364 - condemning nature - natura and asceticism in the jovinian affair

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15700720-12341156

Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 364-392 brill.com/vc

VigiliaeChristianae

Condemning Nature? Natura and Asceticism in the Jovinian Affair1

Thomas E. [email protected]

Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University

AbstractWriting and preaching at Rome in the 390s, Jovinian argued that ascetic Christianity was based on a heretical denial of the good of God’s creation. This article points out that conformity to nature (natura) was a key element of Jovinian’s teaching as it comes down to us through Jerome. Jovinian taught that marriage was a part of human nature and demonstrably good as part of God’s creation. The word natura was also important in Jerome’s arguments against Jovinian. To refute Jovinian, Jerome offered a vision of human nature based not in empirical observation, nor in social custom, but in the actions of the incarnate Christ. In so doing, he challenged notions of human nature and social custom circulating in contemporary Rome.

KeywordsJerome, Jovinian, Nature, Rome, Asceticism, Stoicism

Introduction

Despatched from his Bethlehem lair to arrive in Rome in the autumn of 393, Jerome’s Aduersus Iouinianum was delivered too late to affect the con-demnation of Jovinian.2 While Jovinian’s teaching career may have been

1) Research for this paper was funded by an AHRC doctoral award. An earlier version was presented at the Second British Patristics Conference, Cambridge, UK in September 2009. I am grateful to Prof. Josef Lössl, Rev. Dr Geoffrey D. Dunn and Dr Nic Baker-Brian who com-mented on earlier versions. The reviewers for this journal made important suggestions. Any errors are entirely mine.2) J. Brochet, Saint Jérôme et ses ennemis: Étude sur la querelle de Saint Jérôme avec Rufin d’Aquilée et sur l’ensemble de son oeuvre polémique (Paris, 1905), 71; A. Cain, The Letters of Jerome: Asceticism, Biblical Exegesis and the Construction of Christian Authority in Late Antiq-uity (Oxford, 2009), 137.

Condemning Nature? Natura and Asceticism in the Jovinian Affair 365

concluded, Aduersus Iouinianum did not pass unnoticed. The reception of this work of two books was ‘nearly unanimously negative;’ both opponents and supporters of Jovinian apparently condemned Jerome’s attack.3 The tumultuous reception of the work reveals its significance to its contempo-raries and it continues to intrigue. A much-needed critical edition of Adu-ersus Iouinianum is currently in preparation and two excellent monographs have recently examined the teachings and condemnation of Jovinian.4 David Hunter’s study of the debate opens with Jovinian’s assertion that ascetic Christians had introduced to the religion a ‘doctrine against nature’.5 This article will examine the concept of ‘nature’ in Aduersus Iouinianum.

The recent work on Jovinian has coincided with a steady reassessment of the models used to analyse and understand late ancient Roman discourses of religion and politics. Since the second world war, scholarship on reli-gious identity in Italy during the second half of the fourth century has gen-erally been defined by two models: inter-religious dialogue between pagan and Christian, and intra-religious tensions between ascetic and ‘moderate’ Christians.6 The most recent incarnations of these two models have gener-ally argued that while tensions clearly existed within fourth-century Italian religion, dualistic and ‘Janus-faced’ models of pagan-Christian and ascetic-moderate are overly simplistic renditions of complex debates, often influ-enced by polemical re-workings of these debates in the immediately succeeding decades.7 Rather, such tensions that existed were based in

3) D.G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Con-troversy (Oxford, 2007), 246.4) Y.-M. Duval, L’affaire Jovinien: d’une crise de la sociètè romaine à une crise de la pensée chrétienne à la fin de IVe et au début de Ve siècle (Rome, 2003); Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy. A critical edition of Adu. Iou. is under preparation for CCSL and a translation is in preparation for SC by Luce Savoye. As yet, however, the only text is that of Vallarsi, as reprinted in PL 23. See L. Savoye, “De la thèse à l’edition dans les Sources Chretiennes: l’exemple de l’Aduersus Iouinianum I,” in Éditer et traduire Saint Jérôme aujourd’hui dans la Collection des Sources Chrétiennes, edited by A. Canellis and R. Courtray (Paris, 2010), 47-56. 5) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 1, citing Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.41.6) For a pre-war discussion of ‘moderate’ Christianity, see Gougard, “Les critiques formulées contre les premiers moines d’occident,” Revue Mabillon 24 (1934) 145-63.7) P. Laurence, “Rome et Jérôme: des amours contrariées,” Revue Bénédictine 107 (1997) 227-49: ‘. . . tel celui de Janus, le visage de Rome est-il double: païen d’un côté et chrétien de l’autre.’ On polemical re-workings, see M.R. Salzman, “Ambrose and the Usurpation of Arbo-gastes and Eugenius: Reflections on Pagan-Christian Conflict Narratives,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 18 (2010) 191-223. For the supposed pagan revival, see H. Bloch, “A new document for the last pagan revival in the West, 393-394 A.D.,” Harvard Theological Review 38 (1945) 199-244, with H. Bloch, “The pagan revival in the West at the end of the fourth

366 T.E. Hunt / Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 364-392

conflicts over status within and between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the aristocracy. Struggles over religious affiliation, ecclesiastical office, ascetic practice and the ‘Christian life’ occurred within systems of patron-age and faction that had existed in aristocratic Rome long before the fourth century.8 Indeed, Elizabeth Clark’s closing remarks on the Origenist con-troversy could apply just as well for contemporary Rome: ‘persons whose names rarely appear in theology textbooks . . . played strategic roles in these networks of transfer and patronage.’9

The persistence of aristocratic mores in late ancient Rome provides the background for understanding the reception of Jovinian’s teaching and Jerome’s response to it. Recent work on the controversy has shown how Jovinian’s teaching on marriage and sexuality fits within a long tradition of ‘moderate’ Christianity, against which advocates for asceticism like Jerome and Ambrose set themselves.10 Jerome’s involvement in the Jovinianist

century,” in The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century, edited by A. Momigliano (Oxford, 1963), 193-218, being somewhat archetypical of this model. The sug-gestion of ‘conflict’ was almost immediately challenged by Alan Cameron (A. Cameron, “Paganism and literature in late fourth century Rome,” in Christianisme et formes littéraires de l’Antiquité tardive en Occident, 1977; A. Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome [Oxford, 2011]) and Peter Brown, who both argued for a broad process of accommodation. More recently, see, e.g. C.W. Hedrick, History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiq-uity (Austin, Texas, 2000); M.R. Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1990); Salzman, “Ambrose and the Usurpation of Arbogastes and Eugenius: Reflections on Pagan-Christian Conflict Narra-tives.” D.R. Boin, “A hall for Hercules at Ostia and a farewell to the Late Antique ‘pagan revival’,” American Journal of Archaeology 114 (2010) 253-66, dismantles the archaeological foundations of the ‘pagan revival’ model. Readings of Jovinian and his teachings have been overwhelmingly confessional, with Jovinian generally understood as a proto-Protestant, F. Valli, Gioviniano: Esame delle fonti e dei frammenti (Urbino, 1954), 79; Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 5-10. 8) K. Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late Antiquity (Cam-bridge, 2008), 184; L. Cracco Ruggini, “En marge d’une ‘mésalliance’: Prétextat, Damase et le Carmen contra Paganos,” CRAI 1998 (1998) 492-516; L. Cracco Ruggini, “Rome in late antiq-uity: clientship, urban topography and prosopography,” Classical Philology 98 (2003) 366-82; S. Rebenich, Hieronymus und sein Kreis: prosopographische und sozialgeschichtliche Unter-suchungen, Historia Einzelschriften (Stuttgart, 1992), 11-2; M.R. Salzman, The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass., 2002), 202-09; J. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and the Imperial Court, (Oxford, 1975; reprint, 1998), 28-31. 9) E.A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate (Princeton, New Jersey, 1992), 247.10) D.G. Hunter, “On the Sin of Adam and Eve: A little known defense of marriage and child


controversy cannot be explained away simply by his reference to the invi-tation of ‘holy brothers,’ but should rather be understood as the ascetic’s response to an ‘alter-Hieronymus’; a writer who countered him in virtually every department.11 Like other writings of this period, then, Aduersus Iouin-ianum has been contextualised within a literary and religious culture that fostered extensive competition for patronage and in which theological thinking was subsumed within and shaped by social disputes over status and patronage.

