Picture of the master of the Bologna academicism Guido Reni “Beating up babies”. The size of the painting is 268 x 170 cm, oil on canvas. Bethlehem beating of babies is an event related to the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem.
This is one of the acts of the bloodthirsty despotism of Herod the Great, who, illegally occupying the throne of Judah, trembled at the thought that the throne seized by him could pass from him to the true king of the Jews. He could not but be struck by the news that some noble travelers, the Magi, arrived in Jerusalem from the far East and asked where the king of the Jews was born, to whom they want to worship and bring gifts.
Herod immediately convened a council of high priests and scribes to find out the birthplace of a dangerous rival. He was told an ancient prophecy that the birthplace of the Messiah should be Bethlehem. To be even more convinced of the whereabouts of the Messiah, Herod summoned the Magi to himself, sent them to Bethlehem asking them, finding the Messiah there, to inform him exactly where he is: “so that I can go to worship Him,” added the king.
The wise men, by the highest revelation, having learned of the plan of Herod, did not return to him with the welcome message. Knowing only one thing – that the future King of the Jews is still a baby, Herod issued a decree to beat in Bethlehem all the male babies “from two years old and below.” Nothing is known about how this beating was carried out. According to legend, 14,000 children were beaten; their memory is honored by the Orthodox Church on December 29.
This beating is quite in the spirit of Herod, who did not stop even before killing his own sons and committed all sorts of atrocities. It seems somewhat strange that Josephus, describing in detail the reign of Herod, does not say anything about beating babies in Bethlehem; but this historian was not free from flattery, forcing him to sometimes weaken or hush up the most gloomy acts in the life of Herod.
A hint of the Bethlehem beating of babies, some researchers have found in Macrobius, according to which “Emperor Augustus, after being informed that among boys from two years old and below, beaten by Herod’s orders in Syria, his own son was also killed, it is better to be Herod’s pig than his son. “The testimony is rather late, but as a vague memory of historical fact it is not without some significance. The beating of babies in Bethlehem was often the subject of iconographic and artistic images, the first traces found on the mosaics and miniatures not before V century.
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