48. This appellation was at first understood in the most
obvious sense, and it was supposed that the brothers of
Jesus were the lawful issue of Joseph and Mary. A devout
respect for the virginity of the mother of God suggested to
the Gnostics, and afterwards to the orthodox Greeks, the
expedient of bestowing a second wife on Joseph. The Latins
(from the time of Jerome) improved on that hint, asserted
the perpetual celibacy of Joseph, and justified by many
similar examples the new interpretation that Jude, as well
as Simon and James, who are styled the brothers of Jesus
Christ, were only his first-cousins. See Tillemont, Mem.
Ecclesiast. tom. i. part iii.; and Beausobre, Hist. Critique
du Manicheisme, 1. ii. c. 2.