14.1 the Birth of Jesus

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BIRTH  OF CHRIST JESUS

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east" to worship him. "And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother."

she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, there being no room for him in the inn."

 In the time of Eusebius, the first ecclesiastical historian, who flourished during the Council of Nice (A. D. 327), He tells us that Jesus was neither born in a house, nor in a stable, but in a cave

and that at the time of Constantine a magnificent temple was erected on the spot, so that the Christians might worship in the place where their Saviour's feet had stood

apocryphal Gospel called "Protevangelion," attributed to James, the brother of Jesus, we are informed that Mary and her husband, being away from their home in Nazareth, and when within three miles of Bethlehem, to which city they were going, Mary said to Joseph:

"Take me down from the ass, for that which is in me presses to come forth."

Joseph, replying, said:

"Whither shall I take thee, for the place is desert?"

Then said Mary again to Joseph:

"Take me down, for that which is within me mightily presses me."

Joseph then took her down from off the ass, and he found there a cave and put her into it.

Joseph then left Mary in the cave, and started toward Bethlehem for a midwife, whom he found and brought back with him. When they neared the spot a bright cloud overshadowed the cave.

"But on a sudden the cloud became a great light in the cave, so their eyes could not bear it. But the light gradually decreased, until the infant appeared and sucked the breast of his mother."

Tertullian (A. D. 200), Jerome (A. D. 375) and other Fathers of the Church, also state that Jesus was born in a cave, and that theheathen celebrated, in their day, the birth and Mysteries of their Lord  in this very cave near Bethlehem

 the actual place of Christ's birth was a cave, is a very ancient tradition, and this cave used to be shown as the scene of the event even so early as the time of Justin Martyr (A. D. 150)

"The place yet shown as the scene of their (the Magi's) adoration at Bethlehem is a cave.

at the time of the birth 
of Jesus "there was a great light in the cave, so that the eyes of Joseph and the midwife could not bear it." This feature is also represented in early Christian art. "Early Christian painters have represented the infant Jesus as welcoming three Kings of the East, and shining as brilliantly as if covered with phosphuretted oil

The whole cave was splendidly illuminated, being filled with a heavenly light, and the countenances of his father and his mother emitted rays of glory

 Jesus was born in the days of Herod the King, and the Luke narrator says he was born when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria, or later. This is a very awkward and unfortunate statement, as Cyrenius was not Governor of Syria until some ten years after the time of Herod

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, saying: 'Where is he 

that is born king of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.' When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. Then Herod, when he had privately called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said: 'Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word.'"

The wise men went to Bethlehem and found the young child, but instead of returning to Herod as he had told them, they departed into their own country another way, having been warned of God in a dream, that they should not return to Herod.

"Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under."

Chemnitius, out of Stipulensis, who had it from Peter Martyr, Bishop of Alexandria, in the third century, says, that the place in Egypt where Jesus was banished, is now called Matarea, about ten miles beyond Cairo, that the inhabitants constantly burn a lamp in remembrance of it, and that there is a garden of trees yielding a balsam, which was planted by Jesus when a boy