St. Mary, Art
thou the mother of this child?

13 St. Mary replied, She was.

14 On which the old woman
said, Thou art very different from
all other women.

15 St. Mary answered, As there
is not any child like to my son,
so neither is there any woman like
to his mother.

16 The old woman answered,
and said, O my Lady, I am come
hither that I may obtain an
everlasting reward.

17 Then our Lady St. Mary
said to her, Lay thine hands upon
the infant, which, when she had
done, she became whole.

18 And as she was going forth,
she said, From henceforth, all the
days of my life, I will attend upon
and be a servant of this infant.

19 After this, when the shepherds
came, and had made a fire, and they
were exceedingly rejoicing, the
heavenly host appeared to them,
praising and adoring the supreme God.

20 And as the shepherds were
engaged in the same employment,
the cave at that time seemed like
a glorious temple, because both
the tongues of angels and men
united to adore and magnify God,
on account of the birth of the Lord
Christ.

21 But when the old Hebrew
woman saw all these evident miracles,
she gave praises to God, and
said, I thank thee, O God, thou
God of Israel, for that mine eyes
have seen the birth of the Saviour
of the world.

CHAP. II.

1 The child circumcised in the cave,
2 and the old woman preserving his foreskin or navel-string in a
box of spikenard, Mary afterwards anoints Christ with it.
5 Christ brought to the temple;
6 He shines,
7 and angels stand around him adoring.
8 Simeon praises Christ.

AND when the time of his
circumcision was come: namely,
the eighth day, on which the
law commanded the child to be
circumcised; they circumcised
him in the cave.

2 And the old Hebrew woman
took the foreskin (others say she
took the navel-string), and preserved
it in an alabaster-box of old oil
of spikenard.

3 And she had a son who was a
druggist, to whom she said, Take
heed thou sell not this alabaster-
box of spikenard-ointment, although
thou shouldst be offered three
hundred pence for it.

4 Now this is that alabaster-
box which Mary the sinner procured,
and poured forth the ointment out
of it upon the head and the feet
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and wiped
them off with the hairs of her head.

5 Then after ten days they
brought him to Jerusalem, and on
the fortieth day from his birth
they presented him in the te