[en] We construct a relativistic model of interacting nucleons and mesons. The character of the model is phenomenological in that we make extensive use of the relativistic quasipotentials obtained in the study of the one-boson-exchange model of nuclear forces. We show that in the static limit for the meson field we can derive a relativistic version of the Bethe-Brueckner theory of nuclear matter. (The corrections due to the nonstatic aspects of the field are expected to be small.) The method may be extended to provide a basis for a relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock theory of finite nuclei