[1] Est. neil polnud or neil ei olnud means literally: (‘to’ or ‘for’) ‘them was not’; it is the normal Estonian way of expressing ‘they had not’. (Cf. Gk. ουκαυａοιοĩς, Lat. non erat eis.)

[2] Est. hoone and ehitus ‘building’' are its synonyms.

Est. maja can be differentiated by compounds containing it as the second component, and the compounds öömaja ‘place for overnight stay’ (öö means ‘night’), which has been recorded with the meaning of Ger. Herberge since the seventeenth century, as well as vōōrastemaja ‘guest-house, hotel’ would render Gk. κατάλυμα in Lk 2. 7. The κατάλυμα of Mk 14. 14 and Lk 22. 11 is rendered by vōōrastetuba ‘guest room’ in the Estonian Bible.

[3] Wiedemann, F. J., Estnisch-deutsches Wörterbuch 3rd ed. (of the first ed. of 1869) rev. by Saareste, A. (Tartu, 1923)Google Scholar, cols. 586 f., s. v. maja. Also in the cognate, other Finnic languages, esp. in Finnish and Lude, maja has this same or a similar meaning, see Toivonen, Y. H., Itkonen, E., Joki, A. J., Suomen kielen etymologinen sanakirja, 2 (Helsinki, 1958)Google Scholar, s. v. maja. Elias Lönnrot in his Finnish-Swedish dictionary (vol. 1 published in 1874) interpreted Finn. maja as ‘hut’ and ‘lodging, inn’ – Swed. hydda, herberge, etc. (Suomalais-ruotsalainen sanakirja. Finskt-svenskt lexicon, 1, 3rd ed., Porvoo–Helsinki, 1958, 1035).Google Scholar Cf. also Est. majaline, a derivative of maja, which is used in the Bible for ‘sojourner’, e.g. in Gen 23. 4 and Ephes 2. 19. In the Estonian grammars (in their dictionary parts) which were published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the meaning of Est. maja (then also spelled maia) was mostly equated with that of Ger. Hütte, e.g. in the Manuductio ad Linguam Oesthonicam. Anführung zur Öhstnischen Sprache … (Reval, 1660)Google Scholar by Heinrich, Göseken (re-ed. by Haarmann, Anna-Liisa Värri in the series Die estnischen Grammatiken des 17. Jahrhunderts, 2; Fenno-Ugrica, vol. 3; Hamburg, 1977)Google Scholar, col. 245; Johann, Hornung, Grammatica Esthonica … (Riga, 1693)Google Scholar, (re-ed. by Haarmann, Harald, Die estn. Gramm. des 17. Jahrh., III; Fenno-Ugrica, v. 4; Hamburg, 1977), 45Google Scholar; Helle, Anton Thor, Kurtzgefaßte Anweisung zur Ehstnischen Sprache (ed. by Gutsleff, Eberhard, Halle, 1732) 137.Google Scholar August Wilhelm Hupel in his Ehstnische Sprachlehre (Riga und Leipzig, 1780) 213Google Scholar, recorded several meanings of maia (maja): Ger. Haus, Hütte, etc., and also Herberge.

[4] Neununddreißig Ehstnische Predigten von Georg Müller aus den Jahren 1600–1606, ed. by Reiman, Wilhelm in Verhandlungen der Gelehrten Estnischen Gesellschaft, vol. 15 (Dorpat, 1891) 36Google Scholar (as Maya); Rossihnius, Joachim, Evangelia vnd Episteln auf alle Sonntage durchs gantze Jahr … (Riga, 1632)Google Scholar, ed. by Reiman, W., Verhandl. der Gel. Estn. Ges., vol. 19 (1898) 76.Google Scholar

[5] The Pepysian Gospel Harmony, ed. by Goates, Margery (London, 1922) 5.Google Scholar

[6] For example, the Life of the Virgin Mary by Walther of Rheinau has ein hiuselin ‘a little house’ into which the holy couple went: Edit Perjus [ed.], Das Marienleben Walthers von Rheinau (2nd edn., Åbo, 1949) 64, lines 3278 and 3280.Google Scholar

[7] Masser, Achim, Bibel, Apokryphen und Legenden. Geburt und Kindheit Jesu in der religiösen Epik des deutschen Mittelalters (Berlin, 1969) 183, note 38.Google Scholar

[8] Göseken, H. has Haus/Kodda (i.e. koda, in the old orthography) in his grammar of A.D. 1660Google Scholar, Manuductio …, 230; likewise A. Thor Helle in his grammar of 1732, Kurtzgef. Anweisung …, 115 translated kodda with das Hauß, and Hupel, A. W. in his grammar of 1780, Ehstn. Sprachlehre, 183Google Scholar, equated kodda with Haus.

