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Mat 2:16. Ἐνεπαίχθη, was mocked) Such was the king’s impression, entirely at variance with the spirit of the Magi. They did, however, hold the royal authority at nought in comparison with the Divine. Herod did not know what might be doing [and he, therefore, became anxious and infuriated].-ἀποστείλας, having sent) sc. murderers, and that suddenly.-ἀνεῖλε, he slew) This was a sin crying to Heaven for vengeance; cf. Mat 2:18.-πάντας, all) “Of whom,” says Feu-Ardent[97] on Irenæu[98] . 3:18,-“Christ, whilst yet Himself a child, consecrated fourteen thousand as martyrs, by the unutterable cruelty of Herod, as the Ethiopians record in the Liturgy left to them by St Matthew, and the Greeks preserve in their calendar.”-τοὺς παῖδας, the boys) not girls; cf. Exo 1:16.-ἀπὸ διετοῦς, from two years old) The adjective is put in the masculine, as τριετοῦς in 2Ch 31:16; cf. the Hebrew original. κατὰ τὸν χρόνον, κ.τ.λ., according to the time, etc.) The time indicated by the Magi was, perhaps, a little beyond a year: and Herod laid down, therefore, two years as the limit of massacre.
[97] FRANCOIS FEU-ARDENT, a Cordelier, was born at Coutance in 1541, became Doctor of the Sorbonne in 1576, and died at Bayeux in 1610. He published an edition of Irenæus, with an original commentary, in 1575.-(I. B.)
[98] renæus (of Lyons, in Gaul: born about 130 A.D., and died about the end of the second century). The Editio Renati Massueti, Parisinæ, a. 1710.