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
