The Birth of Jesus

THE ICONOGRAPHY
The earliest paleo-Christian art treats the Nativity in two iconographic types. The first recalls the prophecy of Balaam in Numbers 24:17, "a star shall rise out of Jacob and a sceptre shall spring up from Israel." Christian typology took the star followed by the Magi of Matthew 2:1-12 to be the one that Balaam prophesied. The earliest known Nativity image, a 2nd- or 3rd-century painting in the Catacomb of Priscilla, has the prophet on the left pointing to the star while Mary sits on the right with the Christ Child on her lap. (See the description and photograph at the website of the Catacombs of Priscilla.) Balaam is still pointing to the star as late as the Coptic image on the right, from the 15th century, and perhaps this one from 14th-century Germany. But by the 4th century he has been mostly replaced by the Magi themselves, who visit the child on the lap of his mother, who is seated on a throne (example).

The other iconographic type pictures the birth event related in Luke 2:1-20, with one of the shepherds standing beside the child in the manger. In this example the shepherd's gesture signifies contemplation; in others he holds a hand up in acclamation of the Christ Child, as in the first picture at right. An ox and ass also stand at the manger. In the 3rd- or 4th-century Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (¶14) the ox and ass worship the child as a fulfillment of Isaiah 1:3, "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood," and of Habakkuk 3:2, "Between two animals thou art made manifest."1

The two iconographic types are by no means mutually exclusive. We see them side-by-side in the "Sarcophagus of Crispina" in Rome and woven together in the Sarcophagus of Adelphia in Syracuse, where the Magi point to the star as they approach. Over the centuries, the two types will continue to be treated either separately or woven together. For the type with just the Adoration of the Magi, see this page. The other type will soon expand to include Mary and Joseph (as in the second picture at right) as well as others, but it will always include the original crib and animals, even into the present day (example).

The Cave and the Stable

Sometimes the artist sets the birth of Jesus in a cave, as in the picture above, and sometimes in a stable. Both settings have ancient authority. Since the second century pilgrims have been visiting a cave in Bethlehem thought to be Jesus' birthplace. In that century the Protevangelium placed the birth in a cave and Justin Martyr wrote that the cave fulfilled a prophecy of Isaiah that the Messiah "shall dwell in the lofty cave of the strong rock."2 The cave setting is seen in many early images, such as the second picture at right, and has been especially popular in the East (viz. the first picture at right and this Russian icon). In the East it has been common to picture the mother and child as parallel recumbent figures with some sort of distance between them, as in the first two pictures at right. But Western Nativities have also often put the figures in parallel (example), and many set the scene in a cave (such as the picture atop this page), a testimony to the continuing influence of the actual cave in Bethlehem.

The setting in a stable also rests on good authority. Luke 2:7 says Mary swaddled the child "and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn." A stable seems an obvious locale for a manger, and the sarcophagal Nativities of the 4th century examined above are all set in stables. Later images will take their cue from the compromise in the Pseudo-Matthew xiv, where Mary relocates the baby from a cave to a stable a few days after the birth example. Or the stable may be outside a cave (example). Especially in the Renaissance and later Middle Ages, it may be gone altogether (example).

Ruined Structures

As these examples show, the stable is usually pictured without walls so as to expose the interior. In late medieval and Renaissance works, it may also be portrayed as a ruined structure (example). This trope is clearly neither biblical nor historical. It refers to the Golden Legend's account of the collapse of the Temple of Peace at the moment of the Nativity, conceptually generalized as the end of classical culture and religion and the beginning of a new era.

The Nativity and the Eucharist

In van der Weyden's work, the ruined structures are usually churches, pointing both backward to the fall of the old religion and forward to the Eucharist. Eucharistic imagery has been important in Nativity images from the beginning, derived from Luke 2 by way of medieval exegesis. It presents the ox and ass as symbols of the Christian faithful who are nourished by the "fodder" of Christ's flesh.3 Thus, in the 6th-century icon at right the beasts push their muzzles into the manger as if to eat from it. From the 8th century we have a stone relief with the animals nibbling at the child. In a French sculpture from the 15th century the ox nibbles at the baby's fingers. Often the manger is made to resemble a small altar (example).

These Eucharistic images help the viewer to relate the Nativity to the sacrifice on the cross that is memorialized in the "sacrament of the altar." This emphasis on sacrifice is especially emphatic in El Greco's Adoration of the Shepherds, where the shepherds' gift of a trussed lamb identifies the child as the sacrificial "lamb of God."

Giotto's Arena Chapel Nativity (1303) treats the whole scene as a liturgical moment. Mary and the baby lie on an altar-like rise in the ground, beneath a roof that acts as a baldachin, sacralizing them and at the same time excluding mere onlookers. Architectural elements block the view of the beasts and angels, like a medieval rood screen, and the shepherds look on in quiet reverence, their hands folded below their waists.

