Page:Apocryphal Gospels and Other Documents Relating to the History of Christ.djvu/152

36 this, Anna brought forth a daughter, and called her Mary. When she had weaned her in her third year, Joachim and Anna his wife, went together to the temple of the Lord, to offer sacrifices to God, and placed the babe that was named Mary in the apartment of virgins, wherein virgins continued day and night in the praises of God. When she had been set before the gates of the temple, she went up the fifteen steps at such a rapid pace, that she did not at all look back, nor ask for her parents as is usual with infancy. Her parents, therefore, being anxious, and each of them asking for the infant, were both alike astonished, till they found her in the temple, so that even the very priests of the temple marvelled.

Then Anna was filled with the Holy Spirit in the sight of all, and said. The Lord Almighty God of