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Giorgio Maselli<\/strong> (University of Bari) presents on UCCR his study explaining why Macrobius<\/strong> mention of the Massacre of the Innocents has historical value and should be used as a non-Christian source<\/strong>.<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The account of the \u201cMassacre of the Innocents\u201d<\/mark><\/strong> is reported only by Matthew<\/strong> (Mt 2:16) and not by the other two Synoptic evangelists, nor by John.<\/p>\n A single, very brief reference can be found in Macrobius<\/strong> (Saturnalia<\/em>, 2.4.11), who, however, lived at the beginning of the 5th century, when Christianity was already widespread. For this reason, scholars tend not to attach much importance to this reference.<\/p>\n Even Abbot Giuseppe Ricciotti<\/strong>, author of the famous “Life of Jesus Christ”<\/i>, believed that the mention of the \u201cmassacre\u201d was not among the many sources of the Saturnalia<\/i>, but had been inserted by Macrobius himself, based on an unspecified Christian text<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Macrobius\u2019s reference to the \u201cMassacre of the Innocents\u201d appears, without particular emphasis, in the following witticism attributed to Augustus:<\/p>\n \u201c(Augustus), having heard that among the infants under two years of age<\/strong>, whom in Syria Herod, king of the Jews, had ordered to be killed, a son of his had also been slain, said: \u2018It is better to be Herod\u2019s pig than his son.\u2019\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The joke\u2014better appreciated in Greek due to the similarity between \u201cson\u201d (u\u0192\u00d2j) and \u201cpig\u201d (\u00e1j)\u2014plays on the Jewish prohibition against pork.<\/p>\n However, three elements<\/strong>, in my opinion, have not been sufficiently considered by scholars:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Regarding the first point, it should be noted that in the vast work of the Saturnalia<\/em> there is no reference whatsoever to Christianity<\/strong>\u2014even though Christians were widespread in the Empire and many officials were Christian. One of the characters in the work, “Euangelus<\/strong>“, is a detractor of Virgil, crude and lacking artistic taste, while the Saturnalia<\/i> as a whole shows clear admiration for the Mantuan poet.<\/p>\n It is not far-fetched to suppose that the name \u201cEuangelus\u201d (recalling the Gospel) was chosen as a subtle expression of aversion towards the religion<\/strong> that had by then established itself and was permeating many aspects of Roman society.<\/p>\n For this reason, it seems highly improbable<\/strong> to me that Macrobius would have adopted a Christian detail (the \u201cMassacre of the Innocents\u201d) that added little to Augustus\u2019s biting witticism.<\/p>\n Greater clarification is required regarding the macro-text in which the mention of the \u201cmassacre\u201d appears.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n One of the characters in the Saturnalia<\/em>, Avienus<\/strong>, recounts a series of 17 witticisms attributed to Augustus<\/strong>, followed by another series of 12 jokes (written, gestural, or oral, even insolent) addressed to Augustus by his interlocutors. Finally, there are some quips attributed to Julia, Augustus\u2019s daughter (later banished from Rome).<\/p>\n Some of these jokes are also found in other authors, and Macrobius\u2019s method of composition<\/strong> is well known: only the \u201cframe\u201d of the narrative in the Saturnalia<\/em> can be directly attributed to him\u2014what we would today call \u201chis own work\u201d\u2014while the content of the various speeches is drawn from multiple sources, sometimes copied verbatim, sometimes summarised in various ways.<\/p>\n The search for the origin of the jokes in Book II\u2014especially by German scholars\u2014has suggested the “Ineptiae”<\/em> or “Ioci”<\/em> (in no fewer than 150 books) by the freedman Gaius Melissus<\/strong>, a friend of Augustus and secretary (grammaticus<\/em>) to Maecenas (and a contemporary of Ovid).<\/p>\n If the witticisms by or about Augustus were clearly taken from a single source<\/strong>, it seems entirely implausible<\/strong> that Macrobius would have inserted on his own initiative the reference to the \u201cmassacre,\u201d which merely provided a marginal historical-geographical setting for a joke hinging on Herod\u2019s cruelty and a witty wordplay.