Against Jovinian 1.1–1.10

Only a very few days ago the holy brothers at Rome sent me the little treatises of a certain Jovinian, asking me to answer his absurdities and to crush, with the vigor of the Gospel and the Apostle, the Epicurus of the Christians. When I had read them and could not understand them at all, I began to turn them over more often, and to examine not only the words and sentences but almost every single syllable, wishing first to know what he was saying, and so either to approve or to refute what he had said. But the barbarousness of his writing is so great, and his filthy language so confused with so many faults, that I could understand neither what he says nor by what arguments he wants to prove what he says. For the whole thing swells, the whole thing lies flat; it rises up at every point and, like a crippled snake, breaks down in the very effort. He is not content to speak in our way, that is, in the human way; he attempts something loftier.

"I satisfy those who invited me, not so that I may run with a famous name, but so that I may live cleansed of empty rumor. I beseech the field, the new growths of plantings, the shrubs of tenderness, snatched from the whirlpools of vices, an audience fortified by battle lines. We know the Church to be, by hope, faith, and charity, inaccessible, unconquerable. There is none in her unripe; everyone is teachable; no one can break in by force or elude her by craft."

I ask, what are these monstrosities of words? What disgrace of composition is this? Would you not think him either dreaming in a fever or seized by a frenzied illness, fit to be bound in the bonds of Hippocrates? As often as I read him, wherever my breath fails, there is the pause. Everything begins, everything hangs on something else; you cannot tell what goes with what. And apart from the testimonies of the Scriptures, which he did not dare to alter with that most charming flower of his eloquence, the rest of his language fits any subject, because it fits none. One thing gave me some suspicion of what he meant: that he wishes to praise marriage in such a way as to disparage virginity. For when the lesser is made equal to the greater, the comparison of the inferior is an injury to the superior. We, however, do not disparage marriage by following the doctrine of Marcion and Mani; nor, deceived by the error of Tatian, the founder of the Encratites, do we think all intercourse unclean, as he condemns and rejects not only marriage but also the foods that God created for use. We know that in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and earthenware; and that on the foundation of Christ, which Paul the master builder laid, some build gold, silver, precious stones, and others, on the contrary, hay, wood, stubble. We are not ignorant that marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled. We read God's first sentence: "Increase and multiply and fill the earth." But we accept marriage in such a way that we put first virginity, which is born of marriage. Will silver not be silver if gold is more precious than silver? Or is it an insult to the tree and the crop if fruit and grain are preferred to the root and leaves, to the stalk and the ears? As fruit from the tree and grain from the straw, so virginity from marriage. The hundredfold, the sixtyfold, and the thirtyfold fruit, though they spring from one soil and one seed, yet differ greatly in number. The thirty refer to marriage: the very joining of the fingers, as if embracing in a gentle kiss and making a covenant, pictures husband and wife. The sixty refer to widows, because they are placed in straits and lamentation; so they are pressed down by the upper finger, and the greater the difficulty of abstaining from the allurements of pleasure once experienced, the greater the reward. Further, the number one hundred (attend carefully, I beg you, reader) is moved from the left hand to the right, and, by making a circle with the same fingers, though not of the same hand, with which married women and widows are signified on the left, it expresses the crown of virginity. I have said this out of impatience rather than in the order of the argument. For while I am scarcely out of harbor and hoisting the sails with the ropes, a sudden surge of speech has swept me into the middle of the sea of questions. So I will check my course and shorten sail a little; nor will I indulge the sword-point, which already longs to strike a blow for virginity. The farther the ballista is drawn back, the harder it shoots. Delay is no loss where victory becomes more certain by delay. I will set out my opponent's opinions briefly and drag the serpents out of his dark books as from holes, and not allow the poisonous head to hide in the coils of the spotted body. Let what is harmful be laid open, so that it may be crushed when it is laid open.

