Against Jovinian 2.16–2.23

The Apostle does indeed condemn those who forbade marriage and commanded abstinence from foods that God created to be used with thanksgiving; but he points to Marcion and Tatian and the other heretics, who impose perpetual abstinence in order to destroy, despise, and abhor the works of the Creator. But we praise every creature of God, and prefer leanness to fattening, abstinence to luxury, fasts to fullness. For "a man in his labors labors for himself and does violence to his own destruction." And: "From the days of John the Baptist" (a faster and a virgin) "the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." For we fear that at the coming of the eternal judge, as in the days of the flood and of the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, we may be caught eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. For both the flood and the fire from heaven found fullness and marriages alike, which they destroyed. Nor is it surprising if the Apostle bids us buy and eat everything sold in the market, since for idolaters, still eating in the temples of idols as if eating things offered to idols, it was the height of abstinence merely to abstain from the foods of the Gentiles. And when he says to the Romans, "Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats," he does not assign equal merits to fasting and fullness; but he speaks against those who, believing in Christ, still Judaized; and he warns those who had believed from the Gentiles not to offend by their food those who were still weaker in faith. Indeed in what follows he says the same: "I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is common of itself; but to him who thinks anything common, to him it is common. For if your brother is grieved because of food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy by your food him for whom Christ died. Let not our good, then, be blasphemed. For the kingdom of God is not food and drink." And lest anyone should think this was said of fasts and not of Jewish superstition, he at once explains: "One believes he may eat all things; but he who is weak eats vegetables." And again: "One judges one day above another; another judges every day alike. Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind. He who regards the day regards it to the Lord; and he who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God." For those who were still weak in faith, and thought some meats clean and others unclean, and thought there was a difference between one day and another (for example, that the Sabbath, the new moons, and the feast of Tabernacles were holier than the other days), are bidden to eat vegetables, which are eaten by all without distinction. But those of firmer faith believed that all meats and all days were equal.

As for what he dared to propose, that the Lord was called a glutton and wine-drinker by the Pharisees, and that he went to wedding feasts and did not despise the banquets of sinners, I think it tells in our favor. This is the Lord, a glutton as you think, who sanctified the fast of Christians by forty days; who calls blessed those who hunger and thirst; who says he has food, not what the disciples supposed, but food that does not perish forever; who forbids us to be anxious about tomorrow; who, though he is said to have hungered and thirsted and to have gone often to dinners, is not written, apart from the mystery which he expressed in the type of his passion and the proving of the reality of his body, to have served either the gullet or the belly. He tells that the rich man clothed in purple is in hell because of his feasts, and says that the poor man Lazarus is in Abraham's bosom because of his hunger. He commands that when we fast we anoint the head and wash the face, so that we fast not for the glory of men but for the Lord. He did indeed eat, after the resurrection, a piece of broiled fish and honeycomb, not out of hunger and the sweetness of the throat, but to prove the reality of his body. For whenever he raised the dead, he ordered that food be given them, lest the resurrection be thought a phantom. And Lazarus after his resurrection is written for this reason to have shared a banquet with the Lord. Nor do we say this in order to deny that fish and other foods may be taken as food (if one wishes); but as we prefer virginity to marriage, so we prefer fasting and the spirit to fullness and meat. And if Peter went up to the upper room at the sixth hour to dine, an occasional hunger does not prejudice fasts. For in this way, since the Lord too sat down tired at the Samaritan woman's well at the sixth hour and wished to drink, a necessity would lie on everyone, willing or not, to drink at that hour. And it may have been either the Sabbath or the Lord's day, and he may have been hungry at the sixth hour after a fast of two or three days; for I would never believe that the Apostle, if he had dined the day before and been stuffed with feasting, was hungry at noon the next day. And if he dined the day before and was hungry the next day before dinner, I do not think he had eaten to fullness, since he could be hungry so soon. Further, if God speaks through Isaiah that he has not chosen such a fast, saying, "In the days of your fasts your desires are found, and you strike those under you, and you fast for lawsuits and quarrels, and you strike with fists; I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord," he teaches what kind he has chosen: "Break your bread to the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; if you see the naked, clothe him, and do not despise those of your own seed." So he did not reject fasting, but showed what kind he wanted; for the hunger of the belly is not acceptable to God when quarrels, robberies, and lusts destroy it. If God does not want fasting, how does he command in Leviticus that in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month, all the people fast until evening, and that he who does not afflict his soul die and be cut off from his people? Why do the graves of lust, where the people given to meat fell, remain in the desert to this day? And why is the fat people written to have belched quails until they were sick? Why was the man of God, at whose prophecy King Jeroboam's hand had withered, at once struck down because he ate against God's command, and the lion, which guarded the ass untouched, did not spare the prophet as he rose from his dinner? He who had worked miracles fasting paid at once the penalty of fullness when he had dined. Joel too cries out: "Sanctify a fast, proclaim a healing," so that it might be shown that a fast is sanctified by the other works, and that a sanctified fast helps the healing of sins. And as the imitation of virgins by the devil does not prejudice true virginity, so neither do the "Chastity" of Isis and Cybele and perpetual abstinence from certain foods prejudice true fasts, especially since among them the fast from bread is made up for by gorging on meat. And as the signs of the Egyptians imitated the signs that Moses did, but were not in truth (for Moses' rod swallowed the rods of the magicians), so in everything that the devil does in rivalry with God, it is not our religion that is convicted of superstition, but our negligence, in not wishing to do what even men of the world know to be good.

"The fourth and last proposition is that there are two orders, of sheep and goats, one of the righteous and one of sinners; some stand at the right hand, others at the left; and the righteous hear, 'Come, you blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world'; but to sinners it is said, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree good fruit. That is why the Savior says to the Jews: 'You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.' He sets forth ten virgins, foolish and wise, and the five who had no oil remained outside, while the other five, who had prepared for themselves the light of good works, entered the bridal chamber with the bridegroom. He goes back to the flood and says: those who were righteous, with Noah, were saved; those who were sinners all perished together. At Sodom and Gomorrah no difference is found except the two grades of good and bad: the righteous man is rescued, the sinners are devoured by the same fire. One salvation for those set free, one destruction for those who remained. That we must not turn aside even a little from righteousness is shown by Lot's wife. And if," he says, "you object to me why the righteous man labors in peace or in persecutions, if there is no advancement and no greater rewards, know that he does this not to earn something more, but so as not to lose what he has received. In Egypt too all sinners felt the ten plagues equally, and the same darkness hung over master and servant, noble and commoner, king and populace; but for the saints of God and the people of Israel there was one light. And in the Red Sea the righteous cross over alike and the sinners are overwhelmed alike. Six hundred thousand men, apart from those unfit for war by age and sex, fall equally in the desert, and the two who were equal in righteousness are equally delivered. For forty years all Israel labors and dies alike. One measure of the omer of manna is food for all ages; their clothes are not worn out alike, their hair does not grow alike, their beards do not grow in common, their shoes last equally for all. Their feet did not grow calloused; the food tasted the same in the mouth of all. They went on to one resting place with equal labor and reward. Every Hebrew has the same Passover, the same Tabernacles, the same Sabbath, the same new moons. In the seventh year of rest he is set free without distinction of persons, and in the jubilee all debts are released for all, and the seller returns to his ancient possession."

The parable of the sower in the Gospel, in which in the good ground fruit springs up a hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold, and on the other hand a threefold variety of barrenness is shown in the bad ground, he divides into two orders, good ground and bad. "And as to the apostles, for children and wives left behind, the Lord promises in one Gospel a hundredfold, in another sevenfold, and in the age to come eternal life