Evangelists (besides St John) the mother of James and Joses is the mother of God and none else',' being so called because she undertook the education of these her stepsons; and he supposes also that this James is called 'the little' by St Mark to distinguish him from James the son of Alphaus who was 'great,' because he was in the number of the Twelve Apostles, which the Lord's brother was not (in Christ. Resurr. ii. Opp. 111. pp. 412, 413, ed. Paris, 1638). marian 20. The ANTIDICOMARIANITES, an obscure Arabian sect in the Antidicolatter half of the fourth century, maintained that the Lord's mother ites. bore children to her husband Joseph. These opinions seem to have produced a reaction, or to have been themselves reactionary, for we read about the same time of a sect called Collyridians, likewise in Arabia, who going to the opposite extreme paid divine honours to the Virgin (Epiphan. Haeres. lxxviii, lxxix3). nius. 21. EPIPHANIUS a native of Palestine became bishop of Con- Epiphastantia in Cyprus in the year 367. Not very long before Jerome wrote in defence of the perpetual virginity of the Lord's mother against the Helvidians at Rome, Epiphanius came forward as the champion of the same cause against the Antidicomarianites. denounced them in an elaborate pastoral letter, in which he explains his views at length, and which he has thought fit to incorporate in his subsequently written treatise against Heresies (pp. 1034-1057, 1 Similarly Chrysostom, see below, p. 289, note 1. This identification of the Lord's mother with the mother of James and Joses is adopted and similarly explained also in one of the apocryphal gospels: Hist. Joseph. 4 (Tisch. p. 117). Possibly Gregory derived it from some such source. It was also part of the Helvidian hypothesis, where it was less out of place, and gave Jerome an easy triumph over his adversary (adv. Helvid. 12 etc.). It is adopted moreover by Cave (Life of St James the Less, § 2), who holds that the Lord's brethren were sons of Joseph, and yet makes James the Lord's brother one of the Twelve, identifying Joseph with Alphæus. Fritzsche also identifies these two Maries (Matth. p. 822, Marc. p. 697). He * The names are plainly terms of ridicule invented by their enemies. Augustine supposes the 'Antidicomarianita' of Epiphanius (he writes the word 'Antidicomarita') to be the same as the Helvidians of Jerome (adv. Haer. 84, VIII. p. 24). They held the same tenets, it is true, but there seems to have been otherwise no connexion between the two. Considerations of time and place alike resist this identification. Epiphanius had heard that these opinions, which he held to be derogatory to the Lord's mother, had been promulgated also by the elder Apollinaris or some of his disciples; but he doubted about this (p. 1034). The report was probably circulated by their opponents in order to bring discredit upon them. Helvidius, Bonosus, and Jovi nianus. ed. Petav.). He moreover discusses the subject incidentally in other parts of his great work (pp. 115, 119, 432, 636), and it is clear that he had devoted much time and attention to it. His account coincides with that of the apocryphal gospels. Joseph, he states, was eighty years old or more when the Virgin was espoused to him; by his former wife he had six children, four sons and two daughters, the names of the daughters were Mary and Salome, for which names by the way he alleges the authority of Scripture (p. 1041); his sons, St James especially, were called the Lord's brethren because they were brought up with Jesus; the mother of the Lord remained for ever a virgin; as the lioness is said to exhaust her fertility in the production of a single offspring (see Herod. iii. 108), so she who bore the Lion of Judah could not in the nature of things become a mother a second time (pp. 1044, 1045). These particulars with many other besides he gives, quoting as his authority the tradition of the Jews' (p. 1039). It is to be observed moreover that, though he thus treats of the subject several times and at great length, he never once alludes to the Hieronymian account; and yet I can scarcely doubt that one who so highly extolled celibacy would have hailed with delight a solution which, as Jerome boasted, saved the virginity not of Mary only but of Joseph also, for whose honour Epiphanius shows himself very jealous (pp. 1040, 1046, 1047). 22. Somewhere about the year 380 HELVIDIUS, who resided in Rome, published a treatise in which he maintained that the Lord's brethren were sons of Joseph and Mary. He seems to have succeeded in convincing a considerable number of persons, for contemporary writers speak of the Helvidians as a party. These views were moreover advocated by BONOSUS, bishop of Sardica in Illyria, about the same time, and apparently also by JOVINIANUS a monk probably of Milan. The former was condemned by a synod assembled at Capua (A.D. 392), and the latter by synods held at Rome and at Milan (about A.D. 390; see Hefele Conciliengesch. II. pp. 47, 48)'. 1 The work ascribed to Dorotheus Tyrius is obviously spurious (see Cave Hist. Lit. 1. p. 163); and I have therefore not included his testimony in this In earlier times this account of the Lord's brethren, so far as it Motive of the Helviwas the badge of a party, seems to have been held in conjunction dians. with Ebionite views respecting the conception and person of Christ'. For, though not necessarily affecting the belief in the miraculous Incarnation, it was yet a natural accompaniment of the denial thereof. The motive of these latter impugners of the perpetual virginity was very different. They endeavoured to stem the current which had set strongly in the direction of celibacy; and, if their theory was faulty, they still deserve the sympathy due to men who in defiance of public opinion refused to bow their necks to an extragavant and tyrannous superstition. up. We have thus arrived at the point of time when Jerome's answer Evidence summed to Helvidius created a new epoch in the history of this controversy. And