“Yet, when the immaculate infant understood afterwards that her holy parents, Joachim and Anna had promised to God, even by a vow, as various authors relate, that if he should grant them a child, it should be consecrated to His service in the temple; for it was an ancient custom of the Jews to place their children in cells which were near the temple, that there they might be properly educated, as we learn from Baronius, Nicephorus, Cedrenus, and Suarez, as also from Josephus, the Jewish historian, St. John Damascene, St. Gregory of Nicomedia, St. Anselm, and St. Ambrose. As it is also clearly seen in Macchabees, where speaking of Helidorus, who wished to enter the temple by force in order to take from it the treasures deposited there, it is said: “Because the place was like to come into contempt…the virgins that were shut up hastened to Onias.” When Mary knew of this vow, as I have before said,s he wished solemnly to offer and consecrate herself to God, by presenting herself in the temple, as Germanus asserts, and also St. Epiphanius, who says that when she was hardly three years old she was presented in the temple, at an age when children have the greatest desire for the assistance of their parents, and need it the most. She was even the first to entreat her parents earnestly that they would take her to the temple, to fulfill their promise; and her mother, Anna, as St. Gregory of Nyssa says, did not delay to bring her there, and offer her to God.” (pg. 396-397 from ‘The Glories of Mary’)