NAIM. - Village of Galilee (in Lk. 7:11, Naïv), where Jesus raised the widow's son. Although the distance given by the Onomasticon (141, 5) of 12 miles from Tabor is too great, and that shortened by St. Jerome to 2 is too small, it is nonetheless certain that the same village is meant, called Nejm down to the present day, situated at the foot of Tabor near Endor (v.).
From the Middle Ages a church is recorded which, by then reduced to ruins, was redeemed and rebuilt by the Franciscans in 1880. It stands to the east of the village. To the north, that is, at the entrance when coming from Nazareth, is the spring hewn in the rock, and nearby three sarcophagi used as basins. To the northeast there are tombs hewn in the rock. Since 1948 the village has been included in the State of Israel, remaining almost uninhabited. The Franciscans make a twofold annual pilgrimage there: on the Thursday of the 4th Sunday of Lent and on the 15th Sunday after Pentecost.
Bibliography3 works
Bellarmino Bagatti
RESURRECTION OF THE SON OF THE WIDOW OF NAIM
G. Wilpert identified two representations of the miracle of N. in two cemetery frescoes in which the Lord touches with the virga Dei a mummy on the ground and not in the aedicula as in the scenes of Lazarus, since according to the Gospel text (Lk. 7:11-15) the resurrection took place near the city of N. when the dead young man was being carried to the tomb. Wilpert further notes 17 sarcophagi, nine of which are from Gaul; the deceased is already prepared for burial, that is, wrapped in bandages, like a mummy, or simply on the ground or placed in a sarcophagus. In seven sculptures the mother of the deceased is represented in a suppliant gesture (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pls. 8, 4; 26, 23; 225, 2; 227, 1 and 5; fig. 93, p. 160). Typical is the sarcophagus of the Lateran Museum no. 175, in which both the resurrection of Lazarus and that of the widow's son are found (id., Sarcofagi, pl. 228, 1). In the cemetery known as that of Sts. Mark and Marcellian, G. Wilpert recognized the scene of the miracle scratched on the slab of a deceased woman named Firmana (id., ibid., p. 305, fig. 191).
Bibliography2 works
Enrico Josi