The Massacre of the Innocents (detail) is one of a 36 paintings on 4 panels, the majority of which are by Fra Angelico, in the Museo di San Marco, Florence. This extensive series includes another painting addressing the Lex Amoris doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which arguably sets the theme for the series as a whole. This doctrine is articulated in the inscription on this painting, “Christ did not come to me to destroy the old laws of the patriarchs, but to renew and complete them with a new Law of Love.” Perhaps, the Massacre of the Innocents, underscores by antithesis, the essential New Testament principle of love.

In this primordial image of slaughter, a group of soldiers is represented impassively working its way across the scene, effortlessly slitting the throats of babes in the arms of their desperate mothers who, despite their bodily resistance, are soon to be completely overwhelmed. Viewed abstractly, a solid mass of darkness advances from left to right with strong momentum and at a steady pace, portending the imminent extinguishment of all light and color in the image. In the latest reprise of this archetypal act of inhumanity, 8,663 Gazan children have been slaughtered (UpdatedDecember 19) in an equally malefic military movement, a movement that Norman Finkelstein might describe, after Israeli sources, as ‘mowing the lawn.‘

See also:

Grace in the Face of Suffering

Netanyahu channels King Herod!

Le Massacre des Innocents

Witness to Slaughter

Image: https://scottdodge.blogspot.com/2010/12/feast-of-holy-innocents-martyrs.html

http://www.travelingintuscany.com/art/fraangelico/armadiodegliargenti.htm

https://fraangelicoinstitute.com/2018/05/27/fra-angelico-and-the-armadio-degli-argenti-part-3-of-the-heaven-on-earth-exhibition/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker

https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/norman-finkelstein-israel-mowing-the-lawn-in-gaza/