§ 47. UELVIDIUS, VIGILANTIUS, AND AEKIU8 231
cnurchcs on eartli), the comparison of tlie resurrection bodies with the stars, which dili'er in glory, and the passage : " He which soweth sparingly, shall reap also sparingly ; and he which soweth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully." '
§ 47. JSelvidius, Yigilantius^ and Aerlus. See especially the tracts of Jerome quoted in the preceding section.
Helvidius, whether a layman or a priest at Home it is uncertain, a pupil, according to the statement of Gennadius, of the Arian bishop Auxentius of l^Iilan, 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 Antidicomarianites of Epiphanius. Jerome calls Helvidius, indeed, a rough and uneducated man,^ 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 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 enotes 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 testimony of Ignatius, Poly carp (?), and Irenseus. " Hac-
' 2 Cor. ix. 6.
' At the very beginning of bis work against him, he styles him " hominem rusti cum et vix primia quoque imbutum Uteris." ^ Comp. Matt, xxviii. 20.
232 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Helvidius read these," says lie, " he would doubtless have pro duced something more skilful."
This whole question, it is well known, is still a problem in exegesis. The perjoetua virginitas of Mary - has less support from Scripture than the opposite thcorj'. But it is so essentia^ to the whole ascetic system, that it became from this time an article of the Catholic faith, and the denial of it was anathenuitized as blasphemous heresy. A considerable number of Protestant divines,' however, agree on this point with the Catliolic doctrine, and think it incompatible with the dignit)^ of Mary, that, after the birth of the Son of God and Saviour of the world, she should have borne ordinary children of men.
YiGiLANTius, originally from Gaul,^ 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, leviatlians, behemoths 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, Uhidinis seminarium). . . . . This innkeeper of Calagurris ^ mingles water with
' Luther, for instance (who even calls Ilelvidius a "gioss fool"), and Zuiiigle, among the Reformers ; Olshausen and J. P. Lange, among the later theologians.
* Respecting his descent, compare the diffuse treatise of the tedious but thorough Walch, 1. c. p. CZS-OVV.
' This cheap pun he repeats, Epist. 109, ad Ripar. (Opera, i. p. 719), where he Bays that ViyilaiUius (Wakeful) was so called »cot* avTi<i>pa(ni/, and should rather be called DormitantiuH (Sleepy). The fact is, that Vigilantius was wide-awake to a sense of certain superstitions of the age.
* In Soutii Gaul ; now Caseres in Gascogue. As the business of innkeeper is hicompatiblo with the spiritual office, it has been supposed that the father of Vigilantius was a caupo Calar/urritamis. Comp. Rossler's Bibliothek der Kirehenviiter, Dart ix. p. 880 S(j., note 1 W : and WaJch. 1. c