Holofernes

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Artemisia Gentileschi's painting Judith Beheading Holofernes

In the deuterocanonical Book of Judith Holofernes (Hebrew, הולופרנס) was an invading general of "Nebuchadnezzar". "Nebuchadnezzar" dispatched Holofernes to take vengeance on the nations of the west that had withheld their assistance to his reign. The general laid siege to Bethulia, commonly believed to be Meselieh, and the city almost surrendered. It was saved by Judith, a beautiful Hebrew widow who entered Holofernes's camp and seduced him. Judith then beheaded Holofernes while he was drunk. She returned to Bethulia with the disembodied head, and the Hebrews defeated the enemy. Hebrew versions of the tale in the Megillat Antiochus and the Chronicles of Jerahmeel identify "Holoferenes" as Nicanor whence the name "Holofernes" in the Greek version would be a deliberately cryptic name similar to the use of "Nebuchadnezzer" for Antiochus.

Holofernes is depicted in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Monk's Tale in The Canterbury Tales, and in Dante's Purgatorio (where Holofernes is to be found on the Terrace of Pride as an example of 'pride cast down'). As a painter's subject it offers the chance to contrast the flesh and jewels of a beautiful, festively attired woman with the grisly victim, an Old Testament parallel to the New Testament vignette of Salome with the head of John the Baptist.

See also

• Judith and Holofernes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Judith and Holofernes

Sources