168 The Faith of Our Fathers during her married life and after her spouse's death. "The Angel Gabriel was sent from God ... to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, ... and the Virgin's name was Mary."221 That she remained a Virgin till after the birth of Jesus is expressly stated in the Gospel.222 It is not less certain that she continued in the same state during the remainder of her days; for in the Apostles' and the Nicene Creed she is called a Virgin, and that epithet cannot be restricted to the time of our Saviour's birth. It must be referred to her whole life, inasmuch as both creeds were compiled long after she had passed away. The Canon of the Mass, which is very probably of Apostolic antiquity, speaks of her as the "glorious ever Virgin," and in this sentiment all Catholic tradition concurs. There is a propriety which suggests itself to every Christian in Mary's remaining a Virgin after the birth of Jesus, for, as Bishop [169] Bull of the Protestant Episcopal Church of England remarks, "It cannot with decency be imagined that the most holy vessel which was once consecrated to be a receptacle of the Deity should be afterwards desecrated and profaned by human use." The learned Grotius, Calvin and other eminent Protestant writers hold the same view. The doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary is now combated by Protestants, as it was in the early days of the Church by Helvidius and Jovinian, on the following grounds: First — The Evangelist says that "Joseph took unto him his wife, and he knew her not till she brought forth her first-born son."223 This sentence suggests to dissenters that other children besides Jesus were born to Mary. But the qualifying word till by no means implies that the chaste union which had subsisted between Mary and Joseph up to the birth of our Lord was subsequently altered. The Protestant Hooker justly complains 221 Luke i. 26, 27. 222 Matt. i. 25. 223 Matt. i. 25.