SolaScriptura
Puritanboard Brimstone
I'm preaching on the flight into Egypt this Sunday and I'm reading all these commentaries and they all say that outside Matt 2:16 there is no record of the slaughter of the young boys in the vicinity of Bethlehem. Of course, they give (good) reasons why that should not concern us. But then I read Calvin and he writes this comment: "The only writer who mentions it is Macrobius, in the Second Book of his Saturnalia, where, relating the jokes and taunts of Augustus, he says: When he heard that, by Herod’s command, the children of Syria under two years of age had been slain, and that his own son had been slain among the crowd, 'I would rather,' said he, 'have been Herod’s hog than his son.'"
Ok, so Calvin seems to know about a Latin source that specifically mentions this incident... so how could literally no modern commentary author know about it? (Even if their knowledge of it is via Calvin?) So naturally I try to locate the Macrobius source and I can't find much - but what I have found doesn't have any reference to the children of Syria at all!!!
So either Calvin got it wrong or there IS in fact an extra-biblical reference to the Herod's slaughter of the children under 2yrs of age and every modern commentator is ignorant of this source. Which is it?
Is there anyone here who can locate this incident in Macrobius and clear it up for me?
Ok, so Calvin seems to know about a Latin source that specifically mentions this incident... so how could literally no modern commentary author know about it? (Even if their knowledge of it is via Calvin?) So naturally I try to locate the Macrobius source and I can't find much - but what I have found doesn't have any reference to the children of Syria at all!!!
So either Calvin got it wrong or there IS in fact an extra-biblical reference to the Herod's slaughter of the children under 2yrs of age and every modern commentator is ignorant of this source. Which is it?
Is there anyone here who can locate this incident in Macrobius and clear it up for me?