3] After a while one of them said: “Well, speak further of what you know about it!” 4] I said: “Certainly what I know, I know; but I did not put a question to you in order t enlighten Myself on what I already know, but only that you might show Me who is the prophet Isaiah’s ‘virgin with child’, of whom the very Son of the All Highest is to be born! As scribes you ought surely to understand what the prophet meant by the ‘virgin with child’ who shall give birth to the Son designated! 5] It is quite My opinion that there is something more in that story of the Bethlehem birth than you think, and that those parents, the well known carpenter Joseph of Nazareth and the virgin afterwards married to him, together with the son born at Bethlehem, are still actually alive; for they escaped from the later cruelty of the old Herod, through a very wise arrangement of the then Roman captain Cornelius, and are now living quite safely in Nazareth of Galilee. 6] I, a Boy of twelve years old, know this, and should it to be unknown to you who know about everything, especially as Joseph, being one of the cleverest of carpenters, has so far had every year something to do for Jerusalem, and you know him quite well, as also his wife who belonged to Jerusalem, and was educated in the temple up to 14 years of age? Is she not a daughter of Anna and Joachim, and according to your chronicles, had she not a miraculous birth? Anna was already advanced in years, and without a miracle there would have been no idea of her having a child.
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