PART TWO
CHAPTER I
MARY OF NAZARETH
Mary, of whom was born Jesus.
S. Matt. I. 16.
My Maker and Redeemer, Christ the Lord, O Immaculate, coming forth from thy womb, having taken my nature upon him, hath delivered Adam from the primal curse; wherefore, to thee, Immaculate, the Mother of God and Virgin in very sooth, we cry aloud unceasingly the Ave of the Angel, "Hail, O Lady, protection and shelter and salvation of our souls!"
BYZANTINE.
he silences of the Holy Scriptures have always provoked speculation as to what is left untold. The devout imagination has played about the hints we receive and woven them into stories which far outrun any true implication of the facts. Thus has much legendary matter gathered about the childhood of our Lord, containing the stories, not always very edifying according to our taste, which are set down in the Apocryphal Gospels. The same eagerness to know more than we are told has produced the developed legend of the childhood of our Lady. We can of course place no reliance on most of the statements that are there made; perhaps the most that we can lay hold of is the fact that S. Mary's father was Joachim and her mother Anna. The rest may be left to silence.