The critics, however, have not surrendered; they have dared to censure St. Matthew himself for saying that these children were massacred, "that the words of Jeremiah might be fulfilled. A voice is heard in Ramah, a voice of groaning and lamentation. Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." These historical words, they observe, were literally fulfilled in the tribe of Benjamin, which descended from Rachel, when Nabuzaradan destroyed a part of that tribe near the city of Ramah. It was no longer a prediction, they say, any more than were the words "He shall be called a Nazarene. And He came to dwell in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene." They triumph in the circumstance that these words are not to be found in any one of the prophets; just as they do in the idea that Rachel weeping for the Benjamites at Ramah has no reference whatever to the massacre of the innocents by Herod. They dare even to urge that these two allusions, being clearly false, are a manifest proof of the falsehood of this narrative; and conclude that the massacre of the children, and the new star, and the journey of the three kings, never had the slightest foundation in fact. They even go much further yet; they think they find as palpable a contradiction between the narrative of St. Matthew and that of St. Luke, as between the two genealogies adduced by them. St. Matthew says that Joseph and Mary carried Jesus into Egypt, fearing that he would be involved in the massacre. St. Luke, on the contrary, says, "After having fulfilled all the ceremonies of the law, Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth, their city, and went every year to Jerusalem, to keep the Passover." But thirty days must have expired before a woman could have completed her purification from childbirth and fulfilled all the ceremonies of the law. During these thirty days, therefore, the child must have been exposed to destruction by the general proscription. And if his parents went to Jerusalem to accomplish the ordinance of the law, they certainly did not go to Egypt. These are the principal objections of unbelievers. They are effectually refuted by the faith both of the Greek and Latin churches. If it were necessary always to be clearing up the doubts of persons who read the Scriptures, we must inevitably pass our whole lives in disputing about all the articles contained in them. Let us rather refer ourselves to our worthy superiors and masters; to the university of Salamanca when in Spain, to the Sorbonne in France, and to the holy congregation at Rome. Let us submit both in heart and in understanding to that which is required of us for our good. INQUISITION. SECTION I.