Key to these aristocratic notions of status and patronage was the notion of familial honour. Studies of marriage and family in late antiquity have shown that matrimonial relations were the medium through which famil-ial honour was negotiated. Familial prestige, patronage and the duty owed to one’s family regulated Roman society in the later fourth century. More particularly, the behaviour of matrons was taken as a direct reflection on the honour of their families and contemporary school exercises demon-strate that wifely virtues were seen to be crucial to the maintenance of familial status.12

Moral discourse among the aristocracy of late ancient Rome was but-tressed by the writings of moral philosophers like Musonius Rufus, who linked familial obligations into wider notions of appropriate actions (kathēkonta) and appropriate relationships (oikeiōsis). Marriage was hon-ourable because it ensured the continuation of the human race and the

bearing in Ambrosiaster,” HTR 82 (1989), 283-99; D.G. Hunter, “Clerical celibacy and the veil-ing of virgins: new boundaries in Late Ancient Christianity,” in The Limits of Ancient Christi-anity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus, edited by W.E. Klingshirn and M. Vessey (Ann Arbor, 1999), 139-52; D.G. Hunter, “The Virgin, the Bride and the Church: reading Psalm 45 in Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine,” CH 69 (2000) 281-303; D.G. Hunter, “Rereading the Jovinianist controversy: asceticism and clerical author-ity in Late Ancient Christianity,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33 (2003) 453-70; Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy.11) Cain, Letters of Jerome, 136. Hier. Adu Iou. 2.1 (PL 23.211A): . . . sancti ex urbe Roma fra-tres . . . An allusion to Pammachius according to J.N.D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings and Controversies (London, 1975), 180, but Jerome refers to a number of ‘brothers.’ Ep. 48 and 49 represent the first contact between Pammachius and Jerome, initiated by Pammachius in order to rebuke Jerome: Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 25-6. The sancti fratres may instead have been in Marcella’s immediate circle, and Domnio, the recipient of Ep. 50, may be a representative of this group: Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 40-1.12) K. Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: idealised womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), 13-14.


preservation of the human community.13 Engagement in society and the fulfilment of social obligations (getting married, reproducing, looking after one’s young) was a fundamental part of human nature in so far as it was accomplished in accordance with reason.14 As Epictetus argued, it was not simply enough to participate within social structures, but also to under-stand how this participation cultivated virtue and was intrinsically an appropriate act or duty.15 The society of late ancient aristocratic Romans was regulated by ideas of status and patronage, but these were in turn but-tressed by notions of nature and the fulfilment of the human telos that drew on philosophical ideas from later Stoicism.

This article examines the dispute between Jerome and Jovinian against this background of status and philosophy. It is well known that Aduersus Iouinianum was castigated for condemning marriage, but this article will argue that the arguments that Jerome adopted in this treatise went further than has thus far been recognised. Beginning by tracing the key outlines of Jovinian’s argument as they come down to us through Jerome, the article will point out that Jovinian’s thought resonates within the late antique Roman conception of human nature and aristocratic mores. It will read the defence of Aduersus Iouinianum that Jerome offered in his Epp. 48-50 and will suggest that concepts of ‘nature’ and ‘the natural’ formed a core element of the debate. Given what remains to us of Jovinian’s teaching, the article will show the extent to which Jovinian’s teaching echoes and rein-forces contemporary Roman notions of family, status and human nature. It will suggest that these ideas are supported by reference to concepts of natura present in ethical philosophy of the late ancient period. Finally, the article will address the manner in which Jerome deploys natura in his work Aduersus Iouinianum. It will argue that Jerome sought to shift the word

13) J.E. Grubbs, “ ‘Pagan’ and ‘Christian’ marriage: the state of the question,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (1994) 361-412.14) I. Ramelli, “Transformations of the household theory between Roman Stoicism, Middle Platonism and Early Christianity,” Revista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica 2-3 (2008), 369-395, 394; G. Reydams-Schils, The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility and Affection (Chicago, 2005), 63; D. Johnston, “The Jurists,” in Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, edited by C. Rowe and M. Schofield (Cambridge, 2000), 159-79; G. Striker, Essays on Hellenistic Epis-temology and Ethics (Cambridge, 1996), 210-1.15) Reydams-Schills, The Roman Stoics, 62-3; P. Hadot, The Inner Citadel: the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, trans. M. Chase (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 188-90. Compare, J.W. Atkins, “The Officia of St. Ambrose’s De officiis,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 19 (2011) 49-77.


away from a concept based in empirical observation of the natural world, defining it instead as a form of imitatio Christi. It will point out the ways in which the concept of natura opens up questions of anthropology and Chris-tology and provides Jerome with the grounds on which he can challenge Jovinian.

The Jovinian Affair: An Overview

The exact chronology of the process by which Jovinian came to be con-demned has been thoroughly investigated by Duval.16 The first evidence that we have of Jovinian’s activities comes from the letter of Siricius to the Church of Milan, in which he discusses Jovinian’s censure in Rome.17 The condemnation of Jovinian was swift. He began preaching in the early 390s; condemned at Rome in early 393, he travelled to Milan where he was dis-missed by Ambrose.18 In the meantime, having been sent copies of Jovin-ian’s writings by his friends in Rome, Jerome had written a work refuting him, but when Aduersus Iouinianum arrived in Rome at the autumnal end of the sailing season of 393 Jovinian was already old news.19 Jerome’s forth-right defence of asceticism and his rejection of marriage jarred with a contemporary movement that sought to fashion a vision of the Christian life that recognised the ‘average’ Christian.20 A lack of direct sources makes it hard to reconstruct Jovinian’s teachings from his own words, and evi-dence of his doctrines comes from the letter by Siricius of Rome, a letter from Milan detailing his condemnation in the city, and Jerome’s treatise Aduersus Iouinianum. Jerome also composed three supplementary epistles (Epp. 48, 49 and 50) which are dated to 394 and which offer an apology for

16) Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 11-21.17) Generally dated either to 389/390 or to 392/393, Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 11-12; Ambr. Ep. Ex. Coll. Sir.5 (CSEL 82/3.300-301).18) Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 19-20. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 21, follows Kelly, Jerome, 182 n.15, in arguing that Jovinian travelled to Milan to appeal to Eugenius rather than to Ambrose.19) Brochet, Jérôme et ses ennemis, 71; Cain, Letters of Jerome, 137. On the Roman circle as mediators between Jerome and wider Latin Christianity, see Hier. Ep. 47.3 (CSEL 54.346), P. Nautin, “L’activité littéraire de Jérôme de 387 à 392,” Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie 115 (1983) 249-50, Rebenich, Hieronymus, 197. 20) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 251; K. Cooper, The Fall of the Roman Household (Cambridge, 2007) 167-8.


Aduersus Iouinianum.21 These letters reveal that Aduersus Iouinianum was not well-received in Rome. The various means by which Jerome defends and excuses himself indicate the key terms of the Jovinian affair as he understood them himself and as they were perceived at Rome. More par-ticularly, Jerome tells us that these letters address very particular concerns that arose from his treatment of Jovinian. They therefore offer a particu-larly valuable source for understanding Jerome’s position on Jovinian’s thought and how his writing was read by others with an interest in the Jovinian affair.

Although Jovinian’s position has been well established in the secondary literature, aspects of Jerome’s reading of Jovinian remain under-explored, particularly regarding his defence of asceticism as ‘natural’. To bring out this aspect of the Jovinian affair, I will begin by looking at the reception of Aduersus Iouinianum through Epp. 48-50 before summarising Jovinian’s teachings themselves. I will outline two interrelated themes in the recep-tion of Aduersus Iouinianum: the relationship between marriage and vir-ginity on the one hand, and the ascetic’s attitude to creation on the other. I will argue that a large portion of Jovinian’s teaching drew on a concept of ‘the natural’ that he took from contemporary ethical thought and that Jerome targeted this element of Jovinian’s teaching.

Epp. 48-50 and the Reception of Aduersus Iouinianum

Epp. 48 and 49 are letters to Pammachius, comprising an apologetic justifi-cation for Jerome’s work, while Ep. 50 is addressed to Domnio who distrib-uted his work in Rome.22 Certain themes present themselves clearly in these letters and it is possible from them to evaluate Roman readings of Aduersus Iouinianum and Jerome’s conception of the issues at play in Jovinian’s teachings. Two interrelated themes emerge: the place of mar-riage in the teaching of 1 Corinthians 7 and the relationship between ascetic renunciation and creation.

21) See P. Nautin, “Études de chronologie hiéronymienne (393-397) IV: autres lettres de la période 393-396,” REAug 20 (1974) 251-84. See, Brochet, Jérôme et ses ennemis, 69-71; Kelly, Jerome, 18; P. Laurence, Jérôme et le nouveau modèle feminin: la conversion à la “vie parfaite”, Collection des Études Augustiniennes: Série Antiquité (Paris, 1997), 197; Opelt, Hieronymus’ Streitschriften, 37. Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 21, dates “the condemnation” more precisely to spring or summer of 393.22) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 246; Rebenich, Hieronymus, 197.


