Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete

CHAPTER I.

1 The Parent­age of Mary. 7 Joachim her fa­ther, and An­na her moth­er, go to Jerusalem to the feast of the ded­ica­tion. 9 Is­sachar, the high priest, re­proach­es Joachim for be­ing child­less.

THE blessed and ev­er glo­ri­ous Vir­gin Mary, sprung from the roy­al race and fam­ily of David, was born in the city of Nazareth, and ed­ucat­ed at Jerusalem, in the tem­ple of the Lord.

2 Her fa­ther’s name was Joachim, and her moth­er’s An­na. The fam­ily of her fa­ther was of Galilee and the city of Nazareth. The fam­ily of her moth­er was of Beth­le­hem.

3 Their lives were plain and right in the sight of the Lord, pi­ous and fault­less be­fore men; for they di­vid­ed all their sub­stance in­to three parts;

4 One of which they de­vot­ed to the tem­ple and of­fi­cers of the tem­ple; an­oth­er they dis­tribut­ed among strangers, and per­sons in poor cir­cum­stances; and the third they re­served for them­selves and the us­es of their own fam­ily.

5 In this man­ner they lived for about twen­ty years chaste­ly, in the favour of God, and the es­teem of men, with­out any chil­dren.

6 But they vowed, if God should favour them with any is­sue, they would de­vote it to the ser­vice of the Lord; on which ac­count they went at ev­ery feast in the year to the tem­ple of the Lord.

7 And it came to pass, that when the feast of the ded­ica­tion drew near, Joachim, with some oth­ers of his tribe, went up to Jerusalem, and at that time, Isachar was high-​priest;

8 Who, when he saw Joachim along with the rest of his neigh­bours, bring­ing his of­fer­ings, de­spised both him and his of­fer­ings, and asked him,

9 Why he, who had no chil­dren, would pre­sume to ap­pear among those who had? Adding, that his of­fer­ings could nev­er be ac­cept­able to God, who was judged by him un­wor­thy to have chil­dren; the Scrip­ture hav­ing said, Cursed is ev­ery one who shall not beget a male in Is­rael.

10 He fur­ther said, that he ought first to be free from that curse by beget­ting some is­sue, and then come with his of­fer­ings in­to the pres­ence of God.

11 But Joachim be­ing much con­found­ed with the shame of such re­proach, re­tired to the shep­herds who were with the cat­tle in their pas­tures;

12 For he was not in­clined to re­turn home, lest his neigh­bours, who were present and heard all this from the high-​priest, should pub­licly re­proach him in the same man­ner.