Est. koda renders οικία in Mt 2. 11 and 5. 15, in Lk 15. 8, etc. Likewise οκος is translated by koda, e.g. in Lk 1.40 and 56, Acts 8. 3 and 20. 23, etc.

At present Est. koda denotes a corridor of a building, a room between the entrance and the interior of a house.

[9] Cf. Wiedemann's, Estn.-d. Wörterbuch, cols. 56 f.Google Scholar, s. v. ase. Est. koht and paik are the words for ‘place’ in the general sense, and ruum means ‘room’.

[10] For the history of the translation of the Bible into Estonian, see e.g. Vööbus, Arthur, Studies in the History of the Estonian People, 3 (Stockholm, 1974) 52 ff.Google Scholar, 60–6, 98–102.

[11] Eberhard Nestle–Erwin Nestle–Kurt Aland, ed., Novum Testamentum Graece, 25th edn. (Stuttgart and New York, 1963)Google Scholar; Aland, K., Black, M., Metzger, B. M., Wikgren, A. (and Martini, C. M. since the third edn.), ed., The Greek New Testament (first edn., New York, London, etc., 1966).Google Scholar The more recent editions have appeared after the edition of the revised Estonian Bible.

[12] For example, dar en was anders nen stede in the Cologne edition of the Bible ca. 1480, and dar enwas anders nene stede in the Lubeck edition of 1494 (see Masser, k., Bibel, Apokryphen …, 183Google Scholar, note 38).

[13] For instance, muito ‘otherwise’ in the seventeenth-century book of pericopes for the church year, translated into the Southern Estonian dialect by Rossihnius, Joachim, Evangelia vnd Episteln … (see above, note 4) 76.Google Scholar

[14] D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 10. Band, Erste Abteilung, 1. Hälfte (Weimar, 1910) 59.Google Scholar

[15] Cf. Migne, J.-P., Patr. Lat. 15 (Paris, 1845)Google Scholar, col. 1567; Bauer, Walter, Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen (Tübingen, 1909) 61.Google Scholar

[16] Church Fathers, such as Justin, Origen, and Jerome, mention the cave and know this tradition. A cave is Christ's birth place in the medieval versified Gospel stories in German by Hro(t)switha of Gandersheim, Philip the Carthusian, Wernher the Swiss, et al. The cave is even mentioned in a Gospel manuscript, viz, in the oldest one of the Armenian version, but there it is added to Matthew 2. 9; see Bauer, W., Das Leben Jesu, 62.Google Scholar

[17] According to common sense one would rather think that Mary voluntarily avoided the crowded room of the inn (κατάλνμα) and sought privacy for the time of delivery. For that time certainly there was no (proper) place for her, or for them, in the inn. Moreover, it is known from folk customs of different civilizations that for the time of childbirth women used to retreat from the crowded living quarters to other buildings (e.g. to the ‘sauna’ in northern countries), which is entirely understandable psychologically as well as for sanitary and practical reasons. Furthermore, soft hay in the manger was certainly quite comfortable for a little baby to sleep on. But I do not know of any records in the abundant medieval literature dealing with the Nativity that would consider this very simple reason for the birth of Jesus in a room not filled with strangers. Instead, there has been much imagination and reasoning about it, and the enemies of Christianity have accused the Christians of deceit because of the lack of witnesses at Christ's birth.

