Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/797

 NAZARETH

NAZARETH

crease. Al! were daughters of pioneer settlers (see the Incarnation of the Word, and where Christ lived Kentucky, Religion); their zeal and capacity for until the age of thirty years, unknown, and obedient

good works formed their only dower. They taught the children, spun wool or flax, and wove it into cloth out of which the\- fashioned garments for themselves and for Father David's seminarians, who, on their side, found liine in the intervals of study to fell trees, hew logs, ami Imilil ilie seminary and convent. The first log lidusc ociupicil by the sisters receiv d from Father David I he- name of Nazareth. This n^me the mother-house has preserved, and thence the sisters are

to Mary and Joseph. In the manuscripts of the New Testament, the name occurs in a great orthographical variety, such as Nofap^r, Nafap^S, Nafa/)d, Nofapdr, and the like. In the time of Eusebias and St. Jerome (Onomasticon), its name was Nazara (in modern Arabic, en Nasirah), which therefore, seems to be the correct name: in the New Testament we find its derivatives written Nafap7)>'6s, or Nasoipoios, but never Nafaperaios. The etymology of Nazara is neser.

popularly called "Sisters of Nazareth", being thus which means "a shoot". The Vulgate renders this

distinguished from other Sisters of Charity.

Mother Seton could not spare sisters from Emmitts- burg to train the new community, as Bishop Flaget had requested, but she sent him the same copy of the Rule of St. Vincent do Paul which he himself had

word by flos, "flower", in the Prophecy of Isaias (xi, 1), which is applied to the Saviour. St. Jerome (Epist., xlvi, "Ad Marcellam") gives the same inter- pretation to the name of the town.

Nazareth is situated in the most southerly hills

brought her from France, and Father David carefully of the Lebanon range, just before it drops abruptly attended to the training of the novices. In February, down to the plain of Esdra;Ion. The town lies in a 1816, he found the first sisters .sufficiently preiiarod io hollow plateau about 1200 feet above I he level of the take the vows. The __ Mcditrrrain'aii, be- little body was fairly H|9H^^^^H||HHH|B9BM^^ -. ^^ twecn hills which rise

organized, and its HB^^^^^^^^RBSJ^RmS^^^ '^^^^^^SSBH fo an altitudeof 1610

work was fast ^^^^^^^^ S^KK^ ^^^^^S^ ■^'^SHHI^B '^^^'' ^^^ ancient

tending. Miss Elea- ^^^^^^^B^^HK^r^ i i '^SBB^Hi Nazareth occupied

norO'Connell(Sist(r ^^B^^^^^B^^^ '^^MJKSn- 3^"°^ ^gg the triangular hillock

Ellen), a srholirh ^SJ^^^^^^IHpHHI^ ^ TuRHKii '^M that extends from the

woman and e\pei i- BB^ ^I^/jRfRs^KWwv <r ■ Jm mountain on the

enced teacher, t Huf WWBWMBi E'^ .j / ^J^r^M a P" '' * ' " --'^ north, having its

to them from Bilti- ^^**fflBI ■ ^^^^^Bt - _ ., point turned to the

more, and to hei t he ^^^ -, „, _^;^ south. Its north-

although it \S^ -^^  ^ .j! "^ ^Klfl^^^^^l beautiful sjiring

was not until 1S29 that the Legislature of Kentucky granted its charter to the "Nazareth Literary and Benevolent In- stitution". Sister

St. Mary's Well, Nazareth

called St. Mary's Well, which was, no doubt, the chief at- traction for the first settlers. In the last fifty years the popu- lation has increased

Ellen prepared others to assist her, establishing what rapidly, and amounts at the present day to more than

was virtually a normal school for the sisters, which has 7000 souls. The modern houses, white and clean, run

been zealously maintained ever since. In 1822 the up all along the hillsides, especially on the north,

mother-house was removed to a farm purchased for the Spread out in the shape of an amphitheatre, set in a

purpose near Bardstown. Both the convent church green framework of vegetation, Nazareth offers to

and the academy building were completed in 182.5. The sisters, at the same time, never lost sight of their primary work of succouring the sick and the poor. In each of their houses destitute children were cared for. St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum was opened in Louis- ville, after the cholera epidemic, in 1834. Thence- forth schools, hospitals, and asylums grew apace

the eye a very attractive picture.

History. — The town is not mentioned in the Old Testament, nor even in the works of Josephus. Yet, it was not such an insignificant hamlet as is generally believed. We know, first, that it possessed a syna- gogue. Neubauer (La geographic du Talmud, p. 190) quotes, moreover, an elegy on the destruction of Jeru-

Besides the mother-house, the congregation now salem, taken from ancient Midrashim now lost, and

has sixteen branch academies and high schools mod- elled upon it. The sisters teach about 1.5,000 children in parochial schools, and care for more than 5000 sick in their hosjjitals and infirmaries. On petition of the present superior, Mother Eutropia McMahon, the congregation reeeived the formal approbation of

according to this document, Nazareth was a home for the priests who went by turns to Jerusalem, for ser- vice in the Temple. Up to the time of Const antine, it remained exclusively a Jewish town. St. Epipha- nius (.\dv. Hffireses, I, ii, hser., 19) relates that in .339 Joseph, Count of Tiberias, told him that, by a special

the Holy See, 5 September, 1910, nearly 98 years after order of the emperor, "he built churches to Christ in

its first foundation. the towns of the Jews, in which there were none, for

Bebides the historical works referred to under Kentucky and the reason that neither Greeks, Samaritans, nor

Louisville, see Spalding, Sketches of Kentuckti (1844) ; Barton, Christians were allowed tO settle there, viz., at Tibe-

iTalttA ^'fHi^S '■si:i^hV,le'iT.\1ct'rry If Has, at Diocxsarea, or Sepphoris, at Nazareth, and at

Nazareth, Kentucky (ViW,). C-aphamaum. St. Paula and St. Sylvia of Aqui-

Marie Menard. taine visited the shrines of Nazareth towards the end

of the fourth century, as well as Theodosius about

Nazareth, the town of Galilee where the Blessed 530; but their short accounts contain no description

Virgin dwelt when the Archangel announced to her of its monuments. The Pilgrim of Piacenza saw