The Holy Innocents of Bethlehem

Matthew's gospel relates that Herod the Great, learning from the magi of the birth of a king at Bethlehem and unable to have him pointed out, had every boy under two in the village and its surroundings killed. No outside source mentions the episode, and historians reckon that Bethlehem, a town of a few hundred people, can have held no more than a score — a figure far from the thousands medieval piety retained, though it changes nothing of the nature of the act. The Church has honoured them as martyrs since the fifth century, stressing what sets them apart from all the rest: they professed nothing, refused nothing, understood nothing. They died in someone else's place. The feast, on 28 December, falls within the octave of Christmas.