The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago

TWO DAYS LATER, JESUS LEFT HOME. DURING THIS TIME HE said very little. Unable to sleep, he spent the nights awake. He could picture the awful massacre, the soldiers entering the houses and searching for cradles, their swords striking, stabbing the tender little bodies, mothers in despair, fathers roaring like chained bulls, and he also had a vision of himself inside a cave he had never seen before. At such moments, as if great waves were slowly engulfing him, he wished he were dead or at least no longer alive. One question that he had not asked his mother bothered him, How many children lost their lives. In his mind's eye they were piled high on top of one another, like beheaded lambs thrown into a heap and about to be cremated in a huge bonfire, and when reduced to ashes, they would go up to heaven in smoke.

But since he had not asked this when his mother made her revelation, he felt he could not go to her now and say, By the way, Mother, I forgot to ask you the other day how many of those infants in Bethlehem passed on to a better life, to which she would reply, Ah, my son, try to put it out of your mind, there could not have been more than thirty, and if they died, it was the will of the Lord, for He could have prevented the massacre had He so desired. But Jesus could not stop wondering, How many. He would look at his brothers and ask himself, How many. How many bodies, he wanted to know, did it take to tip the scales against his own salvation. On the morning of the second day, he said to his mother, I can find no rest or peace of mind in this house, you stay here with my brothers, for I am going away.