Jerome tells us that Aduersus Iouinianum was distributed widely in Rome and that some readers had problems with particular passages that discussed the relationship between marriage and virginity.23 It is clear from direct references throughout Ep. 49 and at Ep. 50.5 that he was understood to have ‘condemned marriage’ and declared it to be merely a lesser evil than forni-cation outside wedlock, rather than a good in itself.24 Moreover, his exege-sis of 1 Cor. 7 seems to have been both the principal foundation of his argument and the cause of his audience’s unease.25 The interpretation of Paul’s teaching on marriage, in Jerome and in Patristic scholarship in gen-eral has been well-covered but it is worth noting that philosophical (princi-pally Stoic) influence on 1 Cor. 7 had been detected very early.26 Paul’s teaching on marriage and celibacy was fundamental to early Christian eth-ics and the reception history of 1 Cor. 7 in this period, although concluding with the triumph of ascetic Christianity, was never univocal. Jerome’s com-ments on 1 Cor. 7 identify him as a receiver of this tradition, but it is clear that there was an ongoing debate about the value of marriage and the meaning of this text in Italy through the 390s.27

23) Hier. Ep. 48.2 (CSEL 54.347.13-348.10).24) Some examples: Hier. Ep. 49.3 (CSEL 54.354.10): Oro te, qui haec loquitur, damnat nup-tias? (‘I ask you, does a man who speaks thus condemn marriage?); Ep. 49.4 (CSEL 54.355.19-356.1): . . . hic potest dici nuptias condemnare? (‘. . . can such a one be said to condemn marriages?’); Ep. 49.7 (CSEL 54.359.14-15): . . . ita uirginitatem extulimus, ut nuptiarum ordi-nem seruaremus . . . (‘. . . therefore we have raised virginity that we might protect the ranks of marriage . . .’); Ep. 50.5 (CSEL 54.394.322-4): non damno nuptias, non damno coniugium. (‘I do not condemn marriage, I do not condemn wedlock!’)25) See D.G. Hunter, “The reception and interpretation of Paul in Late Antiquity: 1 Corinthi-ans 7 and the ascetic debates,” in The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiq-uity, edited by L. DiTommaso and L. Turcescu (Leiden, 2008). 26) W. Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: the Hellenistic background of 1 Corinthians 7, Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series (Cambridge, 1995), 6; N. Huttunen, “Stoic law in Paul?,” in Stoicism in Early Christianity, edited by T. Rasimus, T. Engberg- Pedersen, and I. Dunderberg (Peabody, 2010). For a neat plotting of the Patristic exegesis of 1 Cor. 7, see, E.A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: asceticism and scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton, NJ, 1999). Laurence, Jérôme, offers an in-depth reading of the relevance of this chapter in Jerome’s asceticism as a whole. For the sources of this section of Adu. Iou. see, Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 115-151. Paul’s meaning in this passage continues to cause contro-versy: compare, e.g. D. Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley, 1994); Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy; K.L. Gaca, The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity, Hellenistic Culture and Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 2003), 119-90.27) Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy, 224-5; Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 250-6.


Connected to this theme of marriage and virginity is a treatment of the relationship between the good of God’s creation and ascetic renunciation. Aduersus Iouinianum was read as an implicit denial of the good of creation and it is clear that one of the principal responses to Aduersus Iouinianum was to equate both Jerome’s asceticism and his exegetical proofs with Man-ichean teaching.28 Aduersus Iouinianum repeatedly distinguished between Jerome’s doctrines and Manichaeism, saying, for example, ‘[n]or is the sub-stance of the human soul and God the same, as the Manicheans habitually assert.’29 One of Jovinian’s central objections to extreme asceticism was that the renunciation of sexuality and of food was a rejection of the Bible’s attitude to God’s creation.30 It is clear that despite Jerome’s insistence that he was not a Manichee, some in Rome read Aduersus Iouinianum as a text that denied that creation was providentially ordered (with the implicit sense that the world was not the product of a good Creator).

Jerome’s words in Epp. 48-50 indicate that the two key themes in the reception of Aduersus Iouinianum were the relationship between marriage and virginity (and particularly the teaching of 1 Cor. 7) and the relationship of the ascetic to creation. With this in mind, I shall demonstrate how these two themes interact in the teachings of Jovinian himself.

Jovinian: The Impermeable Church and the Intrinsic Good of Creation

It seems that Jovinian’s teaching career began through preaching; his teach-ings were only committed to writing when he was asked to justify himself.31 Knowledge of these doctrines is limited by a lack of sources, but we are lucky in so far as Jerome’s Aduersus Iouinianum seems to sketch the broad outline of his arguments as well as including quotations from Jovinian’s work itself.32 While this is useful, some caution must be exercised: Aduer-sus Iouinianum ostensibly follows the structure of Jovinian’s work, but Jerome also claims that he found it rather difficult to follow.33 It seems likely that in composing Aduersus Iouinianum, Jerome maintained the

28) Hier. Ep. 49.2 (CSEL 54.352.14-18) Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 65; Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 246-7.29) Hier. Adu. Iou. 2.29 (PL 23.326B): Neque enim ejusdem substantiae est (quod Manichaei solent dicere) anima humana et Deus. 30) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 95.31) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.2 (PL 23.212.A): Satisfacio invitatis . . .: Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 44-5. 32) Valli, Gioviniano, 79.33) I. Opelt, Hieronymus’ Streitschriften (Heidelberg, 1973), 157-8. Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.3 (PL 23.212B): Quotiescumque eum legero, ubi me defecerit spiritus, ibi est distinctio.


direction of Jovinian’s thesis but truncated his arguments, perhaps the better to refute them.34

Despite this, the broad outlines of Jovinian’s position have been sketched, are well known, and will be traced here. Having briefly covered the central propositions of Jovinian’s thought, I shall point out two themes: one is the importance of baptism to the structure of Jovinian’s thought, and the other is the consistency of his attitude to the goods of creation. Jovinian’s teach-ing was primarily ecclesiological and drew on an exegetical framework that suggested that the coming of Christ brought no new dispensation with regard to the ethical use of creation. More particularly, Jovinian taught that marriage is a good of a creation which had been providentially ordered by God. In a number of places, his language echoes the ethical philosophy which underlay traditional Roman aristocratic concepts of marriage, sta-tus, and the rightful place of human beings in nature.

Jerome highlights four propositions of Jovinian. The entirety of the first book of Aduersus Iouinianum is devoted to refuting the charge that there is no difference in merit between virgins and married women, providing both are baptised and there is no difference in works. The second book of Aduer-sus Iouinianum deals with Jovinian’s teachings on baptism and fasting. The specific issues of each teaching have been covered in detail elsewhere, but a few key themes should be elucidated here.35

Firstly, at the root of three of the four propositions outlined by Jovinian lies a coherent theological approach to baptism and sacrament.36 The importance of baptism is primarily sacramental, that is, through the rite of baptism the Christian opens herself to the Holy Spirit; an act which cannot be reversed and is equal for all. This necessarily means that there is no extra merit accrued through abstinence from sex or food, and that there is equal recompense in heaven for all Christians. Coupled with this sacramental position is an ecclesiological argument, for, as all the baptised have the Holy Spirit equally, the church is indefectible, homogeneous in merit and corporately saved.37 The central importance of this doctrine to Jovinian’s thought is reflected by the prominence it takes in Aduersus Iouinianum. Jerome includes a direct quotation from Jovinian near the start of his work:

34) Opelt, Hieronymus’ Streitschriften, 155; Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 47.35) A. J. Budzin, “Jovinian’s four theses on the Christian life: an alternative patristic spiritual-ity,” Toronto Journal of Theology 4 (1988) 44-59; Duval, L’affaire Jovinien; Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 30-43; Valli, Gioviniano.36) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 30-1; Kelly, Jerome, 181. 37) Budzin, “Jovinian’s four theses”; Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 38.


