7. But the preliminary question was taken from Isaiah Chapter 7:14,15,16, and the verses are: “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child shall learn to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land which thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.”

8. The first part of the question consisted of what was in itself clearly understandable; who the virgin and who her son Emanuel might be, and when this would happen that such a son should be born into the world. The time must already be there, seeing that the land of Jacob had been already bereft of both her kings, and now had the heathen as masters. Could it not be possible that this boy born in a stable twelve years ago at Bethlehem, of the virgin Mary who had been given into the charge of the carpenter Joseph, not has his wife but as his foster-child, according to the ancient custom of the Temple - that this boy for whose sake the wise men of the East had come that they might greet in him the promised King of the Jews, and at whose circumcision in the Temple Anna and Simeon had given so great witness - that this boy might be the Emanuel of whom Isaiah had prophesied.

9. Now, after this most significant question, one of the elders, a thoroughly imperious old man, began to babble most confused nonsense which I have no wish whatever to repeat, because, among other things, he called Me a badly-brought-up boy, seeing that I already knew about the being born of woman.