The 'Inn’
And it came to pass, that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world should be enrolled. This enrolling was first made by Cyrinus, the governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem: because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary his espoused wife, who was with child.
And it came to pass, that when they were there, her days were accomplished, that she should be delivered. 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 2:1-7 (Douay-Rheims Challoner)
I’m sure many of our readers know of the manifold inspirational stories, poems, and sermons that have been made on the innkeeper who either gave Mary and Joseph room or shooed them away. However, did Luke really refer to an ‘inn’ (in the sense we often understand the word) in Luke 2:7?
First, we need to know what word it was that Luke used in his story which is rendered as “inn” in our Bibles. Luke had used the word κατάλυμά (
katalyma). In extra-biblical literature,
katalyma has a wider connotation than “inn;” it can also mean “house,” “guest room” or “lodging-place”. It is a noun form of the verb καταλυο (
katalyo), a compound verb (
kata “among” +
luo “break up” or “(un-)loose”) which translates literally as “to disintegrate” or “to unyoke,” i.e. “to loosen down.” As a place of rest and lodging, a
katalyma was a place to drop your baggage, to untie the straps and packs of the beasts of burden and simply sit down and relax. Such is the way that the word is used in the Septuagint: a place of hospitality for people on a journey.
Another place where Luke uses the noun
katalyma is in 22:11, where it refers to the upper-room where Jesus and company held the Last Supper, which is clearly not a commercial “inn” but some available space in what is apparently, a private house (either a guest-room or even the flat rooftop). Mark 14:14 also uses
katalyma to describe the upper room itself. There are two other places where some form of it appears as well: in 9:12, where the disciples ask Jesus to “
Send away the multitude, that going into the towns and villages round about, they may lodge” (
katalysosin), and in 19:7, where the crowd complains of Jesus: “
He has gone in to be the guest (
katalysai)
of a man who is a sinner.” While
katalyma can mean ‘inn’, we can see from these examples that the word does not have so narrow a meaning, and Luke does not necessarily employ it as such.
When Luke does speak of a commercial inn where someone pays for lodgings, as he does in Luke 10:34 (in the parable of the Good Samaritan), he uses a different word, πανδοχεῖον (
pandocheion), which literally means “
that which receives all”. This word,
pandocheion, is the root of Aramaic
pundheqa’ and the Arabic
funduq. All these are used of public inns, and they all correspond to the khan or caravanserai. These are to be found on the great trade routes all over the East.
Inns were not in great repute in those days. Innkeepers were seen as invariably untruthful, dishonest and oppressive, and such commercial lodgings were said to be dens of sin and vice, even disease and death (inns were often the last resort of travelers who fell ill or were injured on the road).
Pandocheia and other hostelries, usually lower-class ones (such as the Roman
stabulum, also used to mean ‘brothel’) were linked with prostitution, theft, drunkenness and even murder. The Roman laws in many places recognize this. In two places at the Mishnah, the word of an innkeeper was doubted, and they were placed in the lowest scale of degradation. Even the word for female innkeepers in Aramaic (
pundaqit) eventually became synonymous with “harlot”. Josephus (
Antiquities III.276, 451) adds female innkeepers to the list laid out in Leviticus 21:7 of women whom priests may not marry.
In a positive sense, such roadside spaces could be places of unusual encounters, interaction and personal change, conversion and reform. One Midrash speaks of two merchants who despised each other, until one had difficulties with his pack animals, at which the other merchant assisted him. Both went to a
pundaq, where they ate and were reconciled to each other. Another story from the Babylonian Talmud speaks of another chance meeting between two merchants, one from the south and one from the north, who wished to eat at the same table while one ate meat and the other consumed cheese (cf. the forbidden combination
of meat and dairy products). The forbidden conjunction became permissible in this special context, as long as the two food items came from separate containers. The Greek orator
Dio Chrysostom even speaks of how the happenstance of travelers in a
pandocheion might lead to friendship between them.
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