Book I — Source paragraphs and footnotes

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Herod’s reign was very successful and prosperous, and for most of the time entirely undisturbed by external troubles; but his domestic life was embittered by a constant succession of tragedies resulting from the mutual jealousies of his wives (of whom he had ten) and of their children. Early in his reign he slew Hyrcanus, the grandfather of his best-loved wife Mariamne, upon suspicion of treason; a little later, Mariamne herself was put to death; in 6 b.c. her sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, were condemned and executed; and in 4 b.c., but a few days before his death, Antipater, his eldest son, who had been instrumental in the condemnation of Alexander and Aristobulus, was also slain by his orders. These murders were accompanied by many others of friends and kindred, who were constantly falling under suspicion of treason.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-4 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

ποινὴν εἰναι τὰ νοσήματα λέγειν. Josephus, according to the text of Hudson, reads ποινὴν εἶναι τῶν σοφιστῶν τὰ νοσήματα λέγειν, which is translated by Traill, “pronounced his maladies a judgment for his treatment of the Sophists.” Nicephorus (H. E. I. 15) agrees with Eusebius in omitting the words τῶν σοφιστῶν, but he is not an independent witness. Whether Hudson’s text is supported at this point by strong ms. authority I do not know. If the words stood in the original of Josephus, we may suppose that they were accidentally omitted by Eusebius himself or by one of his copyists, or that they were thrown out in order to make Josephus’ statement better correspond with his own words in Ant. XVII. 6, quoted just above, where his disease is said to have been a result of his impiety in general, not of any particular exhibition of it. On the other hand, the omission of the words in Ant. XVII. 6 casts at least a suspicion on their genuineness, and if we were to assume that the words did not occur in the original text of Josephus, it would be very easy to understand their insertion by some copyist, for in the previous paragraph the historian has been speaking of the Sophists, and of Herod’s cruel treatment of them.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-8 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

τὴν ᾽Ασφαλτῖτιν λίμνην. This is the name by which Josephus commonly designates the Dead Sea. The same name occurs also in Diodorus Siculus (II. 48, XIX. 98).

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-10 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Salome was own sister of Herod the Great, and wife in succession of Joseph, Costabarus, and Alexas. She possessed all the cruelty of Herod himself and was the cause, through her jealousy and envy, of most of the terrible tragedies in his family.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-11 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

B. J.I. 13. 6 (cf. Ant. XVII. 6. 5). This terrible story rests upon the authority of Josephus alone, but is so in keeping with Herod’s character that we have no reason to doubt its truth. The commands of Herod, however, were not carried out, the condemned men being released after his death by Salome (see ibid. §8).

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-13 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

B. J.I. 33. 7 (cf. Ant. XVII. 7). Herod’s suicide was prevented by his cousin Achiabus, as Josephus informs us in the same connection.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-14 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

B. J.I. 33. 7 and 8 (cf. Ant. XVII. 7). Antipater, son of Herod and his first wife Doris, was intended by his father to be his successor in the kingdom. He was beheaded five days before the death of Herod, for plotting against his father. He richly deserved his fate.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-15 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Eusebius gives here the traditional Christian interpretation of the cause of Herod’s sufferings. Josephus nowhere mentions the slaughter of the innocents; whether through ignorance, or because of the insignificance of the tragedy when compared with the other bloody acts of Herod’s reign, we do not know.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-16 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

In the later books of the Antiquities and in the first book of the Jewish war.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-5 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Callirhoë was a town just east of the Dead Sea.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-9 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Alexander, the third husband of Salome, is always called Alexas by Josephus.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-12 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

Josephus, Ant. XVII. 6. 5.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-6 · Original source

1890 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)

B. J. I. 33. 5 and 6.

Editorial footnote · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, editorial note cite_note-7 · Original source

Date uncertain | Eusebius of Caesarea (historical work attribution)

2. But the child anticipated the snare, being carried into Egypt by his parents, who had learned from an angel that appeared unto them what was about to happen. These things are recorded by the Holy Scriptures in the Gospel.

Complete source paragraph · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, source paragraph 3 · Original source

Date uncertain | Eusebius of Caesarea (historical work attribution)

4. It is not possible to relate here how he tarnished the supposed felicity of his reign by successive calamities in his family, by the murder of wife and children, and others of his nearest relatives and dearest friends. The account, which casts every other tragic drama into the shade, is detailed at length in the histories of Josephus.

Complete source paragraph · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, source paragraph 5 · Original source

Date uncertain | Eusebius of Caesarea (historical work attribution)

5. How, immediately after his crime against our Saviour and the other infants, the punishment sent by God drove him on to his death, we can best learn from the words of that historian who, in the seventeenth book of his Antiquities of the Jews, writes as follows concerning his end:

Complete source paragraph · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, source paragraph 6 · Original source

Date uncertain | Eusebius of Caesarea (historical work attribution)

9. The writer mentioned above recounts these things in the work referred to. And in the second book of his History he gives a similar account of the same Herod, which runs as follows: “The disease then seized upon his whole body and distracted it by various torments. For he had a slow fever, and the itching of the skin of his whole body was insupportable. He suffered also from continuous pains in his colon, and there were swellings on his feet like those of a person suffering from dropsy, while his abdomen was inflamed and his privy member so putrefied as to produce worms. Besides this he could breathe only in an upright posture, and then only with difficulty, and he had convulsions in all his limbs, so that the diviners said that his diseases were a punishment.

Complete source paragraph · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, source paragraph 10 · Original source

Date uncertain | Eusebius of Caesarea (historical work attribution)

10. But he, although wrestling with such sufferings, nevertheless clung to life and hoped for safety, and devised methods of cure. For instance, crossing over Jordan he used the warm baths at Callirhoë, which flow into the Lake Asphaltites, but are themselves sweet enough to drink.

Complete source paragraph · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, source paragraph 11 · Original source

Date uncertain | Eusebius of Caesarea (historical work attribution)

13. And having summoned Salome, his sister, and her husband, Alexander, he said: ‘I know that the Jews will rejoice at my death. But I may be lamented by others and have a splendid funeral if you are willing to perform my commands. When I shall expire surround these men, who are now under guard, as quickly as possible with soldiers, and slay them, in order that all Judea and every house may weep for me even against their will.’”

Complete source paragraph · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, source paragraph 14 · Original source

Date uncertain | Eusebius of Caesarea (historical work attribution)

14. And after a little Josephus says, “And again he was so tortured by want of food and by a convulsive cough that, overcome by his pains, he planned to anticipate his fate. Taking an apple he asked also for a knife, for he was accustomed to cut apples and eat them. Then looking round to see that there was no one to hinder, he raised his right hand as if to stab himself.”

Complete source paragraph · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, source paragraph 15 · Original source

Date uncertain | Eusebius of Caesarea (historical work attribution)

15. In addition to these things the same writer records that he slew another of his own sons before his death, the third one slain by his command, and that immediately afterward he breathed his last, not without excessive pain.

Complete source paragraph · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, source paragraph 16 · Original source

Date uncertain | Eusebius of Caesarea (historical work attribution)

16. Such was the end of Herod, who suffered a just punishment for his slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, which was the result of his plots against our Saviour.

Complete source paragraph · Book I, Chapter VIII.—The Cruelty of Herod toward the Infants, and the Manner of his Death.; original source section: Chapter 8, source paragraph 17 · Original source