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† Generally named by later Catholic writers, as the children of Mary of Clopas; this would make them cousins of Jesus, and explain, in their minds, Biblical references to the "brethren" of Jesus. The perpetual virginity of Mary became Church dogma at the Council of Chalcedon, 451 A. D.
** The Assumption, in the Roman Catholic Church is not a dogma, but a "pia opinio" which the faithful may reject without imperiling their immortal souls, but not without "insolent temerity" (Melchior Cana, De Locis Theolog. xii. 10). It is now "proxima fidei."
†† According to Syrian MSS. of that period.
‡ The Cathedrals at Reims, Chartres, Rouen, Amiens, Paris, etc.
§ Around the neck of the statue to the Virgin Mary at Coventry is hung the rosary of Lady Godiva, famed and saintly lady who rode through the streets naked, on a white horse, to save her starving people.
* If Dr. Fosdick knelt before the image of the Virgin, to pray to her he would not be guilty of idolatry according to Roman Catholic teaching, although the Church has decreed that images of Mary may never be worshiped. They must be respected, however, as symbols of the Blessed Virgin.