The Adoration of the Christ Child

In the late 14th century an influential memoir by St. Bridget of Sweden leads to a sharp change in the iconography: Joseph and Mary now kneel before the Christ Child, who lies naked on the ground before them. Often light will radiate from the child's body, outshining the light of a candle Joseph has brought. All this comes from a passage in the memoir where Bridget recounts a vision she had when she visited the Nativity Cave in Bethlehem:
When they [Joseph and Mary] had entered the cave, and after the ox and the ass had been tied to the manger, the old man went outside and brought to the Virgin a lighted candle and fixed it in the wall and went outside in order not to be personally present at the birth. And so the Virgin then took the shoes from her feet, put off the white mantle that covered her, removed the veil from her head, and laid these things beside her, remaining in only her tunic, with her most beautiful hair – as if of gold – spread out upon her shoulder blades.…

[After the birth] I saw that glorious infant lying on the earth, naked and glowing in the greatest of neatness.… When therefore the Virgin felt that she had now given birth, at once, having bowed her head and joined her hands, with great dignity and reverence she adored the boy and said to him: "Welcome, my God, my Lord, and my Son!" And then the boy, crying and, as it were, trembling from the cold and the hardness of the pavement where he lay, rolled a little and extended his limbs, seeking to find refreshment and his Mother's favor.… When these things therefore were accomplished, the old man [Joseph] entered; and prostrating on the earth, he adored him on bended knee and wept for joy.4
In the third picture at right Bridget prays before a faithfully detailed image of her vision. The candle, almost too faint to see, is on the wall directly above the child, who is "naked and glowing" in a golden mandorla. Mary kneels in prayer before him in a mandorla of her own. Her golden hair falls past her shoulders and she wears only a white tunic, her shoes, veil, and mantle lying on the ground behind her.

These details were enormously popular in the art of the 15th century (example, exception) and the 16th (example). They continue to dominate the iconography even today, when most Nativity scenes on Christmas cards have Mary kneeling to the Christ Child. In many of these the baby glows just as in Bridget's vision.

In 1570 Molanus (De Historia, 396) condemned picturing the baby as naked, but his influence in this case was of limited effect: the child is completely naked in almost half of the Nativities listed at the Web Gallery of Art for 1570-1670 (example).

The representation of St. Joseph was also revolutionized by Bridget's vision. In the earliest images he is usually absent, but medieval images picture him at the left or right with his hand held against his cheek (example). But after Bridget he usually holds the candle mentioned in the vision and/or joins Mary in kneeling before the Christ Child.

The Midwives

The 2nd-century Protevangelium (¶20-21) tells of two midwives who attended Mary. One of them doubted Mary's virginity and tested it with her finger, which she nearly lost as a consequence. This is hardly a fit subject for visual presentation, so the representational tradition instead makes one or both of the midwives wash the baby in a tub. Sometimes the tub may be shaped like a round baptismal font, as in this altar screen from the 11th century.

But the notion that the newborn Savior would need a bath was inconsistent with the way writers in the West imagined the virgin birth. As early as 383, Jerome insisted that "No midwife assisted at his birth.… [Mary] laid him, we are told, in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn, a statement which…refutes the ravings of the apocryphal accounts, for Mary herself wrapped him in the swaddling clothes" (Against Helvidius, ¶10). In the 12th century Honorius of Autun seconded the tradition that "the Blessed Virgin gave birth to him…without pain and without the stain of childbirth" (Speculum Ecclesiae, 817). Molanus condemned the picturing of midwives in 1570 (De Historia, 396). But most effective of all was Bridget of Sweden's personal vision of Mary giving birth alone "in a moment and the twinkling of an eye" to a clean and splendidly naked baby without the help of any midwives (Prophecies and Revelations, XXI, 8).

This tradition combined in the 14th century with a changing aesthetic sensibility that emphasized the beholder's response to the Savior, and in the course of that century the midwives gradually disappeared from Nativities in the West. Duccio's Nativity (1308) reduced them to a design element, part of the halo of figures that surrounds and focuses attention on the mother and child. And Giotto's fresco allowed only one midwife to poke her head into the frame from the left. Bartolo di Fredi's Nativities of 1374 and 1383 have no midwives at all.

The Shepherds

Unlike the midwives, the shepherds can be made to model the joyful response that many late Gothic and Renaissance Nativities strive to inspire in the viewer, for example in this sculpture group from the 15th century and this painting from the 16th. Unfortunately many images of this period also tend to make the shepherds look like crude yokels and block them off architecturally from the central scene. In earlier times they had more dignity (example). They are accorded more respect in some images from the 16th century (example), and in most from modern times (example).

Nativities with the shepherds often echo the Adoration of the Magi. Usually there are precisely three shepherds, differentiated by age – a youth, and old man, and one in middle age. Like the Magi, shepherds from the 14th century onward may bring the child a gift. In the English mystery plays the gifts are small and humble, but in paintings the men are more likely to bring a lamb (example).

Prepared in 2014 by Richard Stracke, Emeritus Professor of English, Augusta University, revised 2015-12-03, 2016-09-17, 2016-11-12, 2017-10-26 2018-02-27.

