to the designation of Jesus as the " first born " son of Mary, in Matt. i. 25, and Luke ii. 7 ; then to the many passages, which speak of the brothers and sisters of Jesus ; and finally to the authority of Tertullian and Yictorinus. Jerome replies, that the " till " by no means always fixes a point after which any action must begin or cease ; ^ that, according to Ex. xxxiv. 19, 20 ; Num. xviii. 15 sqq., the " first born " does not necessarily imply the birth of other children afterward, but denotes every one, who first opens the womb ; that the "broth- ers " of Jesus may have been either sons of Joseph by a former marriage, or, according to the wide Hebrew use of the term, cousins ; and that the authorities cited were more than balanced by the testimony of Ignatius, Polycarp (?), and Irenseus. " Had ' 2 Cor. ix. 6. ^ At the very beginning of his work against him, he styles him "hominem rusti- cum et vix primis quoque imbutum literis." ^ Comp. Matt, xxviii. 20. 232 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. Helvidius read these," says he, " he would doubtless have pro- duced something more skilful." This whole question, it is well known, is still a problem in exegesis. The _/j>(?;;^>6^?<« virginitas of Mary has less support from Scripture than the opposite theory. But it is so essential to the whole ascetic system, that it became from this time an article of the Catholic faith, and the denial of it was anathema- tized as blasphemous heresy. A considerable number of Pro- testant divines,' however, agree on this point with the Catholic doctrine, and think it incompatible with the dignity of Mary, that, after the birth of the Son of God and Saviour of the world, she should have borne ordinary children of men. ViGiLANTius, originally from Gaul," a presbyter of Barce- lona in Spain, a man of pious but vehement zeal, and of liter- ary talent, wrote in the beginning of the fifth century against the ascetic spirit of the age and the superstition connected with it. Jerome's reply, dictated hastily in a single night at Beth- lehem in the year 406, contains more of personal abuse and low witticism, than of solid argument. " There have been," he says, " monsters on earth, centaurs, syrens, leviathans, be- hemoths Gaul alone has bred no monsters, but has ever abounded in brave and noble men, — when, of a sudden, there has arisen one Yigilantius, who should rather be called Dormitantius,^ contending in an impure spirit against the Spirit of Christ, and forbidding to honor the graves of the martyrs ; he rejects the Yigils — only at Easter should we sing hallelujah ; he declares abstemiousness to be heresy, and chastity a nursery of licentiousness {jpudicitiam, libidinis seminar ium). . . . . This innkeeper of Calagurris ■* mingles water with * Luther, for instance (who