THE GOSPEL OF THE NATIVITY OF MARY.
CHAPTER I.
The blessed and glorious Mary ever virgin, sprung of the royal stock and family of David, and born in the city of Nazareth, was brought up at Jerusalem in the temple of the Lord. Her father was called Joachim and her mother Anna. Her father's house was of Galilee and the city of Nazareth, and her mother's race was of Bethlehem. Their life was simple and upright before the Lord, and pious and blameless before men. For they divided all their substance into three parts; one part they gave to the temple and the servants of the temple, another they devoted to strangers and the poor, the third they reserved for the use of their family and for themselves. Thus these persons, dear to God, and good to men, passed about twenty years in chaste matrimony at home without producing children. But they vowed, that if God perchance should give them offspring they would yield it to the service of the Lord; for which cause they were wont to frequent the temple of the Lord at every festival in the year.
