Often called Childermas,this day on the Christian calendar has traditionally been celebrated as theFeast of the Holy Innocents. It is a day that solemnizes the slaughter ofthe children of Judea by Herod the Great following the birth of Christ.
It has always been thefocus of the Christian’s commitment to protect and preserve the sanctity ofhuman life—thus serving as a prophetic warning against the practitioners ofabandonment and infanticide in the age of antiquity, oblacy and pessiary in themedieval epoch, and abortion and euthanasia in these modern times. Generally set aside as a day of prayer,it culminates with a declaration of the covenant community’s unflinchingcommitment to the innocents who are unable to protect themselves.
Virtually every culture inantiquity was stained with the blood of innocent children. Unwantedinfants in ancient Rome were abandoned outside the city walls to die fromexposure to the elements or from the attacks of wild foraging beasts. Greeks often gave their pregnant women harsh doses of herbal or medicinalabortifacients. Persians developed highly sophisticated surgical curetteprocedures. Chinese women tied heavy ropes around their waists soexcruciatingly tight that they either aborted or passed into unconsciousness. Ancient Hindus and Arabs concocted chemical pessaries–abortifacients that werepushed or pumped directly into the womb through the birth canal. Primitive Canaanites threw their children onto great flaming pyres as asacrifice to their god Molech. Polynesians subjected their pregnant womento onerous torture–their abdomens beaten with large stones or hot coals heapedupon their bodies. Egyptians disposed of their unwanted children bydisemboweling and dismembering them shortly after birth–their collagen wasthen harvested for the manufacture of cosmetic creams.
Abortion, infanticide,exposure, and abandonment were so much a part of human societies that theyprovided the primary literary liet motif in popular traditions, stories,myths, fables, and legends. The founding of Rome was, for instance,presumed to be the happy result of the abandonment of children. Accordingto the story, a vestal virgin who had been raped bore twin sons, Romulus andRemus. The harsh Etruscan Amulius ordered them exposed on the TiberRiver. Left in a basket which floated ashore, they were found by a shewolf and suckled by her. Romulus and Remus would later establish the cityof Rome on the seven hills near the place of their rescue. Likewise, the storiesof Oedipus, Jupiter, Poseidon, and Hephaistos, were are victims of failedinfanticides.
Because they had beenmired by the minions of sin and death, it was as instinctive as the autumnharvest for them to summarily sabotage their own heritage. They sawnothing particularly cruel about despoiling the fruit of their wombs. Itwas woven into the very fabric of their culture. They believed that itwas completely justifiable. They believed that it was just and good andright.
The Gospel therefore came into the world as a stern rebuke. God, who isthe giver of life (Acts 17:25), the fountain of life (Psalm 36:9), and thedefender of life (Psalm 27:1), not only sent us the message of life (Acts 5:20)and the words of life (John 6:68), He sent us the light of life as well (John8:12). He sent us His only begotten Son—the life of the world (John6:51)–to break the bonds of sin and death (1 Corinthians 15:54-56). ForGod so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoeverbelieveth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).
