Empathy for the Devil

by J R Forasteros

  “We have enjoyed peace for more than thirty years. And you think rumors of a child who is the Messiah do not deserve my attention? When this child has prophecies and rumors of angelic messengers behind him, you think I should not be troubled by this scrap of trivia?”

  Herod found he had somehow gained his feet and was shouting, “I learn of this first when magicians from Parthia knock at the doors to my palace, claiming the very stars announced his birth? This is when you deem in your great wisdom that I should learn of it?”

  Matthias cowered before Herod’s legendary rage. He stammered, “Your G—Grace.”

  “Out!” Herod roared. “When I am ready to surrender my kingdom to fools and half-wits, I will call for you again!”

  The priests and scribes left as quickly as they could. Only Antipas and his top general remained behind. Herod’s rage cooled as the room emptied, and he turned to practical matters. “We must rid ourselves of these magicians as quickly as possible.”

  The general cleared his throat. “Your Grace, Parthia is strong, and a much closer neighbor than Rome. We should consider making this visit the beginning of a—fruitful friendship.”

  Herod turned to him. “Eliab, how is it my oldest friend speaks the words of a traitor?”

  “Only a fool does not weigh every option. And my king is no fool.”

  Herod growled, “The fool is he who believes a choice between Rome and the whole world is any choice at all. We must let it be known in no uncertain terms that Herod is no friend of Parthia.”

  Eliab held Herod’s gaze but nodded his assent.

  “We have until the morning.” Herod sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. “How can we rid ourselves of these troublesome magicians? And how will we deal with this would-be messiah?”

  Herod sat once again on his throne. The herald announced the arrival of the magicians, his practiced pronunciation markedly more fluid than his predecessor’s. Once again, the magicians stood shrouded in silence and shadow. Once again, Malchior stepped forward to speak for them, but Herod spoke first. “Great magicians of Parthia, we thank you for your visit. Clearly the wisdom of Parthia exceeds our own. At your behest, my wisest scribes have searched our holy books and have discerned that this newborn king of the Jews of whom you speak is our long-awaited messiah. We are greatly shamed that we who have awaited his birth so long have failed to welcome him. We wish to make amends. Clearly we have much to learn from a friendship with Parthia. Will you share your wisdom with us, that we might welcome our God’s anointed?”

  Malchior gave no indication that Herod’s more conciliatory tone surprised him. He merely bowed and said, “Parthia is pleased to call Israel a friend. How may we be of service?”

  “We know the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem. It is a village not far from here. Its only value is as the ancestral home of our greatest king. Tell us, when was he born? When did his star appear?”

  “The star appeared nearly two years ago, Your Grace. Thank you for your help. We will set out for Bethlehem immediately.”

  “Might I ask one further kindness of you?” Herod forced himself to remain relaxed as he laid his trap.

  “Of course, Your Grace. How might Parthia be of service?”

  “When you have found the child, return here and tell us how we too might go and worship him. Israel has been too long without her true king.”

  Malchior bowed again. “It will be as you say, Your Grace.”

  After the magicians left, Herod looked at Eliab. The general nodded and said, “My two best spies await them in Bethlehem.”

  “Good.” Herod did not notice how his own voice shook. “If we cannot lay hands on the child before word of the Parthians reaches Augustus, we are finished.”

  Herod limped once more into his council chamber, where Eliab stood waiting for him. The old king gained his seat and dismissed his cupbearer. Once they were alone, he snapped, “What news of Bethlehem? It’s been nearly a week already.”

  Eliab scowled. “The magicians are not in Bethlehem, Your Grace. Neither have they returned to Jerusalem. I believe they have returned to Parthia.”

  “No!” Herod hurled his goblet at the general. Eliab did not acknowledge the assault nor that the goblet fell well short of him, splashing his sandals with wine. “Did I not tell you to send your best spies?”

  The general’s scowl deepened. “The two I sent after the Parthians are the finest in Israel, Your Grace. I trust them both with my life.”

