Against Jovinianus

Saint Jerome

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Jovinianus, had published at Rome a treatise containing the following opinions: (1) "That a virgin is no better as such than a wife in the sight of God. (2) Abstinence is no better than a thankful partaking of food. (3) A person baptized with the Spirit as well as with water cannot sin. (4) All sins are equal. (5) There is but one grade of punishment and one of reward in the future state." Also he held the birth of our Lord to have been natural, rather than that Jesus passed through the walls of the womb as His Resurrection body afterwards did out of the tomb. All these opinions were condemned in synods at that city and at Milan (about A.D. 390). He subsequently sent Jovinian's books to Jerome, who answered them in the present treatise in the year 393. Book I is wholly on (1), marriage and virginity. Chp 4-13 are Jerome's sense, of St. Paul's teaching in 1 Cor. vii. In chp. 14-39 Jerome uses both the Old and the New Testaments. Chp. 40 praises virginity and single marriages from examples in the heathen world. - Summary: A shortened version from the introduction. (6 hr 24 min)