Unlikely Martyrs: How the Holy Innocents Became Martyrs Without Knowledge or Free Will

Can Babies Be Martyrs? 

The Holy Innocents are the baby boys two years old and under who lived in or around Bethlehem that Herod put to death in his attempt to kill the Christ-child after the Magi came to him seeking the newborn King Jesus.

On the feast of the Holy Innocents, the priest wears red to signify that he is celebrating a mass in honor of a martyr. But how can a baby be a martyr if he does not know what he is dying for?

Thomas wrestles with this question in his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel. He says:

But it is asked, since they [the Holy Innocents] did not have free judgment, how are they said to die for Christ?

As it is said, ‘God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but to save the world through himself’ (John 3:17). For God would never have permitted them to be killed, unless it were useful to them. Hence Augustine says that “it is the same to doubt whether that killing profited them as to doubt whether children profit by baptism. For they suffered as martyrs, and confessed Christ by dying, although not by speaking. ‘I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God’” (Rev 6:9).

The sin of Herod is permitted in the slaying of the Innocents because it was ‘useful to them.’ God hates the sins of tyrants, but he loves the blood of the martyrs. In this case, he permits even infanticide to glorify these children as the first fruits of the Martyrs and to give the Church Militant powerful intercessors. God permits their execution for the sake of bringing about a greater good.

So… did they know why they were dying?

Thomas does not think that the Holy Innocents had an accelerated use of their reason; however, he does not dismiss it as an impossibility. In the Supplement of the Summa, he says this: 

Some say that the use of reason was by the divine power accelerated in the Innocents slain for Christ’s sake, even as in John the Baptist while yet in his mother’s womb: and in that case they were truly martyrs in both act and will… 

He acknowledges the possibility that the Holy Innocents had an accelerated use of reason but does not think it is probable. 

Instead, he follows St. Bernard in distinguishing three types of martyrs. 

1. In will and not in death ex. John the Apostle (i.e., White Martyrs)

2. In will and in death ex. St. Stephen

3. In death and not in will ex. The Holy Innocents

Thomas believes that the Holy Innocents were baptized in their own blood without their will, in the same way a baby is baptized by water without their will. Babies contract Original Sin without willing it; likewise, they are cleansed from Original Sin without willing it. There is no need for the babies to know that they are dying for Christ in order to be baptized in their own blood.

The souls of the Holy Innocents now rejoice in heaven because they gave their lives for Christ, even as the souls of babies who die shortly after baptism rejoice in heaven because they never sinned. God, in His goodness and mercy, decided to take the souls of these children to heaven before they even had a chance to offend Him or lose His friendship.

What do you think? Did the Holy Innocents know what was happening when they were martyred? 

Leave a comment!

Thanks for reading,

Reference: 

https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.IIISup.Q96.A6.Rep12

https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~Matt.C2.L4.n219.3