Against Jovinian 2.2–2.6

A strong objection indeed, and one that would remain unanswerable were it not answered by the testimony of John himself. For he at once added: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." If everyone who is born of God does not sin and cannot be tempted by the devil, how does he command them to beware lest they be tempted? And again in the same letter: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all iniquity. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." I think that John, baptized, wrote to the baptized, and that all sin is from the devil. He confesses himself a sinner and hopes for forgiveness of sins after baptism; and my Jovinian says: "Do not touch me, for I am clean." What then? Does the Apostle contradict himself? Not at all. For in the same place he at once explains why he said this: "My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world. And by this we know that we have known him, if we keep his commandments. He who says he knows him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself to walk as he walked." Therefore, he says, I write to you, my little children, "Everyone who is born of God does not sin," so that you may not sin, and may know that you abide in the Lord's birth as long as you do not sin. Indeed, those who persevere in the Lord's birth cannot sin. For what fellowship has light with darkness? Christ with Belial? As day and night cannot be mixed, so neither can righteousness and iniquity, sin and good works, Christ and Antichrist. If we receive Christ into the lodging of our heart, we at once put the devil to flight. If we sin, and the devil enters through the door of sin, Christ at once withdraws. That is why David too says after his sin: "Restore to me the joy of your salvation," that is, the joy he had lost by sinning. "He who says he knows him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him." Christ is called the truth: "I am," he says, "the way and the life and the truth." In vain do we applaud ourselves in him whose commandments we do not do. "To him who knows the good and does not do it, it is sin." "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead." Nor let us think it a great thing to know one God, when the demons too believe and tremble. "He who says he abides in him ought himself to walk as he walked." Let our opponent choose which of the two he will; we give him the choice. Does he abide in Christ, or not? If he abides, then let him walk as Christ did. But if it is rash to promise a likeness to the Lord's virtues, he does not abide in Christ, because he does not walk as Christ. He did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth; when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; and like a lamb before its shearer, so he did not open his mouth; to him the prince of this world came and found nothing in him; who, though he had done no sin, God made sin for us. But we, according to the Letter of James, all sin in many things; and no one is clean from sin, not even if his life is of one day. For who will boast that he has a chaste heart? Or who will be confident that he is clean from sins? And we are held guilty after the likeness of Adam's transgression. That is why David too says: "Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins my mother conceived me." And blessed Job: "If I am righteous, my mouth will speak impiously; and if I am blameless, I shall be found perverse. And if I am purified in snow and washed with clean hands, you have dipped me enough in filth, and my garment has abhorred me." But lest we despair utterly, thinking that we cannot be saved after the sins of baptism, he at once tempers this very thing: "And if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world." He says this to believers after baptism, and promises the Lord as advocate for their offenses. Nor does he say, "If you sin, you have an advocate with the Father, Christ, and he is the propitiation for your sins," lest you should say that they had not received baptism with full faith; but "We have an advocate," he says, "with the Father, Jesus Christ, and he is the propitiation for our sins"; and not only for the sins of John and those like him, but also for those of the whole world. And in the whole world are the apostles too and all believers. From this it is clearly proved that one can sin after baptism. For in vain do we have Jesus Christ as advocate if sin is impossible.