We know that the church through hope, faith, charity, is inaccessible and impreg-nable. In her no one is immature, all are teachable. No one is able to invade her by violence, or to deceive her by craft.38

Jovinian’s position on baptism needs to be placed within a fourth-century context which understood it as the formation through conversion of a ‘peo-ple of God,’ defined both materially and spiritually.39 As Allan Budzin put it, ‘the doctrine of Jovinian proposes an integral ecclesiology that respects the equality and unity of all Christians. He adamantly criticised the segre-gating tendencies of monastic spirituality in the church of his own day.’40

Despite the centrality of ecclesiology to Jovinian’s thought, the dispute over his teaching has been commonly understood as a clash over the scrip-tural basis of ethics. This is understandable, for much of Aduersus Iouin-ianum is dedicated to engaging with Jovinian’s scriptural proofs and defending Jerome’s asceticism. As it comes to us in Jerome’s work, Jovin-ian’s teaching was founded on a chronological progression through scrip-ture, citing passages that supported his views (although this is not how Jovinian’s teaching is presented in the writings of Siricius or in the Milanese council that condemned him).41 Essentially, Jovinian’s position seems to have been that the Incarnation did not mark a watershed in how human beings should engage with creation; if the world was created good, he seems to imply, then it remained good and so the advent of Christ does not bring a new ethical dispensation. Duval had a low opinion of the scriptural sup-port that Jovinian offered for his position and argued that Jerome triumphed through collecting a broader array of scriptural examples.42 It seems unkind to suggest (as did Duval) that Jovinian’s scriptural support was weak, given the transmission of that (truncated) argument comes only through his opponents.43 Furthermore, it is certainly the case that Jovinian’s scriptural support for anti-ascetic teachings had a long tradition within Christianity,

38) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.2 (PL 23.212B)39) Budzin, “Jovinian’s four theses”; Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 43.40) Budzin, “Jovinian’s four theses.”41) Jerome, Adu. Iou. 1.5; Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 58.42) Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 57-8: ‘The thesis of Jovinian is destroyed by its own excesses and silences. The “victory” of Jerome came of the fact that he accumulated against his opponent a mass of texts and facts much more substantial than his.’ (My translation)43) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.13 (PL 23.229C): Curramus per reliqua, neque enim nos patitur magnitudo voluminis diutius in singulis immorari. (‘We might run through the rest, and not allow the magnitude of the book to delay us any further in intricacies.’)


dating back to the Pastoral Epistles.44 The long standing relationship between sexual ethics and church leadership was paralleled by a theologi-cal tendency to understand asceticism as a heretical renunciation of God’s creation.45 This is stated clearly in 1 Tim 4.1-5, which underlay key portions of Jovinian’s argument.46 These verses explicitly connect heterodox doc-trine with a denial of the good of creation, and had long offered a response to asceticising tendencies within Christianity.47 It also provided Jovinian with the justification for an exegetical position that presented the relation-ship between humanity and creation as consistent across time. Jovinian’s chronological procession through scripture was connected to his belief that creation was providentially ordered, and that exploiting the bounties of creation was divinely sanctioned, even after Christ.

Jovinian’s ecclesiology and his ethics are consonant. Because creation is good, actions that utilise creation according to their providential ordering cannot be sinful. As long as one has accepted the Holy Spirit in baptism, then marriage or chastity, eating or fasting, are valid ethical actions that constitute different usages of the good of creation. Jovinian sought to extend this teaching back to Adam, demonstrating that marriage was both divinely ordained, present before the Fall, and ratified in the New Testa-ment. In this creation-centred reading of scripture, the Incarnation did not bring a new dispensation with regard to the goods of creation.

Jovinian’s Ethical Teaching and Roman Society

Jovinian’s teaching stressed that marriage was an essential part of human nature and this teaching was supported by a particular exegetical approach to the scriptures. The first mention of Jovinian is in the letter detailing Jovinian’s condemnation which was composed by Siricius of Rome in 393. This letter offers some indication that Jovinian’s teaching was popular at Rome, that it had led away a significant number of Christians, and that it was published ‘amidst the pagans’ goodwill.’48 As recent secondary

44) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 94.45) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 95.46) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 29.47) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 39, 93-7.48) Ambr. Ep. Ex. Coll. Sir.4 (CSEL 82/3.299): . . . atque ficto sermone aliquantos Christianos coeperun iam vastare . . . in favorem gentilium publicavere. Brochet, Jérôme et ses ennemis, 69-71, J. Aldama, “La Condenación de Joviniano en el sinodo de Roma.” Ephemerides Mario-logicae 13 (1963), 107-19. See the good discussions at Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 11-21 and Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 16-20.


literature has stressed, the popularity of Jovinian at Rome is testament to the need for a model of the Christian life that catered for the ‘silent major-ity’ of Romans who sought a balance between the religious obligations they owed to God and the social ones they owed to their families.49 Further-more, late ancient arguments for the essential good of marriage were but-tressed by an inheritance of (usually Stoic-influenced) texts from the early imperial era.50 It is easy to imagine that Jovinian would have engaged with this broad tradition in his own preaching and this may explain Siricius’s reference to the favour that Jovinian won among the ‘pagans’ (gentiles).51

At the opening of Aduersus Iouinianum, Jerome writes that his opponent presented ‘illustrations from secular literature’ as well as scriptural justifi-cations for his positions.52 As he closed the book, Jerome labelled specific elements of Jovinian’s teachings as Epicurean and Stoic.53 Of course, Jerome is following a standard heresiological strategy here, but this does not mean that Jovinian did not tap into the philosophical hinterland of late Roman ethics.54 Rather, it would seem that he expressed a certain ‘popularisation’ of ethics present in contemporary Roman society, an ethics that was based on ‘little more than a recital of educated commonplaces of the day.’55 As Alan Cameron has recently pointed out, there is precious little evidence for any deep engagement with philosophical work in Rome during this period.56 Jerome himself cribbed what philosophy he knew from Cicero, Sallust and Vergil.57 Moreover, evidence from Jovinian himself is slight. Even given these difficulties, however, it is possible to reconstruct enough to see what might have excited the references to non-Christian literature

49) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 250-56; Cooper, Fall of the Roman Household, 101.50) See M. Benabou, ‘Pratique matrimonale et representation philosophique: le crepuscule des strategies,’ Annales: économies, sociéties, civilisations 42 (1987) 1255-66; Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride, 6.51) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 19-20.52) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.4 (PL 23.215A): . . . exempla saecularis quoque litteraturae . . .53) Hier. Adu. Iou. 2.21 (PL 23.315.B): Qui enim in coitu et saturitate Epicureus est, subito in retributione meritorum Stoicus efficitur (‘He who is an Epicurean in sexual intercourse and sateity, is proved at once a Stoic in matters of reward of merit’). Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 79.54) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 233.55) Johnston, “The Jurists”; Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 28. Compare Atkins, “The Officia.”56) Cameron, Last Pagans, 388.57) C. Moreschini, “Gerolamo e la filosofia,” in Gerolamo e la Biografia Letteraria, edited by A. Ceresa-Gastaldo (Genova, 1989), 45-62. See also, M.L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, 1985), 79.


that we find in Jerome, and how these citations of secular literature com-bined with the exegesis of scripture offered by Jovinian.

For example, Jovinian’s teaching of fasting insists that it is no more mer-itorious than receiving food with thanks. The foundation of his point here is a particular reading of Psalm 8.5-9, which justifies an anthropocentric understanding of creation.58 Jovinian’s words are preserved by Jerome:

All things have been created to be subjected to the use of mortals. And just as man, a rational animal (rationale animal), in a sense the inhabitant and owner of the world, is under God and honours his author, thus all living things either for food of men or for clothing have been created . . . “What is man,” says David, “that you are mindful of him, and the son of man, that you visit him? You have made him a little less than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honour.” . . . To be sure, what need is there for argument (Verum quid opus est argumentis) when scripture could teach us clearly that all that moves, as well as herbs and vegetables, was given to us for food?59

Cicero’s On the nature of the gods contains a similar sentiment: ‘. . . for whose sake will anyone say the world was created? Presumably for those animate creatures that use reason (eorum scilicet animantium quae ratione utuntur), that is, gods and men . . . thus it was for the sake of gods and men that the world and everything in it was made.’60 Examples like the one above suggest that Jovinian’s work echoes commonplaces about the central place of ratio-nal creatures, the unchanging natural law common to them and in which they abide.61 When Jerome himself speaks of Jovinian’s ‘philosophical arguments’ in Aduersus Iouinianum, he is referring to this interlacing of exegesis and philosophical commonplace.62

Further evidence of consonance between Jovinian and later Roman eth-ics can be found in his discussion of the providential ordering of creation. Jovinian’s key contention is that the Incarnation has not ushered in a new

