See also: Nativity (homonymy)
The word Nativité means “birth”. It gets busy to indicate the birth of eminent and holy personalities and par excellence, in Christian country, for that of Jesus-Christ. The birth of his/her mother, the Virgin Mary, is usually called “Nativity of the Virgin Mary” (celebrated on September 8th) and that of Saint Jean-Baptiste “Nativity of Jean-Baptiste saint” (celebrated on June 24th).
The word without capital letter, precisely indicates a representation of these births: since the top the Middle Ages these births, object of a liturgical festival, were the subject many artistic representations in the form of paintings, sculptures or stained glasses. One finds sometimes nativities of others Saint S whose Church does not celebrate the birth one day particular of its calendar: it is the case of saint Nicolas de Myre.
The event
According to the Bible, Joseph and Marie, who was about to be confined, had come to be made count with Bethlehem without finding of place to the inn, only in one cattle shed. Jesus was thus born there. The Virgin Mary place her baby in a crib (cattle manger). The Day of the Nativity is also called more usually Christmas.
The date and the place
The birth of Jesus is celebrated by the Christians of the East and Occident the December 25th at the time of the festivals of Christmas. Certain orthodoxe Churches (those of Jerusalem, of Russia, of Serbia and the mount-Athos) use the calendar Julien: for them, on December 25th fall currently on January 1st.No text in the Gospel S specifies the period of the year when this event took place. It is the pope Libère who decides in 354 that Christmas will be celebrated on December 25th and who codifies the first celebrations to be able to assimilate the popular holidays and pagan celebrated around the winter solstice. This new date is quickly adopted in the East (a sermon of holy Jean Chrysostome attests it) and since the end of the 4th century, it supplants the ancient date of January 6th.
Only the Armenian Church preserved the former use to celebrate together, on January 6th, at the same time the Nativity, the Worship of the magi and the Baptism of Christ. The January 6th, the Églises of the East celebrate today the Baptism of Christ and the Westerners the Worship of the magi, events related to the advent of Christ in the world.
Here an extract of a text of Mgr Jean-Paul Jaeger, bishop of Arras (December 16th, 2004) which gives the religious reasons of the choice of the winter solstice:
- the evangelists, of which one in four only proposes an account of the birth of Jesus, were quite unable to locate the exact date of it. Excellent pedagog, the Church, in Occident, fixed into 353 the celebration of Christmas at the time of the pagan festival of the winter solstice. The sign is splendid. The rays of the sun are with lowest of their decline. Gradually the day will be essential on the night. The light will triumph. Christ being born then is rented and accommodated as the light which shines in darkness, as the day which rises on humanity engourdie and deadened. It is the new day which points at midnight .
The first Anno Domini is traditionally regarded as the year which followed the Nativity, it is the first year of the Christian era in the Gregorian Calendrier. It is the circumcision of the Christ (celebrated on January 1st) who marks the beginning of this year. According to recent research, the Nativity would have taken place into -6.
The cattle shed where was born Jesus been the object from a worship.
Celebrations of the event
For the Christians, Christmas is the festival of the Nativity, which is one of the most important events. Each year at the beginning of the Advent (4 or 7 weeks before Christmas), the catholic families install in their house a crib which represents the scene. The crib will be arranged after the Épiphanie at the beginning of January. One also finds a crib in each church at that time of the year. The practitioners go either to Christmas Eve followed by a Messe on December 24th at the evening, or in the mass of the Christmas Day the 25, or take part in both. In the countries of Christian tradition remain since centuries the Christmas carols, popular compositions which celebrate, in a idealized and naive way, the birth of the “Jesus Child” and the events which accompany it (visit of the shepherds, the king-magi, etc)
Representations
The popular representations of the Nativity show Joseph and Marie leaning on the cradle of Jesus, surrounded by animals of farm (the ox and the ass). The cattle shed where they found refuge is, according to the inspiration of the artists, either a cave, or a barn. Shepherds and their sheep arrive, alerted by angels.
The two older representations of the Nativity which are known date from the 4th century. The first consists of a mural decorating the death chamber of a Christian family having lived around 380, discovered in the Catacombs of Saint Sebastien with Rome. The other mention refers to a scene painted on a fleshfly of the basilica of Saint Maximin representing the worship of the Jesus Child by Kings Mages. But the main part of the representations goes back to the Moyen-âge and of very many painters found their inspiration there.
See too
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