St. Ambrose admits that although the necessity of celibacy was generally acknowledged, still, in many of the remoter districts, there were to be found those who neglected it, and who justified themselves by ancient custom, relying on precautions to purify themselves for their sacred ministry.[114] In this he gives countenance to the tradition of the Leonistæ, simple Christians whose refusal to adapt themselves to the sacerdotalism, which was daily becoming more rigorous and indispensable, caused their expulsion from Rome, and who, taking refuge in the recesses of the Cottian Alps, endeavored to preserve the unadulterated faith of earlier times in the seclusion and privation of exile. All who revolted against the increasing oppression of the hierarchy were not, however, content to bury themselves in solitude and silence, and heresiarchs sprang up who waged a bold but unequal contest. Bonosus, Jovinian, and Vigilantius are the names which have reached us as the most conspicuous leaders in the unsuccessful attempt to turn back the advancing spirit of the age, and of these Jovinian is the foremost figure. Bonosus, who was Bishop of Sardica, acquired a peculiarly sinister notoriety, for, in his opposition to the ascetic spirit, he adopted a heresy of Tertullian and Photinus, and assailed one of the chief arguments of the admirers of celibacy by denying the perpetual virginity of the Virgin; whence his followers acquired the euphonious title of Bonosiacs.[115] For this he was denounced by Pope Siricius with all the vehemence which doctrines so sacrilegious were calculated to excite,[116] and his followers were duly condemned by the Council of Capua in 389, while the tireless pen of St. Jerome was called into requisition to refute errors so unpardonable.[117] Notwithstanding this they continued to flourish, for an epistle of Innocent I. to Lawrence, Bishop of Segna, proves that the error was openly taught on the eastern shores of the Adriatic in the early part of the fifth century;[118] in 443 the Council of Arles shows their existence in France by promising reconciliation to those who should manifest proper repentance, and that of Orleans as late as 538 still contains an allusion to them.[119] The belief even extended to Arabia, where a sect professing it is stigmatized by Epiphanius as Antidicomarianitarians, whose conversion that worthy bishop endeavored to secure by a long epistle, in which his labored explanations of the stubborn text of Matthew are hardly more convincing than his hearty objurgations of the blasphemous dogma, or his illustrative comparison of the Virgin to a lioness bearing but one whelp.[120] * * * * *