58) For a recent discussion of humanity’s sovereignty and stewardship over creation in Patristic sources see P.M. Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety (Oxford, 2012), 353-60.59) Hier. Adu. Iou. 2.5 (PL 23.290.A-C).60) Cicero, de nat. deo. 2.133 (p.104 Ax; Translation: Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philoso-phers 1.328).61) Hier. Adu. Iou. 2.19: Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 65. For equality under reason, see J. Annas, Voices of Ancient Philosophy: an Introductory Reader (Oxford, 2001), 403, and Cicero, De legi-bus 1.22-3. 62) Hier. Adu. Iou. 2.6 (PL 23.291B): . . . argumentis philosophorum argumenta componam. Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 68-9. Compare Atkins, “The Officia”.


ethical dispensation and that the place of human beings in creation remains consistent across the Old and the New Testaments. The idea of a consistent natural order was canonical. In Latin, we find it raised in the philosophical works of Cicero:

True law is right reason, in agreement with nature, diffused over everyone, consis-tent, everlasting, whose nature is to advocate duty by prescription and to deter wrongdoing by prohibition . . . There will not be a different law at Rome and at Athens, or a different law now and in the future, but one law, everlasting and immutable, will hold good for all peoples and at all times. And there will be one master and ruler for us all in common, god who is the founder of this law, its pro-mulgator and its judge.63

As this quote from Cicero suggests, Jovinian’s anthropocentric model of creation resonated within a long tradition in Greco-Roman thought.64 As a translation of phusis, by Late Antiquity natura had developed a number of interconnected meanings, a situation not uncommon for Latin translations of Greek terms.65 The word could be applied to the ordering of the universe and the state of things untouched by human custom.66 It could also be used in an essentialist sense to refer to that particular quality of a thing that defines it as such.67 More elaborately, Stoicism understood nature as ratio-nally ordered and therefore held that conforming to that order was in some sense an objectively moral act.68 This is the sense of the passage of Cicero just quoted, in which specifically true law and specifically right reason are

63) Cicero, de re publica 3.33 (p. 97.1-6 Ziegler; tr. Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philoso-phers 1.432-3). 64) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 28-9. The consonance (or otherwise) of Paul and Rufus on marriage is discussed in D.L. Balch, “1 Cor 7:32-35 and Stoic debates about mar-riage, anxiety, and distraction,” Journal of Biblical Literature 102 (1983) 429-39; R.B. Ward, “Musonius and Paul on Marriage,” New Testament Studies 36 (1990) 281-9. On the similarities in social teachings between Roman Stoicism and Pauline Christianity more generally see R.M. Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study of Ancient Morality (Oxford, 2010), 40-50 and 175-89.65) P. Burton, Language in the Confessions of Saint Augustine (Oxford, 2007), 85. His point is about the language of the liberal arts, but it applies here too.66) G. Watson, “The natural law and Stoicism,” in Problems in Stoicism, edited by A.A. Long (London, 1971), 219.67) A. Pellicer, Natura: étude sémantique et historique du mot Latin, Publications de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de l’Université de Montpellier (Paris, 1966), 127; T.G. Rosenmayer, “Seneca and Nature,” Arethusa 33 (2000), 99-119, 102.68) Striker, Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology, 212.


both held to conform to natura. In his study of the Jovinian affair, Yves-Marie Duval drew a connection between Jovinian’s ecclesiology and spe-cific Stoic doctrines to suggest Stoic influences, but one does not have to be as conscientious about mapping Jovinian’s sources to reach a similar con-clusion.69 Jovinian’s anthropocentric account of creation was a develop-ment of this long tradition of anthropocentric natural law and he was not the first Christian to echo the moral and ethical teachings of the Stoics.

Jerome therefore faced a two-fold problem in writing against Jovinian: firstly, he had to maintain that the actions of ascetics conformed with ‘nature’; secondly, he had to challenge Jovinian’s exegesis and insist that the Incarna-tion marked a watershed in the development of human ethical behaviour. In the rest of this article, I shall argue that Jerome exploited the breadth of meaning covered by the word natura to argue both of these points.

Jerome on Nature

Jerome explicitly acknowledges that in disagreeing with Jovinian he runs the risk of appearing ‘to condemn nature.’70 This same theme recurs when Jerome addresses Jovinian’s insistence that sexuality is inherent in human nature, asking why Paul would ask for chastity ‘if continence is contrary to nature?’71 Paul (so the argument goes) would not recommend something that was against nature because living according to nature and according to Christian teaching are clearly assumed to be the same thing. It is unsur-prising that both Jerome and Jovinian acknowledge the necessary good of creation; the nexus of ascetic practice, rejection of nature, and heresy has

69) Hier. Adu. Iou. 2.20 (PL 23.314.A): Dicit Dominus: Qui manducat meam carnem, et bibit meum sanguinem, in me manet, et ego in illo. Sicut ergo sine aliqua differentia graduum Chris-tus in nobis est; ita et nos in Christo sine gradibus sumus. (‘The Lord says: Who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, abides in me, and I in him. Therefore, just as Christ is in us without particular difference of grade, so there is no gradation of our being in Christ’); Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 68-9. Compare, Stobaeus 2.99.3-8 (tr. Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1.364): ‘Zeno and the Stoic philosophers of his persuasion hold that there are two kinds of men, the excellent and the inferior.’ The point is that Jovinian sees humanity divided into two classes, Christian and non-Christian, without gradation. ‘Zeno and the Stoic philoso-phers’ hold to a similar classification.70) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.8 (PL 23.221D).71) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.36 (PL 23.260C): Quid sibi autem vult apostolus, ut ad continentiam cobortetur, si contra naturam est?


already been discussed.72 It is crucial to note that in both of these extracts Jerome explicitly and self-consciously claims that his teaching is in line with nature.73 It is clear therefore that while Jovinian and Jerome both agree that nature is good and that their own teachings are in accord with it, they fundamentally disagree on what natura actually means.

Jovinian’s ecclesiology was based on a vision of divine law that saw it as unchanging through time. As he understood it, the advent of the Incar-nation did not change this and it was the duty of rational creatures to con-form to this divine law. Jerome’s twofold challenge was to refute the suggestion that ascetic behaviour was unnatural and to present the Incar-nation as a fundamental turning point in human ethics. In the rest of the article, I will argue that he responded to this challenge in three ways. Firstly, he asserted that human reason was an unreliable means to ascertain what was natural. Secondly, he challenged the assumption that human custom represented a guide to what might be termed ‘natural.’ Finally, he argued that imitation of Christ constituted the only sure guide to conforming to the order of creation.

Nature and Understanding in Human Beings

The noun, natura, occurs some twenty-nine times in Aduersus Iouinianum, with single additional adverbial and adjectival uses.74 That Jerome’s use of natura is both careful and self-conscious is demonstrated when the word is used to gloss his borrowings from another source. Natura is first raised in Aduersus Iouinianum 1.7, appearing in adverbial form, as Jerome offers us the observation that, ‘[t]hat is naturally good which holds no comparison with bad.’75 The source is Tertullian, but Jerome’s discussion of the Good reduces Tertullian’s longer statement to a single antitheton, adding natu-raliter to refer to the innate quality of bonum.76 Not only does this stylistic

72) Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy and Heresy, 152-3, who connects the anti-heretical strategies of Filastrius, Epiphanius and Jovinian.73) Compare the discussion of Cassian’s understanding of bonum naturae at D. Ogliari, Gra-tia et Certamen: the Relationship Between Grace and Free Will in the Discussion of Augustine with the So-Called Semi-Pelaigians (Leuven, 2003), 272-3.74) I have made use of the Library of Latin Texts searchable database, available from the Brepols website [http://www.brepolis.net/].75) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.7 (PL 23.219A): Bonum est illud naturaliter, quod comparationem non habet mali . . . For the adverbial usage of naturaliter see Pellicer, Natura, 205-7. 76) Tert. De mon.3.4 (CCSL 79C.29-32): Bonum illud est quod per se hoc nomen tenet, sine comparatione non dico mali sed etiam boni alterius ut et si alio bono comparatum adumbretur,


tweak give Jerome’s point a little extra force, it also adds to Jerome’s discus-sion of marriage and virginity an appeal to nature that was not in Tertul-lian, Jerome’s source. As the word naturaliter is used here, it serves as an essentialist description of ethical choice. Jerome uses his source material carefully, truncating and glossing it in order to emphasise and ratify through an appeal to nature the ethical choices that ascetics make.