These are the hisses of the ancient serpent; by these counsels the dragon drove man out of paradise. For by preferring fullness to fasting he promised them that they would be immortal, as though they could never fall; and while he promised divinity equal to God, he drove them out of paradise, so that those who, naked and unencumbered and virgins without any stain, enjoyed the company of the Lord, were cast down into the valley of tears and clothed in sewn tunics of skins. But not to keep the reader too long, I will follow the steps of the division I have set out, and against each of his propositions I will rely above all on the testimonies of the Scriptures, so that he may not chatter in complaint that he was overcome by eloquence rather than by truth. When I have done this and have overwhelmed him with the cloud of both Testaments, I will also take examples from secular literature, to which he himself appeals. And I will show that even among philosophers and men distinguished in public life, virtues are always preferred by everyone to pleasures: that is, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristides to Aristippus, Epicurus, and Alcibiades. I ask you, virgins and continent persons of both sexes, and married people too, and those twice married, to help my efforts with your prayers. Jovinian is the common enemy of all. For he who asserts that the merits of all are equal does as much injury to virginity, by putting it on a level with marriage, as to marriage, by declaring it lawful in the same way as second and third marriages. He is an adversary also of the twice and thrice married, putting those who were once fornicators and most licentious, after repentance, on the same level as double and triple marriages; except that in this the twice and thrice married have no reason to grieve, since on his view the same fornicator, if he repents, is made equal even to virgins in the kingdom of heaven. I will set out, then, in clearer words that have some coherence, his arguments and examples about marriage, and I will arrange everything in the same order in which he said it. And let it not trouble the reader if he is compelled to read his nausea and vomit. He will drink Christ's antidote the more gladly when the devil's poisons have gone before. Listen patiently, virgins; listen, I beg you, to the most voluptuous composer, or rather pass by his tales as the songs of the Sirens, with ears stopped. Bear your injuries for a little while; think that, crucified with Christ, you are hearing the blasphemies of the Pharisees.

"God's first sentence," he says, "is: 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh.'" And lest we should say that this is written in the Old Testament, he asserts that the same is confirmed by the Lord in the Gospel: "What God has joined together, let not man separate"; and he at once adds: "Increase and multiply and fill the earth." And he goes through in order Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, saying that all had wives and begot children according to God's sentence; as though the order of generations and the history of the human race could have been told without wives and children! "This," he says, "is Enoch, who walked with God and was caught up into heaven. This is Noah, who, though there were certainly many virgins because of their age, was alone saved with his sons and their wives when the world was wrecked. Again, after the flood, as at a second beginning of the human race, pairs of husbands and wives are joined, and the blessing of generation is renewed afresh: 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth.'" Moreover, permission to eat meat is also granted: "And everything that moves shall be food for you; as the green herbs, I have given you all things." He runs on to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of whom the first married three times, the second once, and the third had four wives, Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah. He asserts that Abraham, for the merit of his faith, received the blessing in the begetting of a son; that Sarah, a type of the Church, in whom the ways of women had ceased, exchanged the curse of barrenness for the blessing of childbirth; that Rebecca went, as to a prophet, to inquire of the Lord, and heard from him, "Two nations and two peoples are in your womb"; that Jacob served for a wife, and when Rachel thought it was a husband's part to give children, and said, "Give me children, or else I shall die," he answered, "Am I in God's place, who has shut you up?" "So well," he says, "did he know that the fruits of marriage belong to the Lord, not to the husband." That Joseph, a holy and most chaste man, and all the patriarchs had wives, whom God blesses equally through Moses. He brings forward Judah and Tamar too; and he touches on Onan, slain by the Lord because, grudging his brother seed, he wasted the work of marriage. He brings forward Moses, and the leprosy of Miriam, who, disparaging her brother on account of his wife, was at once struck by God's vengeance. He praises Samson and extols the uxorious Nazirite with wonderful praises. He goes over Deborah and Barak as well, because without the blessings of virginity they defeated Sisera and Jabin and the iron chariots. He brings into view Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, and praises her hand armed with the tent peg. Between Jephthah the father and his virgin daughter, who was sacrificed to the Lord, he says there was no difference; indeed, he prefers the father's faith to the girl who was slain lamenting. He comes to Samuel, another Nazirite of the Lord, who was brought up from infancy in the tabernacle and clothed in the ephod bad, which means linen garments; and he says that he begot sons, and that his priestly purity was not diminished by his wife's embrace. He sets Boaz with his Ruth on the threshing floor, and from there brings forth Jesse and David. He says that David himself, with two hundred foreskins, even at the risk of his life, sought union with the king's daughter. What shall I say of Solomon, whom he puts in the catalogue of husbands and asserts to be an image of the Savior? He even wants it to be written of him: "O God, give your judgment to the king and your righteousness to the king's son," and "To him shall be given of the gold of Arabia, and they shall pray for him always." And suddenly he passes to Elijah and Elisha, and tells as a great mystery that the spirit of Elijah rested on Elisha; why he said this he does not say, unless perhaps he thinks Elijah and Elisha also had wives. He passes to Hezekiah; and while he dwells on his praises, I wonder why he forgot to say, "From now on I will beget children." He reports that Josiah, a most righteous man, in whose reign the book of Deuteronomy was found in the temple, was instructed by Huldah, the wife of Shallum. He puts Daniel too and the three young men among the married. And suddenly passing to the Gospel, he sets down Zechariah and Elizabeth, Peter and his mother-in-law, and the rest of the apostles. And he consequently adds: "But if they wish to adopt an empty defense and plead that the world in its beginnings needed increase, let them hear Paul saying: 'I want the younger widows to marry, to bear children.' And: 'Marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled.' And: 'A woman is bound to her husband as long as her husband lives; but if he dies, let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord.' And: 'Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and fell into transgression; yet she will be saved through the bearing of children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness with sobriety.' Surely that apostolic saying, 'and let those who have wives be as though they had none,' has no place here; unless perhaps you will say that he wants them to marry because some have already turned back after Satan: as though no virgin fell, and their ruin were not the greater. From this it is clear that you follow the doctrine of the Manichees, who forbid marriage and eating foods that God created for use, having their conscience seared." And after much which it would be tedious to go over now, he launches out, as it were, into a rhetorical commonplace and makes an apostrophe to the virgin, saying: "I do you no injury, virgin. You have chosen chastity because of the present necessity; it pleased you to be holy in body and spirit. Do not be proud: you are a member of the same Church as the married women."

