Marriage and Virginity (continued)
Around the year 401 Augustine composed the first two works in this volume, The Excellence of Marriage and Holy Virginity. In his Revisions Augustine says that he wrote these two books in response to the "heresy of Jovinian."†25 Jovinian was a monk who had been condemned in the early 390s by synods at Rome and Milan. His primary offense had been to argue that neither celibacy nor ascetic fasting gained for the Christian any special merit.
According to Jerome, one of Jovinian's most vociferous opponents, Jovinian summarized his position in the following four theses:†26
1. Virgins, widows, and married women, once they have been washed in Christ, are of the same merit, if they do not differ in other works.
2. Those who have been born again in baptism with full faith cannot be overthrown by the devil.
3. There is no difference between abstinence from food and receiving it with thanksgiving.
4. There is one reward in the kingdom of heaven for all who have preserved their baptism.
It is clear from the phrasing of these propositions that baptism was a central category in Jovinian's theology. It is baptism that establishes the holiness of each Christian, Jovinian argued, not ascetic merit. Moreover, it is baptism that establishes the holiness of the Church.
Since one enters the Church through baptism and not through asceticism, holiness is possessed by all Christians alike, regardless of ascetic merit.†27
Ecclesiastical response to Jovinian was swift and unambiguous. Siricius, bishop of Rome, called his clergy into synod and condemned Jovinian's views as a diabolical perversion of the scriptures. Ambrose of Milan responded likewise, praising Siricius' initiative in protecting
Christ's flock from the savage wolves, that is, from Jovinian and his followers. From his monastery in Bethlehem the prominent scholar and ascetic teacher, Jerome, issued a scathing treatise which characterized Jovinian as "the Epicurus of the Christians," "rutting in his gardens among the young men and young women," "slippery as a snake and like another
Proteus." By 398 the emperors Honorius and Theodosius had entered the fray: Jovinian was sentenced to be flogged and exiled to the distant island of Boa.†28