[18] Detailed discussions of them are found esp. in Masser, Achim, Bibel, Apokryphen und Legenden, 168–85Google Scholar, and Bibel- und Legendenepik des deutschen Mittelalters (Berlin, 1976)Google Scholar, passim; Bauer, W., Das Leben Jesu, esp. 61 ff.Google Scholar; Hennecke, Edgar, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen … (Tübingen & Leipzig, 1904), 3rd edn.Google Scholar by Schneemelcher, W., I: Evangelien (Tübingen, 1959)Google Scholar, passim; van den Broek, R., ‘A Latin Diatessaron in the “Vita Beate Virginis Marie et Salvatoris Rhythmica”’, New Testament Studies 21 (1975) 109–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Separate editions of pertinent medieval religious poems are cited in these works. See also Peters, Curt, Das Diatessaron Tatians (Rome, 1939)Google Scholar; Baumstark, Anton, Die Vorlage des althochdeutschen Tatian, ed. and revised by Rathofer, Johannes (Köln & Graz, 1964), passim (on p. 65Google Scholar ‘other place’ is called a ’höchstmerkwürdige Lesart’).

[19] Tatian. Lateinisch und altdeutsch, ed. by Sievers, Eduard (2nd edn., Paderborn, 1892) 23 f.Google Scholar

[20] Vita Christi Domini Salvatoris nostri a R.P. Ludolpho Saxone Cartusiano (Venetiis, MDLXXXI) 41, col. 2.Google Scholar Ludolph, following the Venerable Bede, explains the diuersorium as a spacium inter duos uicos, ex utroque latere habens murum (ibid., cols. 1–2). Such an interpretation of diuersorium was widely spread in the late Middle Ages.

[21] van den Broek, R., N.T.S. 21 (1975) 110.Google Scholar

[22] The Liège Diatessaron, ed. by Plooij, Daniel with Phillips, C. A., Engl. transl. by Barnouw, A. J., Verhandelingen der koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afd. Letterkunde, N. R., Deel XXXI, 1–5 (Amsterdam, 1929 ff.Google Scholar) 24 (= fol. 5^r, lines 28 f.), Engl. transl. 24 f.

[23] Il Diatessaron in volgare italiano. Testi inediti dei secoli XIII-XIV, ed. by Todesco, V., Vaccari, A., and Vattasso, M. (Studi e testi LXXXI, Vatican City, 1938) 27, lines 37 f.Google Scholar, and 209, lines 26 f.

[24] Otfrids Evangelienbuch, ed. by Erdmann, O. and Wolff, L. (4th edn., Tübingen, 1962), I. XI. 33 (p. 29).Google Scholar

[25] The Pepysian Harmony (ed. by Goates, M.), 5, lines 8–9.Google Scholar

[26] Diatessaron Persiano, ed. Messina, Guiseppe (Roma, 1951) 18Google Scholar, Italian transl. ibid., 19.

The mentioning of the lack of cradles as the reason for using the manger has also intruded into the Persian version of the Gospel of Luke, we Brian Walton, Biblia Sacra Polyglotta, tom. V (repr. Graz/Austria, 1964) 254 (‘Versio Persica cum Interpretatione Latina’): cqud in loco qu devenerant cunas non haberent (in Lk 2. 7).This Persian version was derived from a fourteenth-century manuscript and is often quite periphrastic (Bruce Metzger, M., The Early Versions of the New Testament. Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations, Oxford 1977, 277).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[27] want hare gene andre statt en was dan dat gemene huus in the Stuttgart MS., see Bergsma, J., De Levens van Jezus in het Middelnederlandsch (Leiden, 1895/6) 16Google Scholar; want daer gheen ander stat en was dan dat ghemeen huus in Diatessaron Haarense, ed. by de Bruin, C. C. (Leiden, 1970Google Scholar; Corpus sacrae scripturae neerlandicae medii aevi, Ser. Minor, 1: Harmonise Evangeliorum, Vol. 2); wan da in was kein ander stat dan daz gemeyn hus (in Ms. U), see Maurer, F., Studien zur mitteldeutschen Bibelübersetzung vor Luther (Heidelberg, 1929) 112 (also 25, 60, 70, 101 ff.).Google Scholar See also Baumstark-Rathofer, , Die Vorlage…, 65Google Scholar, and Das Leben Jhesu. Diatessaron Theodiscum, ed. by Gerhardt, Christoph (Leiden, 1970Google Scholar; Corpus sacrae script. neerland. medii aevi, Ser. Minor, I. IV) 9.

[28] Wilh. Walther, Die Deutsche Bibelübersetzung des Mittelalters (Braunschweig, 1889–92, reprinted at Nieuwkoop in 1966), cols. 477 f., 507 ff.Google Scholar

[29] See van den Broek, R., N.T.S. 21 (1975) 109–33, esp. 120 f., 125–9.Google Scholar