Jovinian bolstered his teaching with reference both to scripture and to arguments drawn from ‘secular literature.’ As he promises in the opening to his treatise, Jerome follows a similar strategy. In Aduersus Iouinianum 1.30, he offers an anti-connubial exegesis of the Song of Songs.77 Contemplating the turtle doves of Song of Songs 2.12, he recalls that natural scientists (physiologi) assert that ‘it is the nature of turtle doves to reject a second mate’, and closes by noting that ‘we will understand second marriage is rejected even by dumb birds.’78 As in the previous case, natura encapsu-lates here a defining characteristic of a thing, in this case, the fidelity of the turtle doves. A juxtaposition is implied in Jerome’s exegesis in the com-parison between the monogamous birds and digamous humanity: the essential nature of each is encapsulated in these differing attitudes to ‘mar-riage.’ A further, implicit juxtaposition lies in the contrast between human understanding (. . . et intelligemus . . .) and animal irrationality (. . . etiam a mutis avibus . . .). In the context of the Jovinian affair—in which exegetical analysis was complemented by philosophical commonplaces—the promi-nence of words associated with rationality in this conclusion to Jerome’s exegesis is surely significant.79 Natura, of course, has a number of meanings.

remaneat nihilominus in boni nomine. Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 116-8; B. Clausi, “La parola stravolta: Polemica ed esegesi biblica nell’Adversus Iovinianum di Gerolamo,” in Retorica ed esegesi biblica: Il rilievo dei contenuti atraverso le forme, edited by M. Marin and M. Giradi (Bari, 1996) 87-126. Natura is the essential as opposed to the accidental: Pellicer, Natura, 150; see also 133.77) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.30 (PL 23.251D): . . . et quod adversarius totum putat esse pro nuptiis, virgi-nitatis continere sacramenta monstrabo. Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 185-6, suggests that the length and detail of Jerome’s discussion of the Song of Songs reveal its importance as a proof-text in the debate between Jerome and Jovinian.78) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.30 (PL 23.252B-C): Legamus physiologos, et reperiemus turturis hanc esse naturam, ut si parem perdiderit, alteri non jungatur; et intelligemus digamiam etiam a mutis avibus reprobari. 79) Cf. Sextus Empiricus Against the Professors 8.275 (SVF 74.3-7; tr. Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1.317-8): ‘They say that it is not uttered speech but internal speech by which man differs from non-rational animals; for crows and parrots and jays utter articu-late sounds. Nor is it by the merely simple impressions that he differs (for they too receive impressions), but by impressions produced by inference and combination.’


It can be applied to a thing’s particular characteristics, but it can also refer to the ordering of the universe. In the contrast between avian mutus and human ratio, Jerome is engaging with this philosophical tradition which understood the natural state as being without convention or tradition, and animals as conforming to nature which was ordered according to divine reason and, therefore, normative.80 In this reading of Song 2.12, a thing’s natura is its essential properties, but the word comes to take on a prescrip-tive force connected to the ordering of the universe; one can conform to or reject natura, which is adherence to or rejection of the natural norms.81 The turtle doves, although mutus, conform to divine reason: monogamy—the nature of the turtle doves—defines them in opposition to digamous humanity.82 It is the monogamy of the turtle doves which is authorised by creation; the social arrangements instituted by supposedly rational humans reject creation’s norm.

Jerome’s point here is about the fallibility of human reason and its imper-fect appreciation of the natural norms of behaviour. His comments on the turtle doves of Song of Songs 2.12 at once affirm the idea that the natural world is providentially ordered, but also challenge the notion that human-ity’s ideal, ‘natural’ state can be apprehended by human intellect. The dis-cussion accepts the concept of a divine and rationally ordered creation and thereby endorses a key element of Jovinian’s argument. Unlike Jovinian, however, Jerome conveys a certain scepticism over the ability of human beings to apprehend this divine law. In this he rejects the suggestion that observation of the natural world (by, for example, physiologi) can offer a true guide to ethical behaviour.83 The force of Jerome’s argument is that human beings are unable or reluctant to conform to the so-called ‘natural’ norms observable in the animal world. Nevertheless, says Jerome, ascetics do live according to nature, implying that the difference between Jovinian and himself lies in their different understandings of how and where nature is to be apprehended.

80) Rosenmeyer, “Seneca and nature,” 101; Watson, “The natural law and Stoicism,” 219.81) Rosenmeyer, “Seneca and nature” 101; G. Striker, “Following nature: a study in Stoic eth-ics,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 9 (1991) 1-73, 4-9.82) Rosenmeyer, “Seneca and nature,” 110: ‘It must be acknowledged that natura as a power and natura as mere essence can at times converge.’83) Compare the remark of Chrysippus, who says that the goal of a human life is ‘living according to one’s experience of what happens by nature’ (tr. Striker “Following nature,” 5).


Human Custom and Nature

The institutions and roles (marriage; parenthood; childhood etc.) that con-stituted late ancient aristocratic Roman society were buttressed by philo-sophical traditions on human nature, correct action, duty and so forth. As previous commentators have recognised, Jovinian’s own work resonated with this broader moral discourse. Marriage and parenthood were, of course, key sites of dispute in the Jovinian affair, but at a number of points Jerome broadens the discussion to address society’s structure more gener-ally. At these moments he also surveys the role of human society in the natural order of creation. These discussions of social structures therefore offer an interesting glimpse into Jerome’s concept of natura and its role in refuting Jovinian.

The most explicit discussion of natura comes at Aduersus Iouinianum 2.7. In the preceding chapters Jerome has responded to charges that Chris-tian ascetic practice is superstitio, vainglorious and divorced from both gos-pel teaching and Roman tradition.84 Citing examples from non-Christian philosophy, Jerome responded by pointing out that ascetic practice had a long and noble history and that Christian ascetics, far from being motivated by novel superstition and whimsy, ‘are at one with the philosophers.’85 Jerome addresses allegations of breaking with tradition by stressing the relativity of eating habits,86 and that ‘each race follows its own practice and peculiar usages and takes for the law of nature that which is most familiar to it.’87 For Jerome, therefore, talk of a ‘law of nature’ among humankind is absurd, for in a creation as varied as this there is no consistency in human practice.88 Fundamentally, the argument is that common practice is no way to ascertain what is natural, and towards the end of Aduersus Iouin-ianum 2.7 an alternative definition of nature is hinted at. Jerome notes that even if the whole world were to take up the same practices (as was sug-gested by Cicero’s discussion of true law and reason in the quote from De re publica offered above), it should be of no matter to ascetics, for their goal is

84) Bowes, Private Worship, Public Values, 44-8.85) Hier. Adu. Iou. 2.7 (PL 23.294B).86) Hier. Adu. Iou. 2.7 (PL 23.294B-C): Caeterum quis ignoret, unamquamque gentem non communi lege naturae, sed his, quorum apud se copia est, vesci solitam? (‘Who does not know that no universal law of nature regulates the food of all nations, and that each eats only those things which it has in abundance?’).87) Hier. Adu. Iou. 2.7 (PL 23.297A).88) Opelt, Hieronymus’ Streitschriften, 57.


not to follow the customs of the people they were born among but to strive for heaven through control of bodily lusts.89 By subverting Jovinian’s asser-tion that a ‘law of nature’ regulates the conduct of humanity, Jerome was able to create a contrary definition of what was natural. This rival definition of ‘nature’ is found not in a consensus of practice but rather in a physiolog-ical depiction of the benefits of asceticism which understands the taking of meat and wine, and the sating of the stomach, as the agent of lust.90 There-fore, Jerome is offering an understanding of nature that is based not in a shared community of practice but in the shared human body, for this is the thing that all humanity has in common.91

One of the primary effects of Jerome’s discussion of natura was the sub-verting of Jovinian’s model of social relationships. Jerome himself acknowl-edges this. In 1.36, natura is the theme of the discussion, but the word does not make its appearance until later in the chapter. At the start of the chap-ter, Jerome considers the potential results if the whole of humanity were to take on a chaste life.92 He says:

For example, if all were philosophers, there would be no farmers. Why do I speak of farmers? There would be no orators, no jurists, no teachers of the other arts . . .93

He appears to be responding to charges that sexual renunciation would bring about the end of the human race, accusations that would give some justification for Roman unease over asceticism.94 Here, Jerome’s argument divides humanity along lines of vocation and thereby presents human beings as defined and organised according to their positions in society.95

89) Hier. Adu. Iou. 2.7 (PL 23.297A).90) T.M. Shaw, The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Minne-apolis, 1998), 101-2.91) P. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christian-ity (New York, 1988), 381-2.92) By no means a unique theme in late ancient Latin Christianity: Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 186.93) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.36 (PL 23.259D): Verbi Gratia: si cuncti philosophi sint, agricolae non erunt. Quid loquar de agricolis? non oratores, non jurisconsulti, non reliquarum artium praeceptores. 94) Clark, Women in Late Antiquity, 52-6; Hunter, “On the Sin of Adam and Eve”; Hunter, Mar-riage, Celibacy and Heresy, 60-1. 95) Compare Jerome’s focus on farming and the law (perhaps two vocations particularly associated with the state of humanity after the fall) with Duval’s interesting suggestion that Jerome’s argument in this chapter stems from questions Jovinian asked about the


