To make his life conform to that of Christ, his contemporaries say that he had himself circumcised, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a cradle, and that he then, clad in a white robe and bare-footed, walked through the streets of Parma crying "Penitenz agite!"
It convinces me that Earth is still in her swaddling-clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side.
She assured Jerome that, in the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, she beheld, with the eye of faith, the Christ-child wrapped in swaddling clothes (Ep. 108, 10).
At Bethlehem she saw, in addition to the church of the Nativity, the grave of Rachel; at Hebron the hut of Sarah, in which the swaddling clothes of Isaac and the remains of Abraham's oak were on view (Hieron.
At last Rhea bore Zeus, and gave Cronus a stone in swaddling bands, which he disposed of in the usual way.
