James Tissot's Painting of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents

The above image is cropped from a watercolor painted by James Tissot of the Massacre of the Innocents—which was carried out by the order of Herod the Great, king of Judea. 

The Catholic Church honors the murdered children as the first Christian martyrs and celebrates the Feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28.

As the familiar story is told in the Gospel of Matthew  (Chapter 2:16-18), wise men from the east passed through Jerusalem seeking the child whose birth was foretold by a star—which they had followed from their home countries. They made the mistake of referring to the infant as the King of the Jews after they were brought into Herod's presence. 

Herod was a jealous and fearful ruler of Judaea who was appointed by the Romans, and he knew he was hated by the Jews. When the priests and scribes of the Jews reminded him of the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in the insignificant town of Bethlehem, Herod planned to have the child killed to remove any threat to his power. He deceitfully told the Magi to continue on their journey, "and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I also may come to adore him." But after the Magi found Jesus, they were warned in a dream to return home in by a different route. When Herod realized he had been outwitted, he ordered the murder of all male children under the age of two in the vicinity of Bethlehem. 

The historian Macrobius (c. 395–423) reported that Herod's perverse lust to retain his power was so great that one of the baby boys killed in that slaughter was Herod's own son:

"When he [emperor Augustus] heard that among the boys in Syria under two years old whom Herod, king of the Jews, had ordered killed, his own son was also killed, he said: it is better to be Herod's pig, than his son."

The implication is that a pig in Judea would be safe, since the king might keep kosher, if only for form's sake. But no regard for his reputation prevented Herod from killing anyone to maintain his power, even his own child.

The Brooklyn Museum curators wrote, "Although Tissot acknowledged that the number of victims must have been relatively few in a village like Bethlehem, he depicted horror on a large scale in this episode. . . . According to a tradition recounted in Tissot’s commentary, Herod lured the intended victims to the palace with the promise of a party. The children were then wrenched from their mothers’ arms and tossed to their deaths in a courtyard. Herod’s deviousness was thus highlighted: called singly into a long corridor, the women had no opportunity to warn others of the impending tragedy."

James Tissot was a highly renowned artist in England and France during the 19th Century, who turned from making sensuous oil paintings of the beautiful women in scenes in London and Paris to making watercolors of Biblical events with authentic backgrounds, which he painted during visits to the Holy Land after he regained his Catholic faith. The San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor is currently showing an exhibit titled James Tissot:  Fashion and Faith, that will be up until February 9, 2020. 

Note: Click to view larger images.

James Tissot (French, 1836-1902). The Massacre of the Innocents (Le massacre des innocents), 1886-1894. Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper. Brooklyn Museum.