What is particularly interesting in this passage is the deliberately stressed shift from farmers to legal practitioners. Teachers are included in this con-text if Jerome’s reference to ‘other arts’ means the grammarian and the rhetor.96 Thus, having presented his readers with a vision of humanity based on the role of individuals in human society, Jerome then chooses to stress particularly some social roles above others.97 Ancient and late ancient Roman society was formed and negotiated through status, at least partly acquired through rhetorical training and a shared literary heritage, so in this sense Jerome is presenting a society and politics familiar to his audience.98

As the chapter progresses, however, Jerome assaults Jovinian’s concerns regarding the outcome of a mass renunciation of sex:

You fear that if more sought virginity, more would reject prostitution and reject adultery . . . Every day the blood of fornicators, of condemned adulterers, pours forth, and burning lust rules amidst the very laws and the axe of the tribunals.99

As previously in this chapter, the theme of law-making and governance is again introduced, this time through metonymy.100 Jerome recalls the capi-tal punishment for adultery by conflating images of splattered blood with those of judicial power, specifically the leges, the bench and axe of the court. Reading these two passages from this chapter together, it is clear that Jerome is examining the extent to which existing social structures (like marriage) foster ethical behaviour that is in line with nature.101 The model of a well governed and ordered society is shown to be an idealistic mirage;

prelapsarian matrimonial state of Adam and Eve (Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 184-5). On stew-ardship of creation see Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy, 361-7. 96) Compare Hier. Ep. 53.6 (CSEL 54.7-10). 97) J.E. Lendon, Empire of Honour: the Art of Government in the Roman world (Oxford, 1997), 38; R. Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an Age of Transition (Austin, TX, 1993), 105-18. 98) P. Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, WI., 1992); Lendon, Empire of Honour, 188. 99) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.36 (PL 23.259D): Vereris, ne si virginitatem plures appetierint, cessent lupae, cessent adulterae . . . Quotidie moechorum sanguis effunditur, adulteria damnantur, et inter ipsas leges et secures ac tribunalia flagrans libido dominatur. 100) Metonymy in Quint. Inst. Orat. 8.6.23-27. 101) Compare Jerome’s concept of populus: J. D. Adams, The Populus of Augustine and Jerome (New Haven and London, 1971), 112. See also, A. Dihle, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiq-uity (London, 1982), 142.


in truth, the legislation that regulates this society is corrupted by lust and irrationality.

Jerome then imagines that his opponents ask why the creator fashioned human genitals in such a way that we ‘suffer heat for one another and long for natural bonds (naturalem copulam).’102 He states that his opponents argue that the creator has made human genitals and they should be put to their ‘natural’ use. In a self-consciously crude response,103 he writes that following this argument to its conclusion would result in the sharing of sexual partners:

And so, just as the duty (officium) of the teeth is to chew, and that which was chewed is sent to the belly, and it is not considered a crime for someone to give bread to my wife, if it is also the case with the duty (officium) of the genitals always to delight in their own nature, let the strength of another surpass my exhaustion, and burning casual lust sate the ardent desire of a so-called wife.104

Jerome evokes the language of social obligation and duty through the repeated use of officium. If the primary meaning of officium is ‘function,’ it is, of course, also intimately connected to the Roman ideal of a well- functioning society sustained and regulated by relational concepts like fides, amicitia and beneficium.105 In this passage, the genitals perform their duty to the perfection of their ‘nature’ but this fulfilment of officium does not result in a well-ordered society, but in a matrimonial state utterly unbefitting of a Roman aristocrat.106 Jerome’s argument presents contem-porary social institutions as the antithesis of a stable, rational and well-

102) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.36 (PL 23.260A): . . . ut mutuum nostri patiamur ardorem, et gestiamus in naturalem copulam? 103) Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 196.104) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.36 (PL 23.260C): Quomodo enim dentium officium est mandere, et in alvum ea quae sunt mansa transmittere, et non habet crimen qui conjugi meae panem dederit: ita si genitalium hoc est officium, ut semper fruantur natura sua, meam lassitudinem alterius vires superent: et uxoris, ut ita dixerim, ardentissimam gulam fortuita libido restinguat. 105) Atkins, “The Officia”; J. Hellegouarc’h, Le vocabulaire Latin des relations et des partis poli-tiques sous la République, 2nd ed., Collection d’Études Anciennes (Paris, 1972), 152-63; K. Verboven, The Economy of Friends: Economic Aspects of Amicitia and Patronage in the Late Republic, Collection Latomus (Brussels, 2002), 35-48. Imperial boons were described as ben-eficia: Lendon, Empire of Honour, 149.106) Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride, 6-8; C. Steininger, Die ideale christliche Frau: virgo— vidua—nupta; eine Studie zum Bild der idealen christlichen Frau bei Hieronymus end Pelagius (St. Ottilien, 1997), 33.


governed society, and as a perversion of concepts like fides, castitas and officium.107

In summary, traditional Roman views on the good of marriage were but-tressed by philosophical texts that presented marriage as in conformity with nature and therefore a good in itself. In a competitive climate of patronage, philosophical texts like those of Musonius Rufus corroborated and justified the mores of their patrons. ‘[W]hat we have here is the use of Stoic ideals as regulative norms to inform lives lived within conventional social forms and practices,’ as one study on late ancient political theory has put it.108 Jovinian’s writings on marriage and their apparent popularity in Rome constitute a continuation of this tradition. It should also be noted, however, that Jovinian’s teaching on marriage was part of an ecclesiology which stressed the anthropocentric ordering of creation and the consistent relationship between human beings and ‘nature’. With this in mind certain other consistencies between Jovinian and general ethical commonplaces become apparent, particularly the notion of a consistent ‘law of nature’ and the sense of human beings differentiated from other animals through their rational ability to understand and conform willingly to ‘nature’.

This last point shows, I think, the reception of Aduersus Iouinianum in a new light. As we saw, much of the ire which Jerome attracted was provoked by his position on marriage. In the broader context of the Jovinian affair, it is clear that such an attack on Jovinian’s position of marriage was also an attack on the social mores of wider Roman society. So much is well-understood in the secondary literature. What is also interesting, how-ever, is Jerome’s remark that by adopting his position on 1 Cor. 7, he will be seen ‘to condemn nature’ (damnare naturam).109 We can compare here Cicero’s remarks on human nature in third book of De re publica. Here,

107) Compare, ‘one should treat common goods as common and private as one’s own,’ cited in Atkins, “Cicero.” Cicero, de Off. 1.20 (p. 9.19-20 Winterbottom): . . . communibus pro com-munibus utatur, privatis ut suis. Compare the discussion of grauitas at Lendon, Empire of Honour, 42. There was a strong tendency in early Stoic ethics to argue that communal sexu-ality was in line with natural justice, but marriage was seen as the norm by the Imperial era, see Gaca, The Making of Fornication, 281-90; B. Levick, “Women, Power and Philosophy at Rome and Beyond,” in Philosophy and Power in the Greco-Roman World, edited by E.G. Clark and T. Rajak (Oxford, 2002). 108) C. Gill, “Stoic writers of the imperial era,” in Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, edited by C. Rowe and M. Schofield (Cambridge, 2000), 596-615.109) Hier. Ep. 49.4 (CSEL 54.356.4-6): quid, inquit, uelim, perspicuum est. sed quoniam in ecclesia diuersa sunt dona, concedo et nuptias, ne uidear damnare naturam. It is a quotation from of Adu. Iou. 1.8 (PL 23.221D).


Cicero says that the person who does not behave according to the dispen-sation laid down by divine reason spurns human nature (naturam hominis aspernatus).110 It is possible to argue that aspernor and damnare are syn-onyms, but it is hardly necessary.111 Given the strong similarities between Jovinian’s position and the philosophical commonplaces that buttressed late ancient social ethics, the echo can hardly be coincidental. Rather, it seems reasonable to infer from the preserved writings of Jovinian, from the reception of Aduersus Iouinianum, and from that text itself, that human beings’ relationship to wider creation was a key site of debate in the Jovin-ian affair. In striking at Jovinian’s concept of the relationship between human beings and natural order, Jerome was also necessarily disrupting the conventional notions of good social practice.