The apostle Peter, to whom it had been said, "He who has been washed does not need to wash again," and, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church," denies, terrified by a maidservant. And the Lord himself says: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail." And in the same place: "Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." And if you answer that this was said before the cross, certainly after the cross we say in the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." If we do not sin after baptism, why do we ask that sins be forgiven us which were already forgiven in baptism? Why do we pray that we may not enter into temptation and may be delivered from evil, if the devil cannot tempt the baptized? It is another matter if this prayer belongs to catechumens and does not suit the faithful and Christians. Paul, the vessel of election, chastises his body and brings it into subjection, lest, having preached to others, he himself be found reprobate. "And there was given me," he says, "a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me." And to the Corinthians: "I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, so your minds be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." And elsewhere: "To whom you forgive anything, I forgive also. For what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did for your sakes in the person of Christ, so that we may not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs." And again: "Let no temptation seize you except what is human. God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also provide the way out, that you may be able to bear it." And: "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." And to the Galatians: "You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?" And elsewhere: "We wished to come to you, I Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered us." And to the married: "And come together again, lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence." And again: "But I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you wish." Being made up of both, we must suffer the wars of both substances against each other. And to the Ephesians: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." And does anyone think we ought to be secure and asleep after baptism? To the Hebrews as well: "For it is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have nonetheless tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and have fallen away, to be renewed again to repentance, since they crucify the Son of God to themselves again and hold him up to contempt." Certainly we cannot deny that those who have been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, are baptized. But if the baptized cannot sin, how does the Apostle now say, "and have fallen away"? But lest Montanus and Novatus laugh here, who maintain that those who have crucified the Son of God to themselves and held him up to contempt cannot be renewed through repentance, he at once resolves this error and says: "But we are confident of better things concerning you, beloved, and things nearer to salvation, though we speak thus. For God is not unjust to forget your work and the love which you showed in his name, you who have ministered to the saints and still minister." And truly it would be great injustice in God if he only punished sins and did not accept good works. I spoke thus, says the Apostle, to draw you back from sins and make you more cautious by the fear of despair. But I am confident of better things concerning you, beloved, and things nearer to salvation. For it is not God's justice to forget good works, and the ministry which you have shown and show to the saints for his name's sake, and to remember only sins. The apostle James too, knowing that the baptized can be tempted and fall by their own will, says: "Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him." And lest we should think, according to that passage of Genesis where it is written that Abraham was tempted by God, that we too are tempted by God, he says: "Let no one, when he is tempted, say, 'I am tempted by God'; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own lust. Then lust, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." God created us with free will; we are not drawn by necessity either to virtues or to vices. Otherwise, where there is necessity, there is no crown. As in good works God is the one who brings them to completion (for it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy and helps, that we may be able to reach the goal), so in evil deeds and sins our seeds are the incentives and the devil brings them to completion. When he sees us building hay, wood, stubble on the foundation of Christ, then he sets fire to it. Let us build, then, gold, silver, precious stones, and he will not dare to tempt us; although even in this the possession is not certain and secure. For the lion sits in ambush in hidden places to kill the innocent. And the furnace tests the potter's vessels, and the temptation of tribulation tests just men. And in another place it is written: "Son, when you come to the service of God, prepare yourself for temptation." Again the same James says: "Be doers of the word and not hearers only. If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; he observed it, and at once going away forgot what he was like." In vain did he warn them to join works to faith if they could not sin after baptism. "Whoever keeps the whole law," he says, "and sins in one point, has become guilty of all." Which of us is without sin? "God has shut up all under sin, that he may have mercy on all." Peter too says: "The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation." And of the false teachers: "These are springs without water and clouds driven by storms, for whom the darkness of gloom is reserved. For, speaking great swelling words of vanity, they entice through the lusts of the flesh, through debauchery, those who had barely escaped and have returned to error." Does not the apostolic word seem to you to have painted the new faction of ignorance? For they open up springs, as it were, of knowledge, because they promise a shower of teachings that they do not have, like prophetic clouds to which the truth of God may come; and they are driven by the storms of demons and vices. They speak great things, and all their speech is pride: "But everyone who exalts his heart is unclean before God." So that those who had barely fled from sins return to their error; and they urge, in debauchery, the delicacies of food and flesh. For who would not gladly hear, "Let us eat and drink, and we shall reign forever"? They call the wise and prudent perverse; but those who are sweet in their speech they listen to more. The apostle John, or rather the Savior in John, writing to the angel of the church of Ephesus, says: "I know your works, and your labor and your patience, and that you have endured for my name's sake and have not grown weary; but I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the first works; otherwise I will come to you and move your lampstand from its place, unless you repent." Likewise he calls the other churches too, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, to repentance, and threatens them unless they return to their former works. And in Sardis he says he has a few who have not defiled their garments, and they will walk with him in white, because they are worthy. And to whom does he say, "Remember from where you have fallen"? And, "Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested"? And, "I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is"? And, "Remember how you received and heard, and keep it, and repent," and the rest? Surely to one who has believed and been baptized, and who, once standing, has fallen through sin.