I may perhaps have been excessive in setting out his propositions and have wearied the reader. But I thought it useful to set all his efforts against me like an army drawn up, and to gather the whole hostile host with its squadrons and leaders, so that after the first victory no further battles might arise for me. So I will not fight against individuals, nor be content with scattered skirmishes with a few: the fight must be with the whole army, and the disorderly wedges of the enemy, fighting in the manner of brigands, must be driven back by a line drawn up in order. In the front line I will set the apostle Paul and, as the bravest of commanders, arm him with his own weapons, that is, his own sayings. For when the Corinthians asked about this question, the teacher of the Gentiles and master of the Church answered most fully. And whatever he laid down, let us consider it the law of Christ speaking in him. At the same time, when we begin to refute the propositions one by one, let the reader's silent thought always keep itself for the Apostle, and not, in eagerness for the weightiest questions, neglect what comes first and hurry to the end.

Among other things the Corinthians had asked by letter whether, after coming to faith in Christ, they ought to be celibate and dismiss the wives they had for the sake of continence; or, if they had believed as virgins, whether they should marry; and, when of two pagans one had believed in Christ, whether the believer should leave the unbeliever; and, if wives were to be taken, whether he would bid them take only Christians or pagans as well. Let us see, then, what Paul wrote back to these questions: "Now concerning the things you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. But because of sexual immorality let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render the debt to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband; likewise the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife. Do not defraud one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that you may be free for prayer; and come together again, lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence. But this I say by way of indulgence, not by way of command. For I wish that all men were as I myself am; but each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to widows: it is good for them if they remain as I am. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn." Let us return to the beginning of the testimony: "It is good," he says, "for a man not to touch a woman." If it is good not to touch a woman, then it is bad to touch one; for nothing is contrary to good except bad. But if it is bad and is pardoned, it is allowed for this reason, that something worse than the bad may not happen. But what sort of good is that which is allowed on condition of something worse? For he would never have added, "let each man have his own wife," unless he had first said, "but because of sexual immorality." Take away sexual immorality, and he will not say, "let each man have his own wife." It is as if someone were to lay it down: it is good to eat wheat bread and to eat the finest flour; yet lest anyone driven by hunger eat cow dung, I allow him to eat barley too. Will the wheat not therefore keep its purity, if barley is preferred to dung? That is naturally good which has no comparison with evil, which is not overshadowed by preference for something else. At the same time we must notice the Apostle's prudence. He did not say, "It is good not to have a wife," but, "It is good not to touch a woman," as though there were danger even in touching; as though he who has touched her would not escape her who seizes the precious souls of men, who makes the hearts of young men fly away. "Can a man bind fire in his bosom and not be burned? Or walk on coals of fire and not burn his feet?" So just as he who touches fire is at once burned, so by the touch of man and woman each feels its own nature and perceives the difference of sex. The fables of the pagans too tell that Mithras and Erichthonius were begotten, in a stone or in the earth, from the mere heat of lust. That is why our Joseph too, because the Egyptian woman wanted to touch him, fled from her hands, and, as if from the bite of a rabid dog, lest the poison should gradually spread, threw away the cloak she had touched. "But because of sexual immorality let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband." He did not say, "Because of sexual immorality let each man marry a wife"; otherwise by this excuse he would have loosed the reins to lust, so that as often as a wife died, another would have to be married, lest we commit sexual immorality. But he said, "let him have his own wife": let him have his own, he says, let him use his own, the one he had before he believed, whom it was good not to touch, and after faith in Christ to know only as a sister, not as a wife, unless sexual immorality made touching her excusable. "The wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband; likewise the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife." This whole question concerns those who are in marriage, whether they may dismiss their wives, which the Lord too forbade in the Gospel. So the Apostle says, "It is good for a man not to touch a wife." But since one who has once married cannot abstain except by consent, nor give a bill of divorce to a wife who has not sinned, let him render the debt to his spouse; for he bound himself of his own accord, so that he is compelled to render it. "Do not defraud one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that you may be free for prayer." I ask you, what