Images of the Divine Child

[aras-image:5Ck.097,,12,,,Figure 22 Massacre of the Innocents.]

The early life of Dionysus is equally precarious for the Titans tore him apart, preparing to eat him but the lightening bolts of Zeus defeated their plan. Zeus then handed the infant over to Hermes who took him to Ino to nurse him. In another version Hermes takes him to Zeus who encloses the child in his thigh to be born when his time has come.
 
A 10th century version of the Christian story of the Slaughter of the Innocents reveals the fear which the birth of the Divine Child engenders, as Herod stand to the left while his soldiers attack the children in the center of the painting and the mothers lament outside the city walls (Figure 22).
 

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