(2) It depends more upon the positive age than the relative age of brothers, whether the inter- ference of a younger with an elder is probable or improbable. When all have reached manhood and have settled in their different spheres, a few years' difference in age does not count for much. It might, however, be thought that those who had grown up with one like Jesus must have felt such K)ve and reverence for Him, that they could never dream of blaming or criticising what He thought best to do. Yet we know that His mother, to whom had been vouchsafed a much fuller revela- tion than was possible in their case as to the true nature of her Son, did nevertheless on more than one occasion draw upon herself His reproof for ventured interference. If we remember how little even those whom He chose out as His apostles were able to appreciate His aims and methods up to the very end of His life, how different was their idsa of the kingdom of heaven and the office of the Messiah from His, we shall not wonder if His younger brothers, with all tlieir admiration for His genius and goodness, were at times puzzled and I)e^\^ldered at the words that fell from His lips ; if they regarded Him as a self-forgetting idealist and enthusiast, wanting in knowledge of the world as it was, and needing the constant care of His more practical friends to provide Him with the ordinary comforts and necessaries of life. Thns much, I think, is certain from the known
facts of the case ; and we need nothing more than this to explain t heir fear that His mind might be overstrained, and their attempt to dictate the measures He should adopt in going up to the Feast, just as His mother had attempted to dictate to Him at them arriage at Cana.
(3) We have seen that, so far as we can speak of a tradition on this subject, it was in favour of the Epiphanian theory from about the end of the second century till it was unceremoniously driven out of the field by Jerome in the year 383 : we have seen, too, that Jerome himself abandoned his own theory in his later writings. But it was so much in accordance with the ascetic views of the time, that it was adopted by Augustine and the Latin Fathers generally ; while in the Eastern Church, Chrysostom, who, in his earlier writings, favours the Epiphanian view, comes round to Jerome in the later, and Theodoret may be men- tioned on the same side. The later Greek Fathers are, however, almost all on the side of Epiphanius ; and the Greek, Syrian, and Coptic Calendars mark the distinction between James the brother of the Lord and James the son of Alphgeus by assigning a separate day to each. This distinction is also maintained, apart from any statement as to the exact relationship implied by the term ' brother,' in the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions of the second cent. , and the Apostolic Constitutions of the third.
Historical tradition, therefore, on this subject there was properly none when Jerome wrote, any more than there is now, but there was a growing feeling in favour of the perpetual virginity, which took definite shape in the title aei.irap0im used of Mary by Athanasius ; and the apocryphal fictions were eagerly embraced as affording a support for this belief.
We cannot doubt that those who were agitating for a stricter rule would make use of the example of the Virgin, insisting on the name as implying a permanent state, ana would endeavour to give an artificial strength to their cause by the addition of imaginary circumstances to the simple narrative of the gospel. Thus it was not enough to suppose the bretnren of the Lord to be sons of Joseph oy a former wife ; Joseph's age must be increased so as to make it impossible for him to have had children by his second wife, though this supposition contradict* what the upholders of this view maintain to be the very purpose of Mary's marriage, viz. to screen her from all injurious imputations. How could the marriage effect this, if the husband were above eighty years of age, as Epiphanius says, following the apocryphal Gospels ? Again, if this were the case, why should not the evangelist have stated it simply, instead of using the cautionary phrases irpiv ij ffvveXOsTv and ovk iyiviOCTKev airTjv ?w$ oD freKer ? But even this was not enough for the ascetic spirit. Further barriers must be raised between the con- tamination of matrimony and the virgin ideal. Joseph himself becomes a type of virginity : the ' brethren ' are no longer his sons, but sons of Clopas, who was either his brother by one tra- dition, or his wife's sister's husband by another. Mary is made the child of promise and of miracle like Isaac, though not yet exalted to the honours of the Immaculate Conception ; and we see Epiphanius already feeling his way to the doctrine of^ lier Assumption, which was accepted by Gregory of Tours in the 6th cent. One other development may be noticed, as it is found in the Protevnnqelium, c. 20, though not mentioned by Epiplmnius, viz. that not only the Conception but the Birth of our Lord was miraculous ; in the words of Jeremy Taylor : ' He that came from His ^ave fast tied with a stone and signature, and into the college of tlie apostles, the doors being