Bethlehem, The Basilica of the Nativity
jamacor 10/07/2012 13:03:50
E. Gil
Tags: Year of Faith, Holy Land
In the Footprints of Faith
Journeys through the Holy Land
“To come close to our Lord through the pages of the Holy Gospel, I always recommend you to try and get inside each scene and take part in it like another of the people there.” (Friends of God, 222) Recently Benedict XVI recalled how the Holy Land has sometimes been called “the fifth Gospel”. Because Jesus was born at a definite time and in a real place, in a strip of land at the edge of the Roman Empire. In that land our Lord lived and died for all men.
Starting from June 2012, this website will offer a section of Journeys through the Holy Land, to make the places where Christ lived on earth more widely known. They will also serve as useful guides to those who are able to visit the Holy Places for themselves.
Download the first Journey (Bethlehem) in pdf format
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Bethlehem, cradle of David’s dynasty
The place where Jesus was born. Photo: Darko Tepert (Wikimedia Commons).
Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem, Scripture says, “because there was no place for them in the inn”.(Lk 2:7; cf. The Forge, 274)
It has been calculated that Bethlehem was founded by the Canaanites around the year 3000 BC. It is mentioned in some letters sent by the Egyptian governor of Palestine to the Pharaoh in about 1350 BC. Later it was conquered by the Philistines. In Sacred Scripture the first mention of Bethlehem (which at that time was also called Ephrath, “the fertile”) comes in the Book of Genesis, when it tells of the death and burial of Rachel, the second wife of the Patriarch Jacob. “Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).” (Gen 35:19)
Later on, when the land was divided up among the tribes of the Chosen People, Bethlehem was allotted to Judah, and was the birthplace of David, the shepherd-boy, the youngest son of a large family, who was chosen by God to be Israel’s second king. From then on, Bethlehem was linked to David’s dynasty, and the prophet Micah foretold that there, in that little town, the Messiah would be born.
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in travail has brought forth; then the rest of his brethren shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.(Mic 5:2-4)
Several elements in this passage are connected with the prophecies of the Messiah made by Isaiah, (Cf. Is 7:14; 9:6-7; and 11:1-4) and also with other texts in Scripture announcing a future descendent of David. (Cf. 2 Sam 7:12-16; and Ps 89(88):3-4) Jewish tradition saw Micah’s words as a prophecy about the coming of the Messiah, as is apparent from several passages in the Talmud. (Cf. Pesachim 51, 1 and Nedarim 39, 2) St John, too, in his Gospel, shows the opinion that prevailed among the Jews at the time of Jesus about where the Messiah was to come from: Has not the scripture said that the Christ is descended from David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?(Jn 7:42)
But it is St Matthew’s Gospel that explicitly quotes the prophecy of Micah, when Herod gathers the priests and scribes to ask them where the Messiah was to be born. In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel.’(Mt 2:5-6)
Altarpiece over the place of Jesus's Birth. Photo: Leobard Hinfelaar
God is born in Bethlehem
At the beginning of the first century AD, Bethlehem was a village with not more than a thousand inhabitants: a small set of houses scattered along the side of a ridge and protected by a wall that was in a bad state of repair, or even mostly demolished, since it had been built nearly a thousand years earlier. Its inhabitants lived by agriculture and herding. They had good fields of wheat and barley in the broad plain at the foot of the ridge; perhaps these had given rise to the name Beth-Lechem, Hebrew for “House of Bread”. The fields nearest the desert were also pasture for flocks of sheep.
In the little village of Bethlehem, day followed day in the monotonous rhythm of the agricultural seasons of the provinces, until the unprecedented event that would make it famous forever throughout the world.
St Luke tells the story quite simply. In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrolment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.(Lk 2:1-5)
About a hundred and fifty kilometres separated Nazareth from Bethlehem. The journey would have been especially hard for Mary, in her condition.
The houses of Bethlehem were modest ones, and as in other parts of Palestine, the villagers used natural caves as stores and stables, and dug more out of the side of the ridge. It was in one of these that Jesus was born.
And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.(Lk 2:6-7)
Altar of the Magi, opposite the Crib. Photo: Alfred Driessen
A Baby who is God
God’s providence arranged things so that Jesus, the Word made flesh, the King of the World and the Lord of history, would be born in total poverty. He did not even have what a poor family could have lovingly prepared for the birth of their firstborn son. All he had was swaddling-clothes and a manger.
“We will never have genuine joy if we do not really try to imitate Jesus. Like him we must be humble. I repeat: do you see where God’s greatness is hidden? In a manger, in swaddling clothes, in a stable. The redemptive power of our lives can only work through humility. We must stop thinking about ourselves and feel the responsibility to help others.” (Christ is Passing By, 18)
“Just as food is seasoned with salt to prevent it from being insipid, we too must always season our life with humility. My daughters and sons, don’t act like a hen who lays just one egg and then goes crowing all over the place. I didn’t invent that comparison; it has been used by spiritual authors for more than four centuries. We have to do apostolate and carry out our work – intellectual or manual, but always apostolic – with great ambitions and great desires to serve God and go unnoticed, confident that he will make them all come true.” (St Josemaria, notes taken during a meditation, 25 December 1972)
The place where Jesus was born. Photo: Antoine Taveneaux (Wikimedia Commons).
