human
Christ despised not His young soldiers, although he was not present in body at their slaughter. Blessed were they born that they might for His sake suffer death. Happy is that their (tender) age, which was not yet able to confess Christ, and was allowed to suffer for Christ. They were the Saviour's witnesses, although as yet they knew Him not. They were not ripe for the slaughter, but yet did they blessedly die to live! Blessed was their birth, for they found eternal life on the threshold of this present life. They were snatched from mother-breasts, but they were straightway given into the keeping of angel-bosoms. The cruel persecutor (Herod) could with no service benefit those little ones so greatly as he benefited them with the hatred of his cruel persecution. They are called martyrs' blossoms because they were as blossoms upspringing in the cold of earth's unbelief, thus withered with the frost of persecution. Blessed are the wombs that bare them, and the breasts which suckled such as these. The mothers indeed suffered in the martyrdom of their children; the sword which pierced the children's limbs pierced to the mothers' hearts: and it must needs be that they be sharers of the eternal reward, when they were companions in the suffering.