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Regarding the third point, I find it unconvincing that a Christian forger<\/strong> before Macrobius, based on Matthew\u2019s Gospel, would have added the detail of the \u201cmassacre\u201d into the text of Melissus<\/strong> (or, in any case, into the source from which Macrobius drew the long series of jokes).<\/p>\n Such a hypothetical interpolator would almost certainly have specified the reason for the \u201cmassacre\u201d<\/strong>\u2014namely, the prophecy about the birth of the \u201cking of the Jews,\u201d which would have prompted Herod to issue his cruel order.<\/p>\n Furthermore, the description of the killing of infants as taking place (generically) \u201cin Syria\u201d is incongruous<\/strong> with a Christian interpolator, since New Testament and apologetic writings make it clear that Christians understood Judea<\/strong> administratively as part of Syria, but distinguished<\/strong> Judea\u2014as well as Galilee, Samaria, and other neighbouring areas\u2014from the broader Syrian region, both in relation to events in Jewish history in the Old Testament and in connection with the places visited by Jesus as recorded in the Gospels.<\/p>\n By contrast, in the Roman ethnographic view, Syria<\/strong> had a poor reputation. For example, in ancient comedy, Syrus<\/em> was a stock name for various eastern slave characters, while in Livy we read of the Syri<\/em> as vilissima genera hominum et servituti nata<\/em> (\u201ca race of men most contemptible and born for slavery\u201d).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Augustus\u2019s witticism also contains a notable historical inaccuracy<\/strong>: there is no record of any son of Herod being killed by his father in infancy. However, according to Josephus, Herod had his (already adult) sons Alexander and Aristobulus executed (around 7 BC) and, shortly afterwards, also his eldest son Antipater.<\/p>\n But this inaccuracy in the witticism actually supports its priority<\/strong> over the spread of Matthew\u2019s Gospel.<\/p>\n It is possible to suppose that news of Herod\u2019s killing of his sons and his order for the \u201cmassacre\u201d reached Rome simultaneously<\/strong> or within a short time of each other.<\/p>\n Whether Augustus<\/strong> actually uttered the witticism (as is likely) or it was attributed to him by Melissus<\/strong> (or by another writer from the early years of the Common Era) based on various reports from a distant region, is secondary to what can be inferred from the joke: in Rome, between the late 1st century BC and the early 1st century AD, there was news of a massacre of children<\/strong> ordered by Herod.<\/p>\n The compiler of the Ioci<\/i> was not concerned with historical accuracy, but with the purpose of humour (ridiculum<\/i>).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I therefore feel justified in concluding<\/strong> that the \u201cMassacre of the Innocents\u201d mentioned by Matthew<\/strong> is corroborated by a reference dating to several decades before<\/strong> the writing of his Gospel.<\/p>\n It therefore constitutes a genuine second source<\/strong> for this event, whose historical value has often been\u2014and still is\u2014prejudicially called into question.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bibliography and textual references can be found in: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Giorgio Maselli explains on UCCR why Macrobius mention of the Massacre of the Innocents has historical value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":21,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1660,1066],"class_list":["post-61737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-massacre-of-the-innocents","tag-non-christian-sources"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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\nby Giorgio Maselli<\/b>*
\n*Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Bari<\/i><\/p>\nMacrobius refers to the Massacre of the Innocents<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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1) Macrobius was not a Christian<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
2) Macrobius\u2019s source dates to the 1st century<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
3) The hypothesis of a Christian interpolation<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Augustus\u2019s witticism predates Matthew\u2019s Gospel<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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\nG. Maselli<\/strong>, Macrobius, Augustus and the \u2018Massacre of the Innocents\u2019<\/a><\/em>1<\/a><\/sup>in \u201cBollettino di Studi Latini\u201d 37, 2007, pp. 643\u2013648<\/span>.<\/p>\n