Rachel Weeping: Intertextuality as a Means of Transforming the Readers’ Worldview

Abstract

The episode of the Bethlehem massacre (Matt 2:16-18) uses many levels of intertextuality as a rhetorical device, to solicit an emotional response powerful enough to influence the reader’s worldview. What effect do these intertexts have on Matthew’s readers? How is this affective appeal concerning Rachel’s tears intended to impact the reader’s response to Matthew’s story? Rachel weeping is an emotionally charged image that somehow merges two opposites: hope and sorrow. The intertextuality of this figure can influence readers encouraging them to criticize imperial ideologies that have used violence against innocent people in the past, and oppose those which do so currently.

Martyrdom, Motherhood, and the Aetiology of Infanticide: The Legend of Saints Quiricus and Julitta in Early Iberian Art and Literature

“…The punishment is recorded in the Gran flos sanctorum: "E como Herodes llegase a los setenta años, cayó en una grave enfermedat, ca le vino una grand fiebre, e quedóle después de la fiebre grant comezón e grand dolor de la cerviz e finchamiento de los pies e tal enfermedat en los mienbros de la generación que se le fazían en ellos gusanos e davan de sí grand fedor" (Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 12688, fols 109 vb -10 ra ). For Herod in the Middle Ages, see Temple (1959), Staines (1976), Skey (1983), Mans (1997), Park (2013), Doane (2017), andChilds (2021). cruelty traditionally associated with the Jews, and Quiricus, with the purity of the Innocents, and by extension, of Christ himself.…”

“…That is the Church, laments her slain young lambs"] (cited in Tinkle 2004: 14). For the typological relationship between Rachel, Mary, and the mothers of the Innocents, see Temple (1959), Nolan (1996), Tinkle (2004), Park (2013: 482), andDoane (2017).…”