that this, to which the most venerable tradition points, was the sacred spot of the world's
greatest event.17 But certainly we have not. It is better, that it should be so. As to all that
passed in the seclusion of that 'stable' - the circumstances of the 'Nativity,' even its exact
time after the arrival of Mary (brief as it must have been) - the Gospel-narrative is silent.
This only is told, that then and there the Virgin-Mother 'brought forth her first-born Son,
and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger.' Beyond this
announcement of the bare fact, Holy Scripture, with indescribable appropriateness and
delicacy, draws a veil over that most sacred mystery. Two impressions only are left on
the mind: that of utmost earthly humility, in the surrounding circumstances; and that of
inward fitness, in the contrast suggested by them. Instinctively, reverently, we feel that it
is well it should have been so. It best befits the birth of the Christ - if He be what the New
Testament declares Him.
15. Dr. Geikie indeed 'feels sure' that the καταλυµα was not an inn, but a guest-chamber,
because the word is used in that sense in St. Mark xiv. 14, Luke xxii. 11. But this
inference is critically untenable. The Greek word is of very wide application, and means
(as Schleusner puts it) 'omnis locus quieti aptus.' In the LXX. καταλυµα is the
equivalent of not less than five Hebrew words, which have widely different meanings. In
the LXX. rendering of Ex. iv. 24 it is used for the Hebrew Νωλµ which certainly cannot
mean a guest-chamber, but an inn. No o ne could imagine that. If private hospitality had
been extended to the Virgin -Mother, she would have been left in such circumstances in a
stable. The same term occurs in Aramaic form, in Rabbinic writings, as σψλ+) or
ζωλιµ:ρα = ζψλιµ:(α καταλυµα, an inn. Delitzsch, in his Hebrew N.T., uses the more
common Νωλµ. Bazaars and markets were also held in those hostelries; animals killed,
and meat sold there; also wine and cider; so that they were a much more public place of
resort than might at first be imagined. Comp. Herzfeld. Handelsgesch. p. 325.
16. St. John xx. 31; comp. St. Luke i. 4.
17. Perhaps the best authenticated of all local traditions is that which fixes on this cave as
the place of the Nativity. The evidence in its favour is well given by Dr. Farrar in his
'Life of Christ.' Dean Stanley, however, and others, have questioned it.
On the other hand, the circumstances just noted afford the strongest indirect evidence of
the truth of this narrative. For, if it were the outcome of Jewish imagination, where is the
basis for it in contemporary expectation? Would Jewish legend have ever presented its
Messiah as born in a stable, to which chance circumstances had consigned His Mother?
The whole current of Jewish opinion would run in the contrary direction. The opponents
of the authenticity of this narrative are bound to face this. Further, it may safely be
asserted, that no Apocryphal or legendary narrative of such a (legendary) event would
have been characterised by such scantiness, or rather absence, of details. For, the two
essential features, alike of legend and of tradition, are, that they ever seek to surround
their heroes with a halo of glory, and that they attempt to supply details, which are
otherwise wanting. And in both these respects a more sharp ly- marked contrast could
scarcely be presented, than in the Gospel- narrative.
But as we pass from the sacred gloom of the cave out into the night, its sky all aglow with
starry brightness, its loneliness is peopled, and its silence made vocal from heaven. There
is nothing now to conceal, but much to reveal, though the manner of it would seem