terms !!40 We have now, at any rate, safely arrived at the conclusion, that the church rejected the doctrine we contend against, up to the end of the second century.

Clement of Alexandria, who wrote about eighteen years after the commencement of the third century, we have noticed as the first ecclesiastical author who believed in this fable. He thus introduces it, as an illustration, into a defence of the discipline of the secret ;-" It would appear, that many persons suppose in these days, that Mary was no longer a virgin after the birth of her son :but she was still a virgin." He then proceeds to narrate the fabulous circumstance upon which his assertion rests; his authority for which is still extant. It is a spurious gospel; a foul farrago of falsehood and of filth, deeply tainted with the heresies of those who deny our Lord's humanity, entitled the Protevangelion.42 In this sink of iniquity, the Alexandrian philosopher found the coarse fiction of the perpetual virginity and the church of succeeding centuries "supped full" of monachism, greedily embraced it, and would have accepted a doctrine so sea

43

:

40 Maria virgo quantum a viro, non virgo quantum a partu.-Id., c. 24. see the whole chapter.

41 7 Strom., § 16. ̓Αλλ ̓ ὡς εἴικεν, τοῖς παλλοις καὶ μέχρι νῦν δόκει ἥ Μαρίαμ λεχὼ εἶναι διὰ τὴν τὸ παιδίς γένεσιν, ἐκ ἔσα λεχώ. It will be observed that in this passage Clement admits the fact which we have already ascertained from other authors:—he was introducing a new doctrine, and in opposition to the prevalent belief of the times.

42 Fabricii Codex Apocr. Nov. Test., Vol. I. The passage to which Clement alludes, occurs p. 110., cc. 9, 10. I will not defile the page by quoting it in any language:-Clement's reference to it shows plainly enough that he was ashamed of his authority. φασί τινες (αὔτην) παρθένον εὐρεθῆναι. 43 See Bishop Pearson's Exposition of the Creed, p. 173, note ||., which occurs in the course of a defence of the perpetual virginity, by far the most ingenious and astute that ever appeared. The profoundly learned Prelate observes: "Tertullian himself was produced as an asserter of this

L

sonable, on the authority of a name far less illustrious than that of Clement.

Enough is now before the reader to show, both that monastic notions existed in the church during the second century, and from whence those notions were derived.— Marriage was very generally imagined to partake of the nature of sin; and even by those who were most tolerant, it was hampered with innumerable regulations and observances; so that, to whichever opinion his spiritual guides might incline, the mind of a married person, possessed of any conscientious feeling, would hardly fail to be greatly harassed and perplexed. Celibacy, on the other hand, was loudly extolled, and zealously recommended by all parties; and, though we no where hear of vows of chastity, yet those who made the profession of it were called upon to hold fast that profession, and to increase the rigour of their abstinences and mortifications, as an unerring means of procuring large accessions of spiritual blessings: nor does it seem improbable that provision was made out of the funds of the church, for the maintenance of these virgin contemplatists.

If such was the state of this question in the second century, we cease to wonder when we find, that before the termination of the third, half the population of Egypt rushed, in a wild frenzy of fanaticism, into the deserts of the Thebaid, or the Salt Marshes of Libya, each vying with the other who dare plunge the deepest into the burning

opinion, (that is, an impugner of the perpetual virginity ;) nor doth St. Hierom deny it, though I think he might have done it." It was this remark which appeared to render it necessary, that in treating upon this doctrine, I should insist upon the negative testimony against it borne by the early fathers, and the works of Tertullian generally, as well as upon the positive evidence in the tractate of the latter author, de Carne Christi.

solitudes of the Sahara, or who could build his hut of reeds nearest the fatal verge of the marsh, whose stagnant waters exhaled pestilence and death :—that in the fourth, the first convent was founded at Bethlehem by certain opulent female devotees, at the instance of Jerome; and that, very shortly afterwards, the whole of Christendom was covered with a cloud of friars and nuns, "white, black, and grey, with all their trumpery."

CHAPTER X.

ASCETICISM.

Or the powerful influence which was exercised over the minds of men by the Pythagorean, or Buddhistical, notions whose origin and progress we have endeavoured to trace, we can give no instance more remarkable than the fact, that they were able to engraft upon Christianity an institution entirely new and foreign to its whole character and design. The active and energetic nature of this principle, is further illustrated by the rapidity with which it converted the moderation and self-denial enjoined in the New Testament, into the rankest asceticism.

The abstinence of the Gospel is in perfect harmony with the whole of that dispensation which is declared to be the "law of liberty." The motive or principle in which, like every other Christian duty, it is to originate, is thus inculcated:-" Provide yourselves treasures in heaven: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."2 "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.” The operation of this principle is embodied in a single sentence: "let your moderation be known unto all men."4 Let the moderation of your desires after the means of temporal and worldly gratification, and your temperance and abstinence in their use, be

1 Jas. i. 25.

2 Luke xii. 25.

3 Col. iii. 2.

4 Phil. iv. 5.

such, as that all men may take knowledge, that your affections are not set upon them.' All particular directions are included in this general injunction: not excepting those concerning fasting, with which, as a customary and harmless mode of expressing religious sorrow and humiliation, it formed no part of the mission of our Lord and his apostles to interfere. For, notwithstanding its recommendation by both, as a help to the exercise of devotion, mere abstinence from food, under any form, can never be binding, as a religious act, upon the conscience of His disciple who hath said, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man.' 995

This "commandment is exceeding broad," 6 as he who in simplicity and godly sincerity strives to fulfil it, will not fail to discover :-but, nevertheless, the early church manifested eager impatience to enlarge its dimensions. Symptoms of this change are to be found even in the Shepherd of Hermas. In the fifth Similitude of the third book, the writer is addressed by his guardian angel upon the subject of observing Stations, while he was preparing for that ordinance. He commences in a very proper and scriptural strain, to point out the nature of a true fast:-" Ye know not what it is to fast unto God; this not a fast, for it is not profitable unto God. The Lord does not desire such a needless fast: for by fasting in this manner thou advancest nothing in right

5 Matt. xv. 11.

6 Psa. cxix. 96.

7 The dies stationarii were half fasts observed, according to Tertullian, on the authority of tradition.-Adv. Psych., c. 12. They were kept on Wednesday and Friday in every Week :-on Wednesday, because on that day the Jews took counsel to destroy Christ:-on Friday, because on that day he was crucified; they were ordinarily observed to the ninth hour of the day, because that was the time of the supernatural darkness.