It is not generally known among Protestants that the deification of Joseph has long been in course of similar evolution. In the fifteenth century, Saint Teresa seems to have regarded him as the "plenipotentiary" of God (= Jesus), obtaining from the deity in heaven whatever he asked, as he had done on earth according to the Apocrypha. The cult has never been very prominent; but the latter-day litany of St. Joseph treats him as at least the equal of the Virgin. "The devotion to him," says Cardinal Newman, "is comparatively of late date. When once it began, men seemed surprised that it had not been thought of before; and now they hold him next to the Blessed Virgin in their religious affection and veneration." It had of course been dogmatically retarded by the insistence on the virginity of Mary. But Gerson, one of the most distinguished theologians of the fourteenth century, is credited by modern Catholics with having suggested the recognition of a second or created Trinity of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And seeing that Joseph in the popular medieval representations of the Advent Mystery is a constant figure, it is inferrible that for the multitude he had practically a divine status. The process is strictly in keeping with religious evolution in general; and the official apotheosis of Joseph may one day take place. For a time, in the period of the Renaissance, there was an amount of devotion paid to St. Anna, the mother of Mary, which might conceivably have led to her deification. Pictures of that period may still be seen in Holland, in which Anna, Mary, and Jesus constitute a Holy Family. But the cultus of Anna had no persistent or powerful advocate, and she seems latterly to have passed definitely into the background. § 2. Doctrines of the Eucharist, Purgatory, and Confession