a festival of the Christian church, observed on December 28, in memory of the massacre of the innocent children by the command of Herod king of Judea; who being alarmed at hearing that an infant was born king of the Jews, and imagining that his own kingdom was in danger, sent orders to have all the children slain that were in Bethlehem and the adjacent country.

The Greek church in their calendar, and the Abyssinians of Ethiopia in their offices, commemorate fourteen thousand infants on this occasion.