St Joseph seeks a lodging at Bethlehem (Notes)

Seeking Lodging. J-J Tissot

''It is three days' walk, by the direct road, from Nazareth to Bethlehem ; and if you go by way of Jerusalem, four days are required.
The travellers summoned to be taxed by the decree of Caesar Augustus, when Cyrinus was Governor of Syria, must have been very numerous, and the one caravansery the town could boast must have been quite insufficient to accommodate them all. As a matter of fact, we must understand by the 'diversorium' used in the Vulgate [Luke 2. 7] a simple caravansery and not a regular hostelty properly so called, such as implied in most French translations of the Gospels. The sort of establishment to which we apply the term of hostely, or inn, would have been altogether foreign to the oriental usages of the time under notice and this is still very much the case.'' [Taken from The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by J. James Tissot, Sampson, Low, Marston, London, 1897]


[1] Factum est autem in diebus illis, exiit edictum a Caesare Augusto ut describeretur universus orbis.
And it came to pass, that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world should be enrolled.
And it came to pass in those days (in which John the Baptist was born) there went forth a decree. &c. The Syriac for “all the world,” has “all the people of his dominion,” subject, that is, to Augustus and the Romans. For we have the authority of Suetonius that Augustus did not rule over the Goths, the Armenians, or the Indians. This enrolment was made, both that the number of men under the sway of Augustus might be known, and also with a view to collecting the tribute to be taken to the Roman treasury, exhausted by so many wars; for each person gave in an account of his income. It is probable that the Jews gave what they otherwise gave in taxes according to their law, half a shekel apiece, that is two reals. Exod. 30:11–16; Matt. 22:19.

Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century

From Cæsar. The true name of this Cæsar was Octavius or Octavian,[63 BC-14AD], the sister’s son of Julius. He being the first Monarch of Rome, extended the glory of the empire and added to it in a wonderful degree; hence he received the surname of Augustus in the eighteenth year of his reign (from which date Censorinus reckons the years of Augustus, and calls them the Augustian or Augustæan years) as though he were some divinity come down from heaven. For he reigned in the greatest peace, plenty, splendour, and felicity for fifty-seven years. Hence the proverb, “Happier than Augustus, better than Trajan.” This census was taken by Augustus when he had the whole world in a state of peace, and had therefore closed the temple of Janus for the third time, in the fortieth year of his reign. And all this happened under the guidance of God, that He might signify that Christ was now born, who was to bring peace to all the world. 

Vatican Museums [Public domain]



So Bede, “A lover of peace, He would be born in a time of the most profound quiet. And there could be no plainer indication of peace than that a census should be taken of the whole world, whose master Augustus was, having reigned at the time of Christ’s nativity for some twelve years in the greatest peace, war being lulled to sleep throughout all the world.” 

Wherefore the Virgin Mother of God appeared to Augustus in the Capitol bearing the Infant in her arms, Augustus himself having already learned from the Oracle of Apollo that a Hebrew child was born who had imposed silence upon the Oracles of Idols, and having erected an altar in the Capitol with the title, “The Altar of the Firstborn of God.” Hence Constantine the Great built on that spot a temple to the memory of Mary, Mother of God, which exists to this day, and is commonly called the “Ara Cœli.” There too the place is shown where Augustus saw the vision. So Baronius, following Suidas, Nicephorus, and others, in the materials of his “Annals.” 

Moreover, in the same reign there flowed out of the earth, in the shop of a certain deserving man, at Rome, a plentiful fountain of oil, which lasted the whole day; and the spot is still shown in the Church of St. Maria in Trastevere. “By this sign,” says Osorius, book vi. ch. 20, “what more plainly declared than the birth of Christ in the reign of Cæsar Augustus?” “For ‘Christ’ being interpreted is ‘The Anointed’ ”—because He hath anointed us, and doth anoint us with the oil of grace and of gladness through all the days of our mortal life. 

The question arises, In what year of Augustus was Christ born? The opinions of the learned and of chronologists differ on this point. ... All these opinions have their probabilities and also their difficulties. In a matter of so much doubt there can be no certainty of definition.

[2] Haec descriptio prima facta est a praeside Syriae Cyrino :
This enrolling was first made by Cyrinus, the governor of Syria.

The Blessed Virgin & St Joseph enrolling.

And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. 
First, that is general,—throughout all the world, which had now been lulled into peace under Augustus and the Romans; for there was a particular census taken in several provinces prior to this general one. So Paulus Orosius, Bede, Maldonatus, Jansenius, Toletus, Franciscus Lucas and others.

