Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/148

32 continued in excessive trembling and in prayer. But after this she called her maidservant to her, and said to her, Thou seest me in widowhood deceived, and brought into tribulation, and wast thou unwilling to come in to me? Then she, with a little complaining, answered thus, saying. If God hath closed thy womb, and taken thy husband from thee, what am I to do for thee? When Anna heard this, she cried with a loud voice and wept.

the same time there appeared a certain young man unto Joachim on the mountains where he fed his flocks, and said to him, Wherefore dost thou not return to thy wife? And Joachim said, For twenty years, I have had her, and God would not give me children by her. I therefore, when reproached, went forth with shame from the temple of the Lord. Why should I return to her, when I have been once degraded and greatly despised? Here then will I be with my sheep. And so long as the God of this world will grant me light, I will willingly, by the hands of my servants, bestow their portions upon the poor and orphans and them that worship God. And when he had said this the young man answered him, I am the angel of God, and have appeared to-day to thy wife, who was weeping and praying, and I have