sort of good is that which forbids prayer? Which does not allow one to receive the body of Christ? As long as I fulfill the duty of a husband, I do not fulfill that of a continent man. The same Apostle bids us elsewhere to pray always. If we must pray always, then we must never serve marriage, since as often as I render the debt to my wife, I cannot pray. The apostle Peter, who had experience of the bonds of marriage, see how he forms the Church and what he teaches Christians: "Likewise, husbands, living together according to knowledge, giving honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, and as fellow heirs of the manifold grace, that your prayers may not be hindered." See, in the same sense, because in the same Spirit, he says that prayers are hindered by the marital duty. And when he says "likewise," he calls husbands to imitation because he had already given commands to wives above, saying: "That husbands may see your chaste conduct in fear; whose adorning is not the outward arranging of the hair and wearing of gold and putting on of clothing, but the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruption of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is pleasing before God." Do you see what kind of marriage he enjoins between husbands and wives? Living together according to knowledge, so that they may know what God wills and desires, so that they give honor to the weaker vessel of the woman. If we abstain from intercourse, we give honor to our wives; if we do not abstain, it is plain that dishonor is the opposite of honor. To wives too he says: "That husbands may see your chaste conduct, and your adorning, the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruption of a gentle and quiet spirit." O voice truly worthy of the Apostle, of Christ's rock! He gives a law to husbands and wives and, condemning the adorning of the flesh, preaches chastity and the adorning of the inner person, in the incorruption of a gentle and quiet spirit, as if saying: since your outer person is corrupted, and you have ceased to have the blessedness of incorruption, which belongs properly to virgins, imitate at least the incorruption of the spirit by abstinence, though late; and what you cannot do in body, do in mind. For these are the riches, this the adornment of your union, that Christ seeks.

But lest anyone think, from what follows, "that you may be free for prayer, and come together again," that the Apostle wishes this, and does not allow it to prevent a greater fall, he at once adds: "lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence." A fine indulgence indeed, this "come together again": something he blushes to call by its own name, which he puts forward against the temptation of Satan, whose cause is incontinence! We labor to explain as though it were obscure what he himself has explained: "But this I say," he says, "by way of indulgence, not by way of command." And we still mutter that marriage is not called an indulgence but a command; as though second and third marriages were not allowed in the same way; as though the doors of the Church were not opened by repentance even to fornicators and, what is more, to the incestuous! For the violator of his stepmother, whom in the first letter to the Corinthians he had handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit might be saved, he brings back in the second, and he takes pains that the brother may not be swallowed up by excessive sorrow. It is one thing for the Apostle to wish something, another to pardon it. In his wish we earn merit; in his pardon we take advantage. Do you want to know what the Apostle wishes? Join what follows: "For I wish that all men were as I myself am." Blessed is he who will be like Paul! Happy he who hears the Apostle commanding, not pardoning! "This," he says, "is what I wish, what I desire: that you be imitators of me, as I am of Christ." He, a virgin, was born of a virgin, the incorrupt of the incorrupt. We, because we are human and cannot imitate the Savior's birth, let us at least imitate his way of life. That belongs to divinity and blessedness; this to human condition and labor. "I wish all men to be like me," so that while they are like me they may become like Christ, whom I am like. "For he who believes in Christ ought himself to walk as he walked." "But each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that." What I wish, he says, is plain. But since in the Church there are different gifts, I allow marriage too, lest I seem to condemn nature. And consider at the same time that the gift of virginity is one thing and that of marriage another. For if the reward of married women and of virgins were the same, he would never have said, after the precept of continence, "But each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that." Where there is what is proper to each, there is difference between them. I grant that marriage too is a gift of God, but between gift and gift there is a great difference. Finally the Apostle, of the same man who repented after his incest, says, "On the contrary, forgive him and comfort him; and to whom you forgive anything, I forgive also." And lest we think a man's forgiveness to be despised, he added: "For what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ." The gifts of Christ are different. That is why Joseph, as his type, had a coat of many colors. And in the forty-fourth psalm we read: "The queen stood at your right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety." And the apostle Peter says: "as fellow heirs of the manifold grace of God," which in Greek is more expressively poikilē, that is, "varied."

