IV.

1.  And now the time had come, which the Supreme Judge, in His boundless clemency, had chosen to incarnate Himself in a human being.

2.  And the Eternal Spirit, which dwelt in a state of complete inertness and supreme beatitude, awakened and detached Itself from the Eternal Being for an indefinite period,

3.  In order to indicate, in assuming the human form, the means of identifying ourselves with the Divinity and of attaining Eternal Felicity.

4.  And to teach us, by His example, how we may reach a state of moral purity and separate the soul from its gross envelope, that it may attain the perfection necessary to enter the Kingdom of Heaven which is immutable and where Eternal Happiness reigns.

5.  Soon after, a wonderful child was born in the land of Israel; God Himself, through the mouth of this child, spoke of the nothingness of the body and the grandeur of the soul.

6.  The parents of this new-born child were poor people, belonging by birth to a family of exalted piety, which disregarded its former worldly greatness to magnify the name of the Creator and thank Him for the misfortunes with which He was pleased to try them.

7.  To reward them for their perseverance in the path of truth, God blessed the first-born of this family; He chose him as His elect, and sent him forth to raise those that had fallen into evil, and to heal them that suffered.

8.  The Divine Child, to whom was given the name Issa, commenced even in his most tender years to speak of the One and Indivisible God, exhorting the people that had strayed from the path of righteousness to repent and purify themselves of the sins they had committed.

9.  People came from all parts to listen and marvel at the words of wisdom that fell from his infant lips; all the Israelites united in proclaiming that the Eternal Spirit dwelt within this child.

10.  When Issa had attained the age of thirteen, when an Israelite should take a wife,

11.  The house in which his parents dwelt and earned their livelihood in modest labor, became a meeting place for the rich and noble, who desired to gain for a son-in-law the young Issa, already celebrated for his edifying in the name of the Almighty.

12.  It was then that Issa clandestinely left his father's house, went out of Jerusalem, and, in company with some merchants, traveled toward Sindh,

13.  That he might perfect himself in the Divine Word and study the laws of the great Buddhas.