based on 1 John iii. 9 and v. 18, and is connected with his abstract conception of the opposite moral states. He limits the impossibility of relapse to the truly regenerate, who "plena fide in baptismate renati sunt," and makes a distinction between the mere baptism of water and the baptism of the Spirit, which involves also, a distinction between the actual and the ideal church.

His third point is aimed against the ascetic exaltation of fasting, with reference to Rom. xiv. 20 and 1 Tim. iv. 3. God, he holds, has created all animals for the service of man; Christ attended the marriage feast at Cana as a guest, sat at table with Zaccheus, with publicans and sinners, and was called by the Pharisees a glutton and a wine-bibber; and the apostle says: To the pure all things are pure, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving.

He went still further, however, and, with the Stoics, denied all gradations of moral merit and demerit, consequently also all gradations of reward and punishment. He overlooked the process of development in both good and evil. He went back of all outward relations to the inner mind, and lost all subordinate differences of degree in the great contrast between true Christians and men of the world, between regenerate and unregenerate; whereas the friends of monasticism taught a higher and a lower morality, and distinguished the ascetics, as a special class, from the mass of ordinary Christians. As Christ, says he, dwells in believers without difference of degree, so also believers are in Christ without difference of degree or stages of development. There are only two classes of men,-righteous and wicked, sheep and goats, five wise virgins and five foolish, good trees with good fruit and bad trees with bad fruit. He appealed also to the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, who all received equal wages. Jerome answered him with such things as the parable of the sower and the different kinds of ground; the parable of the different numbers of talents with corresponding reward; the many mansions in the Father's house (by which Jovinian singularly understood the different

churches on earth); the comparison of the resurrection bodies with the stars, which differ in glory; and the passage: “ He which soweth sparingly, shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully."

Helvidius - whether a layman or a priest at Rome it is uncertain, a pupil, according to the statement of Gennadius, of the Arian bishop Auxentius of Milan, -wrote a work, before the year 383, in refutation of the perpetual virginity of the mother of the Lord-a leading point with the current glorification of celibacy. He considered the married state equal in honor and glory to that of virginity. Of his fortunes we know nothing. Augustine speaks of Helvidians, who are probably identical with the Anti-dicomarianites of Epiphanius. Jerome calls Helvidius, indeed, a rough and uneducated man; 2 but proves by quotations of his arguments, that he had at least some knowledge of the scriptures and a certain ingenuity. He appealed in the first place to Matt. i. 18, 24, 25, as implying that Joseph knew his wife, not before, but after, the birth of the Lord; then 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 Victorinus. Jerome replies, that the "till" by no means always fixes a point after which any action must begin or cease;3 that, according to Exod. xxxiv. 19, 20; Num. xviii. 15 seq., the "firstborn" does not necessarily imply the birth of other children afterwards, but denotes every one who first opens the womb; that the "brothers" 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 testimonies of Igna

1 2 Cor. ix. 6.

At the very beginning of his work, he styles him "hominem rusticum et vix primis quoque imbutum literis."

3 Compare Matt. xxviii. 20.

tius, Polycarp (?), and Irenaeus. "Had Helvidius read these," says he, "he would doubtless have produced something more skilful."

This whole question, it is well known, is still a problem in exegesis. The perpetua 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 anathematized as blasphemous heresy. A considerable number of Protestant 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 the Saviour of the world, she should have borne ordinary children of men.

Vigilantius, originally from Gaul,2 a presbyter of Barcelona in Spain, a man of pious but vehement zeal, and of literary 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 Bethlehem, 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, leviathan, behemoth..... Gaul alone has bred no monsters, but has ever abounded in brave and noble men ; when, of a sudden, there has arisen one Vigilantius, who should rather be called Dormitantius, 3 contending in an impure spirit against the Spirit of Christ, and forbidding to honor the graves of the martyrs; he rejects the vigils; only at Easter should we sing hallelujah; he declares abste

'Luthur, for instance (who even calls Helvidius a "gross fool”), and Zuingli, among the Reformers; Olshausen and J. P. Lange, among the later theologians. 2 Respecting his descent, compare the diffuse treatise of the tedious but thorough Walch, 1. c. p. 675-677.

8 This cheap pun he repeats (Epist. 109, ad Ripar. Opera, I. p. 719), where he says that Vigilantius (wakeful) was so called κat' ¿vríppaow, and should rather be called Dormitantius (sleepy). The fact is Vigilantius was wide awake to a sense of certain superstitions of the age.

miousness to be heresy, and chastity a nursery of licentiousness (pudicitiam, libidinis seminarium) ..... This innkeeper of Caligurris' mingles water with his wine, and would, according to ancient art, combine his poison with the genuine faith. He opposes virginity, hates chastity, cries against the fastings of the saints, and would only amidst jovial feastings amuse himself with the psalms of David. It is terrible to hear that even bishops are companions of his wantonness, if those deserve this name who ordain only married persons deacons, and trust not the chastity of the single." Vigilantius thinks it better for a man to use his money wisely and apply it gradually to benevolent objects at home, than to lavish it all at once upon the poor or give it to the monks of Jerusalem. He went further, however, than his two predecessors, and bent his main efforts against the worship of saints and relics, which was then gaining ascendency, and was fostered by monasticism. He considered it superstition and idolatry. He called the Christians who worshipped the "wretched bones" of dead men ash-gatherers and idolators.3 He expressed himself sceptically respecting the miracles of the martyrs, contested the practice of invoking them, and of intercession for the dead, as useless, and declared himself against the vigils, or public worship in the night, as tending to disorder and licentiousThis last point Jerome admits as a fact, but not as an argument, because the abuse should not abolish the right use.

ness.

The presbyter Aerius of Sebaste, about 360, belongs also among the partial opponents of monasticism. For, though himself an ascetic, he contended against the fast-laws and

1 In South Gaul, now Casères in Gascogne. As the business of inn-keeper is incompatible with the spiritual office, it has been supposed that the father of Vigilantius was a caupo Calagurritanus. Compare Rössler's Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, part IX. p. 880 seq., note 100; and Walch, 1. c.

2 Adv. Vigil. c. 1 and 2, (Opera. Tom. I. p. 387 seq.).

3 "Cinerarios et idolatras, qui mortuorum ossa venerantur." Hieron., ep. 109 ad Riparium (Tom. I. p. 719).

the injunction of fasts at certain times, considering them an encroachment upon Christian freedom. Epiphanius also ascribes to him three other heretical views: denial of the superiority of bishops to presbyters, opposition to the usual Easter festival, and opposition to prayers for the dead.' He was hotly persecuted by the hierarchy, and was obliged to live, with his adherents, in open fields and in caves.

1 Epiph. Haer., 75. Compare also Walch, Ketzergeschichte III. p. 351–338. Bellarmine, on account of this external resemblance, styles Protestantism the Aerian heresy.