Meister der Kahriye-Cami-Kirche in Istanbul [Public domain] Chora Church, Constantinople 1315–20.


First, again, because a second was taken ten years after, when Cyrenius was sent to Syria to superintend it, for the purpose of confiscating the property of Archelaus who was then exiled;—see Josephus, Antiq. bk. xviii., ch. 1. Tertullian, “against Marcion” bk. iv., ch. 7, 19, and 36, says that this first enrolment was made under Sentius Saturninus, who was sent expressly for the purpose by Augustus at the time when Cyrenius was governor of Syria in all things,—and, consequently, with respect to this census as well. Or, according to others, Cyrenius began the census, and, being called away to a war against the Homonadians—over whom he shortly after triumphed—left it to Saturninus to finish.

Hence it follows that this enrolment and census was not a lustral or quinquennial, but a new and universal one; the second and most celebrated of the three made by Augustus, in the Consulship of Censorinus and Asinius, as the stone of Ancyra, Suetonius, and Josephus, Antiq. xvii., ch. 3, have it. The first census was that which Augustus took twenty years before in his sixth consulate and the seventeenth year of his reign, M. Agrippa his son-in-law being his colleague, while the third was twenty years after, in the last year of his reign and his life, with Tiberius, who had married Julia at the death of Agrippa, his mother Livia having married Augustus.

The time occupied in making one of these enrolments was five years.

Cyrenius. This was P. Sulpitius Quirinus, Cyrinus, or Cyrinius whom Augustus had appointed tutor to Caius Cæsar when he went to Syria, and whom he ordered to remain as governor when Caius died there, as Velleius the companion of Caius, Suetonius, Florus, Dio, and others record.

[3] et ibant omnes ut profiterentur singuli in suam civitatem.
And all went to be enrolled, every one into his own city.

[4] Ascendit autem et Joseph a Galilaea de civitate Nazareth in Judaeam, in civitatem David, quae vocatur Bethlehem : eo quod esset de domo et familia David,
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem: because he was of the house and family of David,

[5] ut profiteretur cum Maria desponsata sibi uxore praegnante.
To be enrolled with Mary his espoused wife, who was with child.

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. To the cities from which their respective families took their origin; as the house of David, of which Joseph and Christ were born, took theirs from Bethlehem; David having been born and brought up in Bethlehem. The Jews had divided their nation into twelve tribes and these again into different families, and so the Romans, in taking the census among them, followed this division.

Indeed all this was taking place under the direction of God, that it might be clear to the whole world that Christ, then newly born in Bethlehem, was of the tribe of Judah and the house of David, and that He was the Messiah, as the Prophets had foretold.

To be taxed.—The Greek ἀπογράφεσθαι means both to be enrolled and to make a declaration. Each one was enrolled, and made a declaration of allegiance to him who enrolled him, namely: to Cyrenius, as the vicegerent of Augustus. For at Rome all as to whose loyalty towards Augustus and the Senate there was no doubt, were enrolled as citizens and subjects, but elsewhere they were said to make a declaration of allegiance, as being foreigners subdued by the Roman arms. Orosius, book vi., last chapter, infers from this enrolment that Christ was a Roman citizen, that He might, as it were, tacitly signify that all Christians must be subjects to the Roman Pontiff and Church.

Symbolically, by this enrolment is signified the coming of Christ to free us from the servitude of the devil, and subdue all the world to His faith and worship, not by force of arms, but by the efficacy of His grace; and for this cause it was that Augustus at that time refused the title of “Lord,” as Orosius and others testify.

Again, S. Gregory, Homily viii. in Evang., says, “Why is it that a census of all the world is taken when the Lord is about to be born, except that it is by this means clearly shown that He was appearing in the flesh who should enrol His elect in eternity? For, on the other hand, it is said of the reprobate by the Prophet, Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the Just.” So too Origen: “To one who regards the matter attentively it seems to present a kind of mystery, as though, in the enrolment of the whole world, it behoved Christ too to be enrolled, that being enrolled with all other men He might sanctify all, and that having entered in the census with all the world, He might grant to the world something in common with Himself.”


Hence it appears that Christ was enrolled not immediately after His birth, but eight days after His circumcision; for at His circumcision the name of Jesus was given Him, and, in the presence of the inhabitants of Bethlehem, who were of the house of David, entered on the public tablets which Cyrenius forwarded to Augustus, to wit that Jesus the Son of Mary was born in Bethlehem, of the lineage of David. So Justin “Apol. ii., ad Antoninum Pium,” Origen, and others.

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum.

Ad Jesum per Mariam.