  “That seems to have been a mistake,” Herod growled ominously.

  “Your Grace, they are magicians of Parthia. Did you honestly expect we could spy on them if they did not wish it? Did you expect we could demand anything of them they were not willing to offer? We know not how they escaped, save that it was by magical means. We know not where the child is, but Bethlehem is a small village. We will search it. We will discover the child. I’ll begin a discreet investigation.”

  “No.” Herod’s anger gave way to fear as he traced out the implications of the magi’s betrayal. “If the magicians found this messiah, his family will flee at the first sign of danger. We cannot afford discretion.”

  “Very well, Your Grace. I’ll have the child brought to you immediately.”

  “No. It is too late for that. If the emperor’s spies have not already sent word to Rome, they will soon. We must leave no doubt we belong to Augustus.”

  Herod was silent for a moment. “How many boys with two years or fewer do you suppose live in Bethlehem?”

  “Surely no more than six or seven, Your Grace.”

  “Seven boys.” Herod barely hesitated. “Kill them all.”

  “Your Grace?”

  “You heard me. Kill every boy two years or younger in Bethlehem. What is better: seven boys today or seven hundred when the legions of Rome descend on us? Go and kill these boys. Let the wailing of their mothers announce to Augustus we have no love for Parthia or their magicians.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Eliab paused as he turned to leave. “Do you think it’s true? Has the Messiah been born?”

  “It makes no difference.” The old king’s voice was iron, and he tightened his weak grip on his chair. “What hope has the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob against the might of Rome? Messiah or not, this child will die—for the good of us all.”

  8

  Between Rome and a Hard Place

  Living in a World of Impossible Choices

  One of my favorite films is Gone Baby Gone.1 It’s a noir detective story that illustrates a truth we don’t like to admit: sometimes there’s no good decision. Private Detective Patrick Kenzie and his partner/lover Angie Gennaro are hired by the family of four-year-old Amanda McCready, who has been kidnapped. They quickly learn that Amanda’s mother is a drug addict and destitute. She loves her daughter but is too wrapped up in her own life to provide a stable home.

  As the case twists and turns, Patrick and Angie ultimately find little Amanda safe and sound in the home of a couple whose own daughter had been kidnapped and killed as a child.

  Patrick and Angie face an impossible choice: Amanda has been kidnapped and clearly should be returned to her birth mother. But her life would be far better if she remained where she was, with two adoptive parents who not only love her but prioritize her. Both options are right, and both options are wrong.

  The lack of a good choice is precisely why many people don’t like noir as a genre. We watch movies or read books to escape from reality. We want to live in a world—even if it’s just for a couple of hours—in which we know who the good guys are and that they always win. Noir forces us to acknowledge that reality is rarely as clear cut as we wish.

  The impulse to avoid the gray shades of reality is why we don’t read Herod’s part of the Christmas story when we gather to sing “Silent Night” and light candles. We can’t imagine celebrating the birth of Jesus alongside the deaths of Bethlehem’s infant sons. But for Matthew, Herod is integral to the story of Jesus’ birth. He wants us to vie
w Herod as a corrupt, foolish king, the antithesis of what a true king of God’s people should be. Between the lines of Matthew’s story, the real Herod peeks through. If we look closely, we see a king who feels trapped in an impossible situation, a king who marshals all his considerable cunning to find a way out.

  DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN

  Why does the appearance of the Magi trigger such a violent response from Herod? The traditional nativity scene features three well-dressed men, often of indeterminate ethnic origin, holding little boxes of gifts. The so-called three wise men gather at the manger with the shepherds and the Holy Family, come to worship newborn baby Jesus. Both shepherds and kings kneeling before the God of the universe lying in a manger is visually striking, but nearly every element of our depiction of the magi is made up.

  For starters, the Bible never says there were three of them—they brought three gifts, but they are not numbered.2 Further, they don’t appear in the manger scene because they don’t arrive in Judea until Jesus is two years old. Our nativity scenes are a composite: Luke’s framework—the manger, shepherds, and angelic choir, with the good bits of Matthew’s story squeezed in.