the following inferences are, if I mistake not, fairly deducible from the evidence produced. First: there is not the slightest indication that the Hieronymian solution ever occurred to any individual or sect or church, until it was put forward by Jerome himself. If it had been otherwise, writers like Origen, the two Hilaries, and Epiphanius, who discuss the question, could not have failed to notice it. Secondly: the Epiphanian account has the highest claims to the sanction of tradition, whether the value of this sanction be great or small. Thirdly: this solution seems especially to represent the Palestinian view. In the year 382 (or 383) Jerome published his treatise; and the Jerome's effeet of it is visible at once. treatise. AMBROSE in the year 392 wrote a work De Institutione Virginis, Ambrose. list. The writer distinguishes James the Lord's brother and James the son of Alphæus, and makes them successive bishops of Jerusalem. See Combefis in Fabricius' Hippol. 1, app. p. 36. 1 [I fear the statement in the text may leave a false impression. Previous writers had spoken of the Ebionites as holding the Helvidian view, and I was betrayed into using similar language. But there is, so far as I am aware, no evidence in favour of this assumption. It would be still more difficult to sub stantiate the assertions in the following This appellation ('brethren ') was at in which he especially refutes the impugners of the perpetual virginity of the Lord's mother. In a passage which is perhaps intentionally obscure he speaks to this effect: The term brothers has a wide application; it is used of members of the same family, the same race, the same country. Witness the Lord's own words I will declare thy name to my brethren (Ps. xxii. 22). St Paul too says: I could wish to be accursed for my brethren (Rom. ix. 3). Doubtless they might be called brothers as sons of Joseph, not of Mary. And if any one will go into the question carefully, he will find this to be the true account. For myself I do not intend to enter upon this question: it is of no importance to decide what particular relationship is implied; it is sufficient for my purpose that the term "brethren" is used in an extended sense (i.e. of others besides sons of the same mother)'.' From this I infer that St Ambrose had heard of, though possibly not read, Jerome's tract, in which he discourses on the wide meaning of the term: that, if he had read it, he did not feel inclined to abandon the view with which he was familiar in favour of the novel hypothesis put forward by Jerome: and lastly, that seeing the importance of cooperation against a common enemy he was anxious not to raise dissensions among the champions of the perpetual virginity by the discussion of details. Pelagius. PELAGIUS, who commented on St Paul a few years after Jerome, adopts his theory and even his language, unless his text has been tampered with here (Gal. i. 19). Augustine. At the same time Jerome's hypothesis found a much more weighty advocate in ST AUGUSTINE. In his commentary on the Galatians indeed (i. 19), written about 394 while he was still a presbyter, he offers the alternative of the Hieronymian and Epiphanian accounts. But in his later works he consistently maintains the view put forward 1 The passage, which I have thus paraphrased, is 'Fratres autem gentis, et generis, populi quoque consortium nuncupari docet Dominus ipse qui dicit: Narrabo nomen tuum fratribus meis; in medio ecclesiae laudabo te. Paulus quoque ait: Optabam ego anathema esse pro fratribus meis. Potuerunt autem fratres esse ex Joseph, non ex Maria. Quod quidem si quis diligentius prosequatur inveniet. Nos ea prosequenda non putavimus, quoniam fraternum nomen liquet pluribus esse commune' (11. p. 260, ed. Ben.). St Ambrose seems to accept so much of Jerome's argument as relates to the wide use of the term 'brothers' and nothing more. by Jerome in the treatise against Helvidius (In Joh. Evang. x, III. 2. p. 368, ib. xxviii, III. 2. p. 508; Enarr. in Ps. cxxvii, iv. 2. p. 1443; Contr. Faust. xxii. 35, VIII. p. 383; comp. Quaest. XVII in Matth., III. 2. p. 285). Church. Thus supported, it won its way to general acceptance in the Latin Western Church; and the WESTERN SERVICES recognise only one James besides the son of Zebedee, thus identifying the Lord's brother with the son of Alphæus. stom. In the East also it met with a certain amount of success, but this Chrysowas only temporary. CHRYSOSTOM wrote both before and after Jerome's treatise had become generally known, and his expositions of the New Testament mark a period of transition. In his Homilies on the earlier books he takes the Epiphanian view: St James, he says, was at one time an unbeliever with the rest of the Lord's brethren (on Matth. i. 25, vII. p. 77; John vii. 5, vIII. p. 284; see also on 1 Cor. ix. 4, x. p. 181 E); the resurrection was the turning-point in their career; they were called the Lord's brethren, as Joseph himself was reputed the husband of Mary (on Matth. i. 25, l. c.)1. Hitherto he betrays no knowledge of the Hieronymian account. 1 A comment attributed to Chrysostom in Cramer's Catena on 1 Cor. ix. 4-7, but not found in the Homilies, is still more explicit ; Αδελφοὺς τοῦ Κυ ρίου λέγει τοὺς νομισθέντας εἶναι αὐτοῦ ἀδελφούς· ἐπειδὴ γὰρ οὗτος ὁ χρηματίζων καὶ αὐτὸς κατὰ τὴν κοινὴν δόξαν εἶπεν αὐτούς· τοὺς δὲ υἱοὺς Ἰωσὴφ λέγει, οἱ ἀδελφοὶ τοῦ Κυρίου ἐχρημάτισαν διὰ τὴν πρὸς τὴν θεοτόκον μνηστείαν τοῦ Ἰωσήφ. λέγει δὲ Ἰάκωβον ἐπίσκοπον Ἱεροσολύμων καὶ Ἰωσὴφ ὁμώνυμον τῷ πατέρι καὶ Σίμωνα καὶ Ἰούδα. I give the passage without attempting to correct the text. This note reappears almost word for word in the Ecumenian catena and in Theophylact. If Chrysostom be not the author, then we gain the testimony of some other ancient writer on the same side. Compare also the pseudo-Chrysostom, Ор. п. р. 797. The passages referred to in the text show clearly what was Chrysostom's earlier view. To these may be added GAL. the comments on 1 Cor. xv. 7 (x. The Homilies on the Acts also take 19 |