Bethlehem and the early Christians
Right from the start, our Lord’s disciples and the first Christians were very much aware of Bethlehem’s significance. Halfway through the second century AD, St Justin, who was a native of Palestine, reported the memories that were being passed down from parents to children among Bethlehem’s inhabitants, about the stable where Jesus was born. (Cf. St Justin, Dialogue with Trypho, 78, 5)
In the first decades of the following century Origen testified that the place where our Lord was born was perfectly well known locally, even among those who were not Christians. “In harmony with what the Gospels tell, people in Bethlehem show you the cave in which [Jesus] was born and, within the cave, the crib where he was laid, wrapped in swaddling-clothes. And what is shown in those places is famous even among those who do not belong to the faith; “in this cave,” they tell you, “was born the Jesus who is admired and adored by Christians.” (Origen, Contra Celsum, 1, 51)
In the time of the Emperor Hadrian, the imperial authorities built pagan temples on various spots such as the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary that were venerated by Christians, in the hopes of obliterating all traces of Christ’s life on earth. “From the time of Hadrian until the reign of Constantine, for a period of about a hundred and eighty years, a statue of Jupiter was worshipped at the place of the Resurrection, and a marble statue of Venus was set by the Gentiles on the hill of the Cross. The authors of the persecution undoubtedly imagined that if the holy places were polluted by idols, it would destroy our faith in the Resurrection and the Cross.” (St Jerome, Letters, 58, 3)
Something similar may have been done in Bethlehem: the place where Jesus was born became a sacred wood dedicated to the god Adonis. St Cyril of Jerusalem saw the area which included the stable, covered with trees, (St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis, 12: 20: “Until a few years ago this place was occupied by a wood.”) and St Jerome also refers ironically to the failed attempt to paganise this Christian memory: “Bethlehem, which now belongs to us, the most august place in the world, the place of which the Psalmist said “Truth has sprung up from the earth,” (Ps 84:12), lay under the shadow of a wood of Tammuz, or Adonis, and Venus’s paramour was mourned in the cave where many years ago Christ uttered his first cries.” (St Jerome Letters, 58, 3)
Fragments of mosaics from the Byzantine era can still be seen in the walls and floors. Photo: Alfred Driessen
The Basilica of the Nativity: history
Based on this constant, unanimous tradition, the Emperor Constantine had a great basilica built over the stable. It was consecrated on 31 May 339, and one of those present at the ceremony was St Helena, who had been the driving force behind the whole undertaking.
Detail of a mosaic on the floor. Photo: Leobard Hinfelaar.
Not much remains of this first basilica, which was sacked and destroyed during the Samaritan Revolt of 529. When peace was restored Bethlehem was fortified, and the Emperor Justinian ordered a new basilica to be built, on the same site as the first one, but larger. This Basilica still stands today, having survived during the various invasions when the other Constantinian / Byzantine churches were destroyed. It is said that the Persians, who in the year 614 laid waste almost all the churches and monasteries in Palestine, decided to leave the Bethlehem basilica alone out of respect, because they found in it a mosaic representing the Three Kings dressed in Persian garb. The basilica also emerged almost unscathed from the Egyptian Caliph’s invasion of the Holy Land in 1009, and from the many battles fought after the arrival of the crusaders in 1099.
After historical vicissitudes too numerous to mention, the custody of the stable and basilica was entrusted to the Franciscans in 1347. They continue to look after it to this day, although Greek Orthodox, Syriacs and Armenians also have rights over this holy place.
Exterior of the basilica
The door is barely one and a half meters high. Photo: Leobard Hinfelaar
From the square in front of the basilica the visitor has the impression of standing before a mediaeval fortress, because of the thick walls and buttresses, pierced by a few tiny windows. Entrance is through a door so small that only one person can go in at a time, and even then stooping and with difficulty. In his homily at Midnight Mass 2011, Benedict XVI referred to the access to this basilica:
Graphics adapted by Julian de Velasco
“Today, anyone wishing to enter the Church of Jesus’ Nativity in Bethlehem will find that the doorway five and a half metres high, through which emperors and caliphs used to enter the building, is now largely walled up. Only a low opening of one and a half metres has remained. The intention was probably to provide the church with better protection from attack, but above all to prevent people from entering God’s house on horseback. Anyone wishing to enter the place of Jesus’ birth has to bend down. It seems to me that a deeper truth is revealed here, which should touch our hearts on this holy night: if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our ‘enlightened’ reason. We must set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing God’s closeness.”(Benedict XVI, Homily, 24 December 2011)
Interior: the stable of the Nativity
Steps up from the grotto. Photo: Alfred Driessen.
The basilica is built in the shape of a Latin cross, with five aisles, and is 54 metres long. The four rows of pink marble columns provide harmony. In some places it is still possible to see the remains of the mosaics that covered the floor of Constantine’s basilica, and the walls preserve fragments of more mosaics, dating from the time of the crusades.
But the centre of this great church is the Grotto of the Nativity, which lies beneath the sanctuary. It takes the form of a very small chapel, with a little apse on the eastern side. The walls and ceiling are black with the smoke of candles lit by generations of devout Christians. Beneath the altar, a silver star shows the place where Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. An inscription reads Hic de Virgine Maria Iesus Christus natus est.
The manger where Mary laid the Baby after wrapping him in swaddling-bands is in a little chapel beside the Grotto. It is in fact just a hole in the rock, though today it is lined with marble and in the past was lined with silver. In front of it is the Altar of the Magi, with an altarpiece showing the scene of the Epiphany.
Central nave of the Basilica. Photo: Leobard Hinfelaar
Fragments of mosaics from the Byzantine era can still be seen in the walls and floors. Photo: Alfred Driessen
Grotto of the Nativity. Photo: Alfred Driessen.
The place where Jesus was born is marked with a silver star. Photo: Leobard Hinfelaar.
The place of the Crib. Photo: Alfred Driessen.
The square in front of the Basilica of the Nativity. Photo: Leobard Hinfelaar
See further: (website of the Franciscans of the Holy Land).
http://www.josemariaescriva.info/article/first-journey-bethlehem-basilica-of-the-nativity-holy-land
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