Child Jesus

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Jacopo Bellini's Madonna and Child Blessing depicts the infant Jesus in the act of blessing the viewer

Major events in Jesus's life in the Gospels
Nativity Baptism Temptation Sermon on the Mount Commission of the Twelve Miracles Entering Jerusalem Temple incident Great Commandment Anointing Last Supper Promise of the Paraclete Arrest Before the High Priest Before Pilate Death & Resurrection Great Commission Ascension Second Coming Prophecy This box: view • talk • edit

The Christ Child is a religious symbol based on the activities of Jesus as an infant up to the age of twelve that recurs throughout history, starting from around the third or fourth century. It includes religious figurines and icons of the infant Jesus, usually with his mother, Mary, and his legal father Joseph.

[edit] Holy Family

This "original nuclear family" symbolized the Holy Trinity to many early Christian believers. They solidified the family unit with such deep spiritual significance that the Holy Family eventually became an integral part of Roman Catholic religious dogma.

The Scriptures and many apocryphal works were passed down either by word of mouth or through song, and later in works of art. The symbolism of the Child Jesus in art reached its apex during the Renaissance: the holy family was a central theme in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci and many other masters.

The canonical gospels say nothing of Jesus' childhood between his infancy and the Finding in the Temple at the age of twelve. However, from the 4th century up to the Renaissance many stories were passed down concerning this "secret time" of Jesus' early childhood, where even as a baby Jesus possessed and used his messianic powers to protect his parents during their journey to and from Egypt. The majority of these stories were derived from apocryphal books, such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. As the majority of Christians at the time were illiterate, the stories acquired a dark or morbid feel similar to the Brothers Grimm tales, as concern for approval from the Roman Curia began to wane in the later centuries.

Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus

A common theme of the medieval stories depicts Jesus as a fearless and carefree child who innocently gets into mischief that inexorably led to his playmates' demise. The most common story is the cloud story. The child Jesus, wanting to play in the clouds, crawled into the sky on a sunbeam, but all of the playmates who followed him soon lost their faith and fell to their deaths. Another story reveals the tale of a child who dammed the channel that supplied water to pools which Jesus bathed in until a tidal wave swept the boy away and cleared the channel in one pass. This other child is sometimes known as the "Judas Child."

These events naturally made other parents panic and forbid their children to play with him, so when the child Jesus arrived in the town plaza to play the parents quickly hid their children in a large kiln-oven for shelter. The child Jesus, naturally well aware of this, inquired about his playmates' whereabouts and was told all the children had left. When he asked what the noise coming from the large oven was he was told that pigs were being cooked. Jesus left and when the parents opened the oven doors, they found (according to which version of the story one heard) either uncooked squealing piglets or roasted chops.

The stories created about the activities of the child Jesus were not all gruesome, and detail that even as a baby or child Jesus set out to do the Divine Will of his father, God. Other stories chronicle how even as an infant, Jesus' smile could make the rain or storms end and the sun shine, or could heal the sick. Another story tells of how a baby that was dying was placed in a tub of his bathwater and was brought back to life, and that any child in his presence would not cry or fret.

Although the importance of the Child Jesus symbol waned after the Middle Ages, it has survived to some degree in the Philippines. During the Spanish Conquest of the Philippines, when the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan landed in Cebu on April 7, 1521, the island's rulers King Humabon and Queen Juana were converted to Christianity along with four hundred of their subjects a few weeks after Magellan's arrival.

Saint Christopher carrying the Child Jesus

Magellan planted a large wooden cross and gave Queen Juana a wooden doll of the Santo Niño (the Holy Child) to commemorate the event. While the original doll and cross are still on public display in Cebu, the symbolism of the Child Jesus and reproductions of the original can be seen throughout the Philippine archipelago as the venerated Santo Niño de Cebu, in either the Child-King pose wearing a gold crown, holding a sceptre, and draped in a flowing gilded red cape, or as a representation of the common man wearing black pyjama pants and a straw hat, symbolizing that all men are children and that Salvation is obtainable if one approaches it like a child does.

The term "Child Jesus" also refers to the Infant Jesus of Prague.