But of all these ideal Nativities, the most striking is one by Sandro Botticelli, which is indeed a comprehensive poem, a kind of hymn on the Nativity, and might be set to music. In the centre is a shed, beneath which the Virgin, kneeling, adores the Child, who has his finger on his lip. Joseph is seen a little behind, as if in meditation. On the right hand, the angel presents three figures (probably the shepherds) crowned with olive; on the left is a similar group. On the roof of the shed, three angels, with olive-branches in their hands, sing the Gloria in excelsis. Above these are twelve angels dancing or floating round in a circle, holding olive-branches between them. In the foreground, in the margin of the picture, three figures rising out of the flames of purgatory are received and embraced by angels. With all its quaint fantastic grace and dryness of execution, the whole conception is full of meaning, religious as well as poetical. The introduction of the olive, and the redeemed, souls, may express "peace on earth, good will towards men;" or the olive may likewise refer to that period of universal peace in which the Prince of Peace was born into the world.[1]
[Footnote 1: This singular picture, formerly in the Ottley collection, was, when I saw it, in the possession of Mr. Fuller Maitland, of Stensted Park.]
I must mention one more instance for its extreme beauty. In a picture by Lorenzo di Credi (Florence, Pal. Pitti) the Infant Christ lies on the ground on a part of the veil of the Virgin, and holds in his hand a bird. In the background, the miraculous star sheds on the earth a perpendicular blaze of light, and farther off are the shepherds. On the other side, St. Jerome, introduced, perhaps, because he made his abode at Bethlehem, is seated beside his lion.
THE NATIVITY AS AN EVENT.
We now come to the Nativity historically treated, in which time, place, and circumstance, have to be considered as in any other actual event.
The time was the depth of winter, at midnight; the place a poor stable. According to some authorities, this stable was the interior of a cavern, still shown at Bethlehem as the scene of the Nativity, in front of which was a ruined house, once inhabited by Jesse, the father of David, and near the spot where David pastured his sheep: but the house was now a shed partly thatched, and open at that bitter mason to all the winds of heaven. Here it was that the Blessed Virgin "brought forth her first-born Son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger."
We find in the early Greek representations, and in the early Italian painters who imitated the Byzantine models, that in the arrangement a certain pattern was followed: the locality is a sort of cave—literally a hole in a rock; the Virgin Mother reclines on a couch; near her lies the new-born Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes. In one very ancient example (a miniature of the ninth century in a Greek Menologium), an attendant is washing the Child.
But from the fourteenth century we find this treatment discontinued. It gave just offence. The greatest theologians insisted that the birth of the Infant Christ was as pure and miraculous as his conception; and it was considered little less than heretical to portray Mary reclining on a couch as one exhausted by the pangs of childbirth (Isaiah lxvi. 7), or to exhibit assistants as washing the heavenly Infant. "To her alone," says St. Bernard, "did not the punishment of Eve extend." "Not in sorrow," says Bishop Taylor, "not in pain, but in the posture and guise of worshippers (that is, kneeling), and in the midst of glorious thoughts and speculations, did Mary bring her Son into the world."
We must seek for the accessories and circumstances usually introduced by the painters in the old legendary traditions then accepted and believed. (Protevangelion, xiv.) Thus one legend relates that Joseph went to seek a midwife, and met a woman coming down from the mountains, with whom he returned to the stable. But when they entered it was filled with light greater than the sun at noonday; and as the light decreased and they were able to open their eyes, they beheld Mary sitting there with her Infant at her bosom. And the Hebrew woman being amazed said, "Can this be true?" and Mary answered, "It is true; as there is no child like unto my son, so there is no woman like unto his mother."
* * * * *