples to eat them. Then, looking around to see that no one was there to stop him, he raised his right hand as if to strike himself.” [k] Besides this, the same writer records that just before the end of his life Herod had another of his legitimate sons put to death by his order—the third, two having already been killed—and that he immediately gave up his life, not without great pain. [l] Such was the end of Herod, who paid a just penalty for the children he killed around Bethlehem in his plot against our Savior. [m] After this an angel appeared in a dream to Joseph, who was staying in Egypt, and told him to set out for Judea with the child and his mother, making known that those who had sought the child’s life were dead. To this the evangelist adds: “But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there; and being warned in a dream, he withdrew into the region of Galilee.” [n]