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#269824 12/22/07 08:25 AM
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"And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7).

swad�dle /--swɒdl/[swod-l] verb, -dled, -dling, noun
�verb (used with object) 1. to bind (an infant, esp. a newborn infant) with long, narrow strips of cloth to prevent free movement; wrap tightly with clothes.


As a paterfamilias I can testify that newborn babies love to be swaddled. I imagine the womb is a tight spot in those last couple of months and swaddling reminds them of home.

continued at:

Blog of the Dormition [holydormition.blogspot.com]


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JOHN RUSSELL:

My wife's Italian family used to bind the legs of the newborn because they believed that this would make their legs straight. My mother-in-law--may she rest in peace--only did that for her first born and its the family joke that she's the only one with bowed legs as an adult. laugh

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I think they are a prefiguration of his death and being burried in the tomb. Hence a sign of the resurrection.
Stephanos I

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From the post linked above:

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Some have observed that swaddling clothes and death shrouds... have a similar appearance. "And taking him down, he wrapped him in fine linen, and laid him in a sepulchre that was hewed in stone, wherein never yet any man had been laid" (Luke 23:53). The swaddling clothes, then, prefigure the burial shroud; they remind us why He was born.

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In the Wisdom of Solomon, the author (King Solomon?) refers to being dressed in swaddling clothes. Is it a Royal Custom?

http://www.newadvent.org/bible/wis007.htm

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In the Wisdom of Solomon, the author (King Solomon?) refers to being dressed in swaddling clothes. Is it a Royal Custom?
No, babies of all classes were put in swaddling in Europe right up to the 20th century. There are probably places that still do it.


Moderated by  Irish Melkite, theophan 

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