HOME PAGE

SHOWN ABOVE:
Antoniazzo Romano, The Nativity, late 15th century. (See the description page).

OTHER IMAGES

In the bottom of this 15th cen­tury Cop­tic Na­ti­vi­ty Ba­laam points the way to the star for the three Magi. (See the description page.)

Detail from the 6th-century "Sancta Sanctorum" icon – (See the description page.)


This painting is the earliest artistic representation of Bridget's vision of the Nativity. (See the description page.)

MORE IMAGES

  • 4th century: Sarcophagus fragment with Mary, the baby in the manger, and the ass munching at the manger.
  • 3rd ¼ of 11th century: Ivory reliquary with the shepherds giving gifts to the child, a topic seen from time to time throughout the Middle Ages. As in the images on the 4th-century sarcophagi and the early catacomb painting, Mary is seated.
  • 1160s-1170s: Orthodox mosaic in Sicily, composition similar to Duccio's 1308 Nativity.
  • 1st ¼ of 13th century: A highly stylized enamel with a seated Joseph and recumbent mother and child. The Metropolitan Museum has a similar enamel from 1165 with the figures disposed in the same way (accession number 17.190.418).
  • 1291: Apse mosaics in Santa Maria in Trastevere, with three Nativity subjects.
  • 13th/14th century: An Austrian fresco in the traditional iconography.
  • First half of 14th century: Relief on the façade of Orvieto Cathedral, retaining the midwives but putting them to the 14th-century purpose of inspiring wonder and joy.
  • 1325-70: Panels 3 and 4, window 3 in Regensburg Cathedral's Life of Mary Windows
  • 1351-60: Fresco in Pomposa Abbey harmonizing the older iconography with High Gothic sentiment.
  • 1376: One of the last Western Nativities with a midwife.
  • 14th century (?): A relief of the Adoration of the Shepherds, with only two shepherds?
  • 1420-23: A "Madonna of Humility" Nativity scene.
  • mid-15th century: Van der Weyden's huge Polyptych of the Nativity covers five Nativity episodes plus the Fall of Man.
  • 1474: A fresco in Croatia using details from Bridget's vision and some from the earlier tradition.
  • 1475-80: Botticelli's Nativity has the Brigittine kneeling Mary and glowing child, but also kneeling is a child John the Baptist already in a camel skin.
  • 1488-90: Pinturicchio's Nativity is one of many examples in which the three shepherds represent the three ages of man.
  • late 15th/early 16th century: Mazzolino's simple, quiet take on the subject.
  • 1500-1520: Christ is Born as Man's Redeemer, a vast allegory in tapestry.
  • 16th century (est.) predella from Croatia: the shepherds greet the Christ Child.
  • 16th century: Fresco in Istria (Northwest Croatia).
  • 16th century: A Nativity partly Bridgettine in inspiration and partly based on earlier traditions.
  • 16th century? A painting in the church of San Luigi Francesi, Rome. Its label says it is "of uncertain paternity." The kneeling angel is a 16th-century innovation.
  • 1515-20: Detail from Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary by Goswijn van der Weyden.
  • 1578-81: Tintoretto's bold reimagining of Adoration of the Shepherds iconography.
  • Post-16th? A predella panel in Croatia.
  • 17th century: Andrea Pozzo, The Census in Bethlehem.
  • 18th century (est.): A Nativity including a divine commendation by the Father and the Holy Spirit.
  • 1895: Detail from Josef Dettlinger's archaizing Marienaltar.

NATIVITY TEXTS RELEVANT TO THE IMAGES

ALSO SEE

NOTES

1 The "between two animals" reading is only in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible that was used in early Christian communities. See the bibliography for an English translation of the Septuagint.

2 UNESCO World Heritage Center, "Birthplace of Jesus." Protevangelium of James, xviii. Justin Martyr, Trypho, lxxviii. Isaiah 33:16 (Septuagint). The cave appears only in the Greek Septuagint translation of the verse from Isaiah. In the Vulgate, the standard translation in the Latin West, the phrase is "on high, in the fortifications of rocks," which obviates Justin's interpretation.

3 Luke 2:7,12,16. Mâle quotes the Glossa Ordinaria on Luke 2:7 as saying, "She put him in a manger, that is, the body of Christ on the altar." I have not found this comment in either the Lollard Society's online copy of the Glossa or in Migne's edition, but see for example Honorius (Speculum Ecclesiae, 818): "The ass, (interpreted as the Gentiles) and the ox (interpreted as the Jews) are led by faith to eat the body of Christ." Similarly, see pseudo-Bede (Migne XCII, 331) "He who is the bread of angels lay in the manger so he could nourish us as holy animals with the fodder of his flesh". Bede (ibid., 330) also interprets the name "Bethlehem" to mean "house of bread." (All translations mine.)

4 Bridget of Sweden, Prophecies and Revelations, VII, 21.