Truth in Art

The
Sanctity of Human Life:

Massacre of the Innocents
by Giotto
 

Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337) is widely regarded as the
father of the Italian Renaissance. Commissioned by the wealthy Scrovengi family
in Padua, Giotti filled the walls of their family chapel with beautiful
depictions of Biblical scenes. Giotto painted the fresco Massacre of the Innocents around 1302, making it one of the very
earliest works of art depicting this particular Bible event. 

The
story itself is found in Matthew 2:16-18: Then
Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and
he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who
were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from
the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
"A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping
for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more."

Giotto
paints nearly twenty dead babies in a pile, with two more about to be slain. 
On one hand, the picture lacks the modern shock-value depiction of the
blood that certainly would have accompanied the murders. On the other hand,
there is no getting around the fact that all the young boys have puncture
wounds, and there is at least one recognizable decapitation. This is a grotesque
and nauseating scene that demands a response.

We see King Herod up on the balcony giving his command and
consent to the killing.  He even
seems to be pointing out something – perhaps a baby that the soldiers have
missed in the slaughter? 
Herod's placement above the rest of the crew reminds us
of his legal authority over the lives of others. His malevolent power was even
used to kill three of his own sons, prompting Augustus Caesar to say about him,
"I would rather be his sow than his son." 
State-sanctioned murder of babies is not a modern invention.

Scholars say the total number of boys in Bethlehem at the
time would have been around thirty. In the despotic career of Herod, such a
small number of deaths would be a drop in his bucket of brutality. 
Herod was guilty of many murderous acts during his reign, and yet this
atrocity upon Bethlehem is his most famous because of its significance in the
life of Christ. This descendent of Esau sought to kill the descendent of Jacob.

One particularly troubling aspect of Giotto's painting is
that every man is a predatory menace and every woman and child is a powerless
victim.  There are two reasons why
this bothers me greatly.

First, Bethlehem may be the hometown of heroic King David,
but in Giotto's picture there is not a single man standing against the
slaughter. In truth, some men may have fought in vain against the soldiers,
losing their own lives in an attempt to thwart the murders. We don't know, for
the Bible is silent on this point. Giotto's painting is haunting nonetheless,
for it depicts the complete abdication of patriarchal protection. Where are the
fathers giving their lives for the children? 
Men, may it not be so in our day!  In the words of Josiah Holland:
           
Give us Men!

           
Men who, when tempest gathers,

           
Grasp the standard of their fathers

           
In the thickest fight;

           
Men who strike for home and altar,

           
(Let the coward cringe and falter),

           
God defend the right!

The second reason why this bothers me is because the
God-given maternal instinct these mothers display seems to have now been
vanquished in the hearts of women who abort their own children. 
The maternal instinct of child-protection should not be thought to be a
grace given only to the Christian.  These
instincts are part of the common grace of God extending to all humanity. Only
where a culture has supplanted the infant-preservation instinct with a
self-interest-preservation instinct do we find mothers and fathers too embracing
the destruction of the life that comes from a mother's own womb. 

I find The Massacre
of the Innocents to be a damning indictment against our own so-called
Christian culture. The Herodian evil runs right through the heartland –
"red" and "blue" states alike.  Laws
may one day change, and to that end we pray and hope and work. However,
political parties cannot change culture-wide anti-natalism.

So, we cry out to God for the change of hearts that only He
can bring. We pray that the millions of women who have aborted a child (and the
fathers who urged the decision to abort) would find their hearts burdened down
until they are driven to repentance and faith through the free grace of God
found in the saving death of Jesus Christ. Let us go forth preaching the gospel
in confidence that the God who said "Thou shalt not kill" also sent
us His son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

And let us repent of our own apathy in regards to pro-life
issues. Do we weep for the lost children? Do we refuse to be comforted because
they are no more? Or have we made peace with Herod?

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