And this shall be a sign unto you; You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And this shall be the sign unto you (by which you may know this child from others recently born), ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. For other children born at that time were in houses and in beds,—only Christ was in a manger in a stable. Hence it appears that this manger was commonly known to every one, unless we suppose, as Toletus would have it, that the angel pointed out to the shepherds with his finger, or by an inward inspiration, the cave where the manger was. The angel gives this sign that the shepherds may not suppose, according to the Jewish notion, that their Messiah, as King of the Jews, was to be sought in the royal palace of Herod or in any place of the same kind. For this was Christ"s first Advent—the Advent of Humility, as His second Advent, to judge the world, will be one of Majesty. The sign, then, of the Word Incarnate and straitened is the lowliness of the swaddling bands and the manger. As S. Bernard says, Serm1 , "On the Nativit...
On the eastern side of the town of Bethlehem, say St. Justin, St. Jerome there was a cave cut in the side of a rock, in which was a manger used by the people of those environs; so that these shepherds easily understood the angel, who told them they should find him laid in a manger. Sts. Jerome, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril, say that they found the child between an ox and an ass, according to the version of the Septuagint. Habacuc iii. 2.: You shall find him laid between two beasts. In the place where this crib was, St. Helen built a magnificent church in honour of the blessed Virgin Mary. Ven. Bede says that she built another in honour of the tree shepherds; whence St. Bernard concludes, that there were only three shepherds that came to adore the divine infant in the manger. (Tirinus)
It might be necessary to give them notice of this humble appearance of the Messias, to encourage them to go and pay him their homage. (Bar radius)
