bethlehem, the basilica of the nativity

8/13/2019 Bethlehem, The Basilica of the Nativity

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The place where Jesus was born. Photo:Darko Tepert

Bethlehem: The Basilica of the Nativity

E. Gil

In the footprints of our Faith

Journeys through the Holy LandTo come close to our Lord through the pages of the HolyGospel, I always recommend you to try and get inside eachscene and take part in it like another of the people there.(Friends of God, 222) Recently Benedict XVI recalled howthe Holy Land has sometim es been called the fifth Gospel.Because Jesus was born at a definite time and in a realplace, in a strip of land at the edge of the Roman Empire. Inthat land our Lord lived and died for all men.

Starting from June 2012, this website will offer a section ofJourneys through the Holy Land, to make the places whereChrist lived on earth more widely known. They will alsoserve as useful guides to those who are able to visit theHoly Places for themselves.

Bethlehem, cradle of Davids dynasty Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem,Scripture says, because there was no place for themin the inn .(Lk 2:7; cf. The Forge, 274)

It has been calculated that Bethlehem was founded by theCanaanites around the year 3000 BC. It is mentioned insome letters sent by the Egyptian governor of Palestine tothe Pharaoh in about 1350 BC. Later it was conquered by thePhilistines. In Sacred Scripture the first mention ofBethlehem (which at that time was also called Ephrath, thefertile) comes in the Book of Genesis, when it tells of thedeath and burial of Rachel, the second wife of the PatriarchJacob. Rachel died, and she was buried on th e way toEphrath (that is, Bethlehem). (Gen 35:19)

Later on, when the land was divided up among the tribes ofthe Chosen People, Bethlehem was allotted to Judah, andwas the birthplace of David, the shepherd-boy, the youngestson of a large family, who w as chosen by God to be Israelssecond king. From then on, Bethlehem was linked to Davidsdynasty, and the prophet Micah foretold that there, in thatlittle town, the Messiah would be born.But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be amongthe clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one whois to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, fromancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time

when she who is in travail has brought forth; then the rest ofhis brethren shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the


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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 byIsaiah, (Cf. Is 7:14; 9:6-7; and 11:1-4) and also with other texts in Scripture announcing a futuredescendent of David. (Cf. 2 Sam 7:12-16; and Ps 89(88):3-4) Jewish tradition s aw Micahs wordsas a prophecy about the coming of the Messiah, as is apparent from several passages in theTalmud. (Cf. Pesachim 51, 1 and Nedarim 39, 2) St John, too, in his Gospel, shows the opinionthat 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 Matthews Gospel that explicitly quotes the prophecy of Micah, when Herod gathersthe 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 l and of Judah, are by no meansthe least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my peopleIsrael. (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 thousandinhabitants: a small set of houses scattered along the side of a ridge and protected by a wall thatwas in a bad state of repair, or even mostly demolished, since it had been built nearly a thousandyears earlier. Its inhabitants lived by agriculture and herding. They had good fields of wheat andbarley 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 flocksof sheep.

In the little village of Bethlehem, day followed day in the monotonous rhythm of the agriculturalseasons of the provinces, until the unprecedented event that would make it famous foreverthroughout the world.


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St Luke tells the story quite simply. In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus thatall the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrolment, when Quirinius was governor ofSyria. 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 hewas of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was withchild. (Lk 2:1-5)

About a hundred and fifty kilometres separated Nazareth from Bethlehem. The journey wouldhave been especially hard for Mary, in her condition.

The houses of Bethlehem were modest ones, and as in other parts of Palestine, the villagersused natural caves as stores and stables, and dug more out of the side of the ridge. It was in oneof 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 clothes, 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

Gods providence arranged things so that Jesus, the Word made flesh, the King of the World andthe Lord of history, would be born in total poverty. He did not even have what a poor family couldhave lovingly prepared for the birth of their firstborn son. All he had was swaddling-clothes and amanger.

