seest. For I am that angel which hath offered your prayers and alms in the sight of God, and am now sent to you to announce that a daughter shall be born to you, who shall be called Mary and be blessed above all women. She, being full of the grace of the Lord from her very birth, shall remain in the house of her parents the three years of her suckling:[1] afterwards being given up to the service of the Lord, she shall not leave the temple till her years of understanding; there in fine, serving God night and day in fastings and prayers, she shall abstain from everything unclean, she shall never know man, but alone, without example, without spot, without corruption, without intercourse with man, as a virgin shall conceive a son, and as a handmaid (shall conceive) the Lord who by grace and name and work shall be the Saviour of the world. Therefore arise, go up to Jerusalem, and when thou comest to the gate, which is called Golden, because it is gilded, there for a sign shalt thou meet thy husband for whose safety and welfare thou art anxious. Therefore when these things fall out thus, know that what I tell thee will be without doubt accomplished.[2]
CHAPTER V.
Therefore according to the precept of the angel,