  So who are these magi? Matthew tells us they were “from the East” (Matthew 2:1). East of Israel was Parthia, the heir to old Persia and an empire that caused Rome no end of trouble. The word magi comes to Greek from Persia, where it referred to the priestly caste of the Zoroastrian religion. Part and parcel of their work was reading the stars. Hence, when Herod asked the purpose of their visit, they told him they were looking for the newborn king of the Jews because they “observed his star at its rising” (Matthew 2:2).3

  The three wise men of our nativity scenes seem to have been envoys from Parthia. They read in the stars that a new king of the Jews had been born. Parthia was anxious to capitalize on the regime change, so they made preparations for the thousand-mile journey. The magicians arrived in the capital city, Jerusalem (where else would one seek out a newborn king?), only to discover that the current regime had no idea what had taken place. Their presence generated a good bit of confusion at the palace.

  Herod, for his part, had seen this before. The first forty years of his life had been constant warfare as the independent Israelite Hasmonean dynasty imploded.4 His father, Antipater, was an adviser to the last Hasmonean king. During the Hasmonean civil war, Antipater appealed to Rome, which swooped in to quell the conflict in the person of the great general Pompeii.

  It was 63 BCE. Herod was somewhere around ten years old when Pompeii’s legions breached the walls of Jerusalem and broke into the temple. Pompeii himself entered the temple, trampling the holy of holies. For Herod, raised Jewish, such an act would have been unthinkable. God’s holiness was dangerous even to Jews.5 God’s holiness was most concentrated at the temple, in the holy of holies (a very Hebrew way of saying “the holiest place”). Inside the holy of holies dwelled God’s physical presence on earth. Even the Jewish high priest could enter only once a year, on the Day of Atonement.6 Any Jew would be devastated to see a Gentile trampling the holy of holies. Pompeii the Great, general of the Roman legions, sent a clear message: Yahweh is no match for Rome.

  Herod grew to adulthood in a world of shifting allegiances and constant war both in Israel and in Rome. After Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE, Rome fell into a civil war between Brutus, Cassius, and the Roman Senate and the alliance of Mark Antony and Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son and heir. Antony had become impressed with Herod, so he named Herod the king of the Jews and charged him to bring Israel fully under Rome’s control.

  Because Herod’s parents weren’t Hasmonean, Herod knew his claim to the throne was weak in the eyes of the Jewish people. He divorced his first wife, Doris, and banished her and her son, Antipater II, so he could marry Mariamne I, a Hasmonean princess. In 37 BCE, he defeated his final enemy and became king of the Jews in name and in practice.7

  Herod’s victory would mean four decades of peace for Judea after twenty-five years of near-constant warfare. But unrest in Rome threatened Herod’s crown. After Antony and Octavian defeated Brutus and Cassius, they tried unsuccessfully to rule together—Octavian from Rome and Antony from Egypt.8 Their conflict devolved into war yet again, and Octavian emerged triumphant in 31 BCE. Octavian declared himself Caesar Augustus and set to putting his empire in order. This was bad news for Herod, who owed his kingdom to Antony.

  Before Augustus could return to Rome, Herod rushed to meet him at Rhodes, and in a quintessential display of his political savvy, he threw himself on Augustus’s mercy. Augustus knew Herod had been close to Antony, and rather than denying it, Herod embraced his fierce loyalty as his best quality. He offered that loyalty to Augustus.

  Augustus was impressed by Herod’s cunning and audacity, and confirmed his kingship. Because Judea was one of Rome’s eastern-most provinces, Augustus depended on Herod to keep Judea stable and quiet. The worst thing Herod could be was incompetent. Actually, incompetent was the second-worst thing; the worst would be treasonous. Augustus had offered Herod a second chance, and Herod knew he would not get a third. He spent the rest of his life loudly affirming his loyalty to Augustus.9

  If Jesus was born around 6 BCE, as most scholars think, Herod was nearly seventy years old when the magi arrived. Their arrival threatened the fragile peace Herod had maintained through sheer force of will. He was not going to surrender that peace or his throne without a fight.

  THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

  The Parthian envoy sought to put a king friendly to their interests on the throne in Jerusalem. Parthia had done this before: Herod won his kingdom from Aristobulus II, who was put on the throne by the brother to Parthian King Arsaces XXII, who ruled at the time of Jesus’ birth. Herod’s victory had been part of a larger conflict between Parthia and Rome, with Mark Antony leading Rome’s armies in support of Herod.

  Whether Augustus had spies in Jerusalem or not, Herod was certain he did. He was certain Rome would know of the magi’s visit. At minimum, Augustus would think Herod was collaborating with Rome’s enemies, and Herod would be dethroned and executed as a traitor. It was also possible that war could erupt between Rome and Parthia. That war would be waged over Israel, which was caught between the two powers as before.

  How could Herod respond? He positioned himself as a potential ally of the Parthians, discerned from his scribes and priests where the Messiah was said to have been born, then sent the magi on their way with a promise to return with a full report. When they failed to return, Herod “was infuriated” (Matthew 2:16). He surely wondered how long the news would take to reach Rome and how Augustus could possibly view the unfolding of events as anything but betrayal and collusion with the enemy. Herod’s last chance was to act decisively and publicly by sending a message that he was Rome’s man to the end.

  The population of Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth was around three hundred, which means the total number of male children two years old or younger would have been six or seven.10 Seven children were weighed against Herod’s own security. The lives of seven children were weighed against the life of a nation. For Herod, this was no choice. He had watched his father, brother, and friends die. He had executed his beloved wife and three of his own children for plotting against him. What were seven nameless boys he would never know?

  Like many of Israel’s kings before him, Herod looked to other gods than Yahweh for both personal and national security. Herod’s allegiance to Rome was strong. His fear of Rome turned him into a monster; idolatry always has that effect.

  Herod lived in difficult days and felt as though he was in an impossible situation. He’d spent his whole life negotiating among Rome, the Jewish people, Parthia, other neighboring countries, his family, his ambitions, and more. But in the end, the way he chose to negotiate left him the one true villain of the Christmas story: the king of the Jews who was so far from God that he not only missed the birth of the Messiah, he also tried to murder him.

  Like Herod, we don’t live in a world
of easy choices. We find ourselves caught between impossible commitments. In a world that’s all shades of gray, every choice feels like a compromise. So how can we be sure we’re not following in Herod’s footsteps? In a world that’s all shades of gray, how do we choose between bad and worse?

  SLIPPING THROUGH THE CRACKS

  Even with this window into Herod’s life, we struggle to imagine how he could order the deaths of children. But as a nation, we also trade the lives of children for security. In Pakistan alone, by 2014, the drone program pioneered by President Barack Obama killed an estimated 142 children while in pursuit of twenty-four suspected terrorists. Only six of those men were killed in those drone strikes.11 And that’s just in Pakistan and just until 2014. We are quick to vilify Herod for ordering the deaths of seven boys in Bethlehem, but most Americans give no thought to the US drone program that has been killing children and calling it collateral damage for the better part of a decade. We praise our drones as the next level of warfare, as sensible, and as in the best interests of national security. When we weigh the lives of faceless children living halfway around the world against our own peace of mind, and we choose to feel safe, we are most certainly following in Herod’s footsteps, not God’s.

  A deeper problem is that the vast majority of us are only vaguely aware that the United States and her allies wage drone warfare. We have no idea of the price we pay for our sense of security (and it is only a sense, given that drone warfare has not demonstrably reduced the threat of terror in the countries where it has been utilized). Pakistan may as well be a latter-day Bethlehem, ignored and overlooked as a meaningless backwater country. And while her children die by the dozens, our ears are deaf to the laments of their mothers, much as Herod refused to hear as Rachel wept over her children (to paraphrase Matthew 2:18).