We will never have genuine joy if we do not really try to imitate Jesus. Like him we must behumble. I repeat: do you see where Gods g reatness is hidden? In a manger in swaddling clothesin a stable. The redemptive power of our lives can only work through humility. We must stopthinking 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 alw ays seasonour life with humility. My daughters and sons dont act like a hen who lays just one egg and thengoes crowing all over the place. I didnt invent that comparison; it has been used by spiritual


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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 Godand go unnoticed, confident that he will make them all come true. (St Josemaria, notes takenduring 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 Lords disciples and the first Christians were very much aware ofBethlehems significance. Halfway through the second century AD, St Justin, who was a native ofPalestine, reported the memories that were being passed down from parents to children amongBethlehems inhabitants, about the stable where Jesus was born. (Cf. St Justin, Dialogue withTrypho, 78, 5)

In the first decades of the following century Origen testified that the place where our Lord wasborn was perfectly well k nown locally, even among those who were not Christians. In harmonywith what the Gospels tell, people in Bethlehem show you the cave in which [Jesus] was bornand, within the cave, the crib where he was laid, wrapped in swaddling-clothes. And what isshow n 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, ContraCelsum, 1, 51)

In the time of the Emperor Hadrian, the imperial authorities built pagan temples on various spotssuch as the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary that were venerated by Christians, in the hopes ofobliterating all traces of Christs life on earth. From the time of Hadrian until the reign ofConstantine, for a period of about a hundred and eighty years, a statue of Jupiter wasworshipped at the place of the Resurrection, and a marble statue of Venus was set by theGentiles on the hill of the Cross. The authors of the persecution undoubtedly imagined that if theholy pla ces were polluted by idols, it would destroy our faith in the Resurrection and the Cross.(St Jerome, Letters, 58, 3)


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Exterior of the basilica

From the square in front of the basilica the visitor hasthe impression of standing before a mediaeval fortress,because of the thick walls and buttresses, pierced by afew tiny windows. Entrance is through a door so smallthat only one person can go in at a time and even thenstooping and with difficulty. In his homily at MidnightMass 2011, Benedict XVI referred to the access to thisbasilica:

The door is barely one and a half meters high. Photo: LeobardHinfelaar

Graphics adapted by Julian de VelascoToday, anyone wishing to enter the Church of Jesus Nativity in Bethlehem will find that thedoorway five and a half metres high, through which emperors and caliphs used to enter thebuilding 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 allto prevent people from entering Gods house on horseback. Anyone wishing to enter the place of


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Jesus birth has to bend down. It seems to me tha t a deeper truth is revealed here, which shouldtouch our hearts on this holy night: if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then wemust dismount from the high horse of our enlightened reason. We must set aside our falsecertainties, our int ellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing Gods closeness.(BenedictXVI, Homily, 24 December 2011)

Interior: the stable of the Nativity

The basilica is built in the shape of a Latin cross, withfive aisles, and is 54 metres long. The four rows of pinkmarble columns provide harmony. In some places it isstill possible to see the remains of the mosaics thatcovered the floor of Constantines basilica, and the wallspreserve fragments of more mosaics, dating from thetime of the crusades.

But the centre of this great church is the Grotto of the

Nativity, which lies beneath the sanctuary. It takes theform of a very small chapel, with a little apse on theeastern side. The walls and ceiling are black with thesmoke of candles lit by generations of devoutChristians. Beneath the altar, a silver star shows theplace where Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. Aninscription reads Hic de Virgine Maria Iesus Christusnatus est.

The manger where Mary laid the Baby after wrappinghim 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 ofthe Magi, with an altarpiece showing the scene of the Epiphany.

Central nave of the Basilica. Photo: Leobard Hinfelaar


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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.


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The place where Jesus was born is marked with a silver star. Photo: Leobard Hinfelaar.

The place of the Crib. Photo: Alfred Driessen.


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The square in front of the Basilica of the Nativity. Photo: Leobard Hinfelaar

bethlehem, the basilica of the nativity

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