There follows: "But I say to the unmarried and to widows: it is good for them if they remain as I am. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn." After granting the married the use of marriage, and showing what he himself wishes and what he allows, he passes to unmarried women and widows, sets before them his own example, and calls them happy if they remain so. "But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry": the same as above, "but because of sexual immorality," and "lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence." And he gives the reason why he said, "if they do not contain themselves, let them marry": "for it is better to marry than to burn." It is better to marry for this reason, that it is worse to burn. Take away the heat of lust, and he will not say, "it is better to marry." For "better" always looks to comparison with something worse, not to the simplicity of a good that is incomparable in itself. It is as if he said: it is better to have one eye than none; better to lean on one foot and support the other side of the body with a staff than to crawl with broken legs. What do you say, Apostle? I do not believe you when you say, "Though I am unskilled in speech, yet not in knowledge." Just as that came from humility, "For I am not worthy to be called an apostle," and "to me, the least of all the apostles," and "as to one untimely born," so I think this too was said in humility. You know the proper force of words; that is why you take certain testimonies from Epimenides, Menander, and Aratus. When you speak of continence and virginity, you say: "It is good for a man not to touch a woman"; and, "It is good for them if they remain as I am"; and, "I think this is good for them because of the present necessity"; and, "for it is good for a man to be so." When you come to marriage, you do not say, "It is good to marry," because you cannot add "than to burn"; but you say, "It is better to marry than to burn." If marriage is good in itself, do not compare it with burning, but say simply, "It is good to marry." I am suspicious of the goodness of a thing which the greatness of another evil forces to be the lesser evil. But I want not a lighter evil but a simple good in itself.

So far the first section has been explained; let us come to what follows. "To those who are joined in marriage I command, not I but the Lord, that a wife should not depart from her husband; but if she departs, she should remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband; and that a husband should not dismiss his wife. To the rest I say, not the Lord: if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to live with him, let him not dismiss her," and the rest, up to the place where he says, "As God has called each one, so let him walk, and so I teach in all the churches." This passage does not bear on the present controversy. For he teaches, according to the Lord's sentence, that a wife is not to be divorced except for the cause of sexual immorality, and that, if divorced, she is not to marry another while her husband is alive, or else ought to be reconciled to her husband. And to those whom faith had found in marriage, that is, if one of the two had believed, he commands that the believer should not divorce the unbeliever. After setting out the reasons (that the unbeliever is a candidate for faith if he does not wish to depart from the believer), he commands on the contrary that if the unbeliever divorces the believer on account of faith in Christ, the believer ought to depart, lest he prefer a spouse to Christ, to whom even one's own life must be held second. But now many women, despising the Apostle's command, are joined to pagans and prostitute the temples of Christ to idols; nor do they understand that they are part of his body, whose ribs they are. The Apostle pardons the union with unbelievers of women who already had husbands and afterwards believed in Christ; not of those who, being Christians, married pagans. To them he says elsewhere: "Do not be yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God." Although I know that very many matrons will rage against me, and with the same shamelessness with which they have despised the Lord will rave against me, a flea and the least of Christians, yet I will say what I think; I will speak what the Apostle taught me: that they belong not to righteousness but to iniquity, not to light but to darkness, not to Christ but to Belial; that they are not temples of the living God but shrines and idols of the dead. Do you want to learn more plainly that it is not at all lawful for a Christian woman to marry a pagan? Hear the same Apostle: "A woman is bound for as long as her husband lives; but if her husband falls asleep, she is free; let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord," that is, a Christian. He who allows second and third marriages in the Lord forbids a first marriage with a pagan. That is why Abraham makes his servant swear on his thigh, that is, by Christ, who was to be born of his seed, that he would not bring a foreign wife for his son Isaac. And Ezra appeased God's offense by the divorce of such wives. And the prophet Malachi says: "Judah has transgressed, and has done an abomination in Israel and in Jerusalem; for he has profaned the holy thing of the Lord, and has loved and had the daughter of a foreign god. The Lord will destroy the man who does this, master and disciple, from the tents of Jacob, and him who offers a gift to the Lord of hosts." I have said this so that those who compare marriage with virginity may know that such marriages at least are to be ranked below second and third marriages.