Human Nature and the Productive Problem of the Incarnation

Two arguments have been sketched in Aduersus Iouinianum, both of which address the concept of natura. In the first, the exegesis of Song of Songs suggests that human observation of the natural world cannot offer us any understanding of the divine ordering of the universe. The second argument challenges time-honoured custom, saying that human practice is relative and that models of social ethics built on Roman ideals like officium etc. disguise the perverse and squalid truth about human behaviour. Both of these arguments challenge the stability of the concept of natura. Jerome, however, offers his own suggestion for where human beings might appre-hend natura: in the scriptural account of Christ.

As seen above, in Aduersus Iouinianum 1.36 Jerome undermines the con-nection between procreation, nature and officium, offering a bawdy vision of a Roman society governed by Jovinian’s concept of ‘natural law.’ Having described this squalid tableau, Jerome goes on to consider how Paul the Apostle could advocate continence if (as Jerome suggests Jovinian argues) continence is contrary to human nature.112 As he sketches support for a pro-continence reading of Paul, Jerome offers an exegesis of Jesus’ circum-cision in which he suggests that it was performed to reveal Christ’s sex to

110) Cicero, De re publica 3.33 (p. 97.7 Ziegler).111) This is certainly the case for aspernor, which is used as such in Filastrius 148.6 (CCSL 9.310.32; see also TLL 5.1.10.57-8).112) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.36 (PL 23.260.C): Quid sibi autem vult apostolus, ut ad continentiam cohortetur, si contra naturam est?


humanity.113 As Jerome reads it, the fact that Christ had genitals does not indicate a divine dispensation in favour of procreation, but rather consti-tutes a proof of Christ’s full incarnation. A few years earlier, Jerome had dealt with the same issue as he translated Origen’s homilies on Luke. At 2.21, Origen discusses Jesus’ presentation at the temple, the sacrifice of the doves and his circumcision, using these biblical passages to construct a refutation of docetic Christology.114 The influence of the arguments present in Origen’s homily can be detected in Jerome’s reflection on Jesus’ circum-cision in Aduersus Iouinianum, and his argument that the circumcision is proof of Jesus’ fleshly humanity.

Jerome’s argument runs on: he says that because Jesus was able to step through a solid door ( John 20.19) and that because he and Peter walked on water ‘which is against nature’, Jovinian would deny that either of them had true bodies (. . . uera habuisse corpora . . .).115 Jerome’s argument here focuses on the flesh of Christ to prick Jovinian on a dilemma. His writing constitutes a careful defence of corporeal integrity in Christ and the resur-rected body, but thereby forces its readers to countenance a human body whose nature includes passing through closed doors and walking on water. Jerome’s source here is Origen, and the argument is anti-docetic, but Jerome employs it to attack and undermine a concept of nature that sees it as easily known by human intellects. The argument echoes his exegesis of the Song of Songs, which showed that human intellect was unable to apprehend and mimic the divine order.

In Aduersus Iouinianum 1.40, Jerome addresses Christ’s relationship to social institutions like marriage. He addresses Jesus’ apparent condoning of the marriage bond at Cana:

. . . he who was circumcised on the eighth day, and for whom two turtle doves and two pigeon chicks were offered on the day of purification . . . approved the Jewish

113) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.36 (PL 23.261A): Qui certe ut sexum ostenderet, etiam circumcisus est. 114) Origen, Hom. in Luc. 14.5-6 (SC 87.220-222).115) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.36 (PL 23.261A-B): Porro si clausis ingressus est ostiis, quod humanorum corporum natura non patitur, ergo et Petrum et Dominum negamus vera habuisse corpora, quia ambulaverunt super aquas, quod contra naturam est. Jn 20.19 would be recalled a few years later in Jerome’s contretemps with John of Jerusalem, ostensibly as a qualification of the fleshly nature of the resurrection: Clark, Origenist Controversy, 137; C. Bynum, The Resur-rection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336 (New York, 1995), 86-94.


practice lest he seemed to present a just occasion to them of killing him for (quasi) destroying the law and condemning nature (damnansque naturam).116

This passage contains allusions to two biblical verses already discussed, the turtle-doves of the Song of Songs and the circumcision and offerings of Luke 2.21-22. Jerome’s gloss of these biblical passages engaged with the meanings of natura, challenging his audience’s understanding of the human being’s place in creation and the nature of the human body. The return and development of these two passages in Aduersus Iouinianum 1.40 pivots on an insistence that Jesus’ actions at the wedding feast only appeared (quasi) to endorse Jewish custom, when in fact, he argues, Jesus did not wish to do this. To suggest that Jesus endorses social customs like marriage is to mis-read the scriptures.117

Jerome’s Christological discussions are designed to reveal the paucity of Jovinian’s concept of natura. Christ’s human body must be natural; but the acts performed by Christ’s body go against Jovinian’s concept of natura. In this context, we are required either to deny Christ’s humanity, or recon-ceive the meaning of natura. Jerome’s intent here is to point out how the Incarnation challenges and renews how human beings understand creation.118 If Christ (and Peter) can do things previously thought to be against nature, then surely, argues Jerome, the ‘law of nature’ is actually whatever Christ does.119

Furthermore, the discussion of the marriage at Cana should remind us that Jesus’ calumniators (and Jerome’s) would have accused him of con-demning the law of nature (damnansque naturam). Jerome tells us that Jesus is not actually condemning nature, but would appear to in the eyes of his opponents. ‘Lest he seemed to present’ is therefore crucial here, for it introduces a distinction between physical action and ‘spiritual’ intention,120

116) Hier. Adu. Iou. 1.40 (PL 23.269C): . . . quod qui octava die circumcisus est, et pro quo par turturum, et duo pulli columbarum die purgationis oblati sunt . . . Judaicam consuetudinem comprobavit: ne illis occasionem juste se interficiendi tribuere videretur, quasi Legem destruens damnansque naturam. 117) Jerome’s position here derives from Origen (Duval, L’affaire Jovinien, 196).118) Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy, 231.119) Compare Marius Victorinus’ Neoplatonic development of Christ as the uoluntas et potentia Dei (Dihle, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, 117-8).120) M. Mitchell, Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (Cambridge, 2010), 58-78.


while reminding the readers of Aduersus Iouinianum that the ambiguous words of scripture call for careful interpretation. It suggests that human perception of events is no match for the truth that is contained in scripture and thereby validates the suspicion in which human ratio is held in the rest of the treatise. Moreover, Jerome’s use of ‘lest he seemed to present’ suggests that the individual’s actions within society, her participation in human relationships and her performance of familial obligations are of less consequence than her relationship to God. If the law of nature is ‘what Christ does’ then Jerome is here suggesting a movement away from an understanding of humanity as being exercised through social relationships between humans, and towards a humanity that was defined by an interior, hidden and obscure relationship with Christ. Finally, (and perhaps most importantly for Jerome,) this extract presents him as an imitator of Christ, and paints those who accused him of ‘condemning nature’ as the persecu-tors of Christ, a tactic that he had used before.121

Conclusion

Jovinian’s teaching was popular at Rome. He offered a reading of scripture that corresponded both to Roman social practices and to the philosophical concepts of human nature by which they were justified. That Jovinian labels ascetic Christianity ‘unnatural’ is well known, but it is also the case that concepts of the ‘naturalness’ of his own teaching underlay his ecclesi-ology and his model of sacrament. That creation was good and that human beings understood and performed their role in natura were both funda-mental to this teaching.

Jerome’s response to Jovinian is to offer a critique of his exegetical read-ing of scripture, focussing on 1 Cor 7. But this article has argued that Aduer-sus Iouinianum was also supposed to assert both that ascetic practice does not condemn nature, and that the model of nature from which Jovinian draws his teaching is wrong. Jerome argues this in a number of ways. Firstly, in his exegesis of Song of Songs, he denies that the rationality of human beings leads them to conform with nature, disputing the ability of human beings to comprehend the divine ordering of creation. Secondly, he presents

121) H. Newman, “Jerome’s Judaizers,” Journal of Early Christian Studies, 9.4 (2001), 421-452; I. Opelt, Die Polemik in der christlichen Literatur von Tertullian bis Augustin (Heidelberg, 1980), 115.


human social organisation as inherently absurd; there is no common human custom, but there is a common human body and a common predi-lection to sin. Finally, any suggestion that human reason or human custom should form our concept of natural norms is nullified by the miracles that the fleshly Christ performed with his body. The true potential of human nature is not to be found through rational observation of the world, nor in time-honoured custom, but in the actions of the incarnate Christ.

364 - condemning nature - natura and asceticism in the jovinian affair

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