I had put off for a little the examples from the Old Testament, because whenever they tell against them, they usually say: "The law and the prophets were until John." But who does not know that under another dispensation of God all the saints of former times were of the same merit as Christians are now? As Abraham then pleased God in marriage, so virgins now please him in perpetual chastity. He served the law and his time; let us too serve the Gospel and our time, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. David, chosen according to the Lord's heart, who had done all his will, and who had said in a certain psalm, "Judge me, Lord, for I have walked in my innocence, and trusting in the Lord I shall not be weak. Prove me, Lord, and try me; burn my reins and my heart," was afterwards tempted by the devil, and after his sin says in repentance: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy." A great sin wants to be blotted out by great mercy. Solomon, the beloved of the Lord, to whom God had twice been revealed, because he was a lover of women departed from the love of God. The Book of Days (Paralipomenon) reports that Manasseh, a most impious king, was restored to his former dignity after the Babylonian captivity. And Josiah, a holy man, is pierced by the Egyptian king on the plain of Megiddo. Jesus too, the son of Josedech, the high priest, though he went before in a type of the Savior, who bore our sins and joined to himself a foreign Church from the Gentiles, is nevertheless, according to the letter, brought in after his priesthood clothed in filthy garments, and the devil stands at his right hand; and afterwards white garments are given back to him. It is superfluous to write of Moses and Aaron, that they offended God at the water of contradiction and did not enter the land of promise, since blessed Job records that even angels and every creature can sin, saying: "What, is a man clean before God? Or a man without stain in his works? If he does not trust his servants, and finds something perverse against his angels, how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, of whom we too are made, of the same clay!" "The life of man on earth is a temptation." And Lucifer fell, who used to send to all the nations. And he who was brought up in the paradise of delights among the twelve stones, wounded, went down from the mountain of the Lord to the underworld. That is why the Savior says in the Gospel: "I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven." If that loftiest height fell, who cannot fall? If there are ruins in heaven, how much more on earth? And yet, though Lucifer has fallen (or rather, after his fall, the ancient serpent), "his strength is in his loins, and his power over the navel of his belly. Great trees are shaded by him, and he sleeps beside the rush and the reed and the sedge. He is king of all that are in the waters": that is, where there is pleasure and debauchery, and offspring, and the watering of marriages. "For who will uncover the face of his garment? And who will open the doors of his face? The nations feast on him, and the peoples of the Phoenicians divide him." And lest perhaps the silent thought of the reader should suppose that only the peoples of the Phoenicians and the nations of the Ethiopians are meant, to whom the dragon has been given as food, it is at once said of those who are crossing the sea of this world and hastening to reach the harbor of salvation: "And in the fishermen's boats his head; he stands an unwearied anvil; he counts iron as straw and bronze as rotten wood. And all the gold of the sea is under him like mud. He makes the deep boil like a bronze pot; he reckons the sea as destroyed, and the underworld of the abyss as captive. He sees every high thing." And my Jovinian thinks that he can easily yield to him! What shall I say of holy men, and of the angels, who, since they are creatures of God, can certainly receive sin? He dared to tempt the Son of God, and, beaten back by his first and second answer, he nevertheless raised his head, and, wounded a third time, withdrew until a time, putting off the temptation rather than taking it away. And we flatter ourselves about baptism, which, as it forgives former sins, so cannot keep us for the future unless the baptized keep their heart with all watchfulness.

At last we have come to food, and the difficulty of the third question is set against us: "All things were created to serve the use of mortals. And as man, the rational animal, as a kind of inhabitant and owner of the world, is subject to God and reveres his Maker, so all living creatures were created either for the food of men, or for clothing, or for ploughing the earth, or for carrying crops, or for man himself; that is why beasts of burden (jumenta) are so called from helping (juvare). 'What is man,' says David, 'that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you visit him? You have made him a little lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and the beasts of the field besides, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the sea.' Granted," he says, "that the ox was made for ploughing, the horse for riding, the dog for guarding, goats for milk, sheep for wool. What use are pigs except for eating their flesh? What use are roe deer, fawns, does, boars, hares, and game of that kind? What use are wild and tame geese? What use ducks, figpeckers, francolins, coots, thrushes? Why does the hen run about in houses? If they are not eaten, all these were created by God in vain. But what need is there of arguments when Scripture most plainly teaches that everything that moves, like the green herbs, has been given us for food; and the Apostle cries out: 'To the pure all things are pure,' and 'nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving'; and that in the last times there will come those who forbid marriage and eating foods that God created for use. The Lord himself is called a wine-drinker and a glutton by the Pharisees, and a guest of tax collectors and sinners; he did not refuse Zacchaeus's dinner, and went to the wedding feast. Unless you say, with foolish contentiousness, that he went to the dinner intending to fast, and said like impostors, 'This I eat, that I do not eat; I will not drink wine,' wine which he had created from water! In the type of his blood he offered not water but wine. After the resurrection he ate fish and honeycomb, not sesame, nuts, and little broths. The apostle Peter did not wait for the star in the Jewish manner, but went up to the roof at the sixth hour to dine. Paul broke bread in the ship, not dried figs. To Timothy, suffering in his stomach, he urged drinking wine, not perry. They are pleased with themselves for abstaining from foods, as though pagan superstition too did not keep the Chastity of the Mother of the Gods and of Isis."

I will follow, then, the steps of the proposition set out; and before I come to the Scriptures and show from them that fasts are pleasing to God and continence acceptable, I will set the arguments of the philosophers against his arguments. And I will prove that we do not follow the doctrine of Empedocles and Pythagoras, who because of metempsychosis think nothing that moves and lives should be eaten, and hold those guilty of the same crime who cut down a fir or an oak, as if they were parricides and poisoners; but that we revere our Creator, who created all things for the uses of men. And as the ox was made for ploughing, the horse for riding, dogs for guarding, goats for milk, sheep for wool, so too pigs and deer and roe and hares and the rest; but these were not created at once for eating, but for other human uses. For if everything that moves and lives was made to be eaten and prepared for the gullet, let them answer me why elephants were made, why lions, bears, leopards, wolves; why vipers, scorpions, bugs, gnats, and fleas; why the vulture, eagle, raven, hawk; why whales, dolphins, seals, and tiny snails. Which of us has ever eaten a lion, a viper, a vulture, a stork, a kite, or the little worms that crawl on the shore? As these, then, have their own uses, so we can say that the other beasts, fish, and birds too were created not for eating but for medicine. Indeed, physicians know for how many things the flesh of the viper, from which theriac is made, is useful. Shavings of ivory are taken as various remedies. The gall of the hyena restores clearness to the eyes, and its dung and that of dogs cures putrid wounds. And (what will perhaps be surprising to read) Galen teaches in his book on simple remedies for how many cures human dung is useful. Naturalists say that the slough a snake casts, boiled in oil, wonderfully soothes earache. What seems so useless to the ignorant as bugs? Yet if a leech has stuck in the throat, it is at once vomited up when their smoke is inhaled, and difficulty in passing urine is relieved by applying them. As for the fat of pigs, geese, hens, and pheasants, all the books of the physicians declare its usefulness; if you read them, you will see that there are as many cures in the vulture as it has members. Peacock's dung soothes the heat of gout. I would say for what diseases cranes, storks, eagle's gall, hawk's blood, the ostrich, frogs, chameleons, swallow's dung and flesh are suitable, if my purpose were to discuss the healing of bodies. Let whoever wishes read Aristotle and Theophrastus in prose, Marcellus of Side and our Flavius in hexameter verse, Pliny the Elder too, and Dioscorides, and the other naturalists and physicians, who relate no herb, no stone, no animal, whether creeping, flying, or swimming, that they do not refer to the use of their art. So when you say to me, "Why was the pig created?", I will at once answer you, like boys quarreling, "Why were vipers, why scorpions?" Nor will you judge God a maker of superfluous things because there are very many beasts and birds which your gullet refuses. But lest this seem contentious and combative rather than true, hear: pigs, boars, deer, and the other animals were created so that soldiers and athletes, sailors, orators, miners, and the others bound to hard labor, who need bodily strength, might have food: those who carry arms and provisions, who weaken each other's limbs with fists and kicks, who pull oars, whose lungs must be strong for shouting and speaking, who overturn mountains and sleep under the open sky and the rain. But our religion trains not a boxer, not an athlete, not sailors, not soldiers, not miners, but a follower of wisdom who has dedicated himself to the worship of God, and who knows why he was created, why he lives in the world, and where he hastens to go. That is why the Apostle says: "When I am weak, then I am stronger"; and, "If our outer man is corrupted, yet the inner is renewed day by day"; and, "I desire to depart and be with Christ"; and, "Make no provision for the flesh in its desires." Is it commanded to all not to have two tunics, nor food in a bag, money in the belt, a staff in the hand, sandals on the feet; to sell all they possess and give to the poor and follow Jesus? Surely to those who wish to be perfect. Otherwise John the Baptist commands one thing to soldiers, another to tax collectors. And the Lord says in the Gospel to the one who had boasted of fulfilling the whole law: "If you would be perfect, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me." Lest he should seem to lay a heavy burden on one unwilling, he left it to the hearer's own will, saying, "If you would be perfect." So I too will say to you: If you would be perfect, it is good not to drink wine and not to eat meat. If you would be perfect, it is better to fatten the soul than the body. But if you are a little one and the sauces of cooks delight you, no one is snatching the dainty dishes from your gullet. Eat and drink, and if you please, rise up with Israel to play and sing, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Let him eat and drink who looks for destruction after food, who says with Epicurus, "After death there is nothing, and death itself is nothing." We believe Paul when he thunders: "Food for the belly and the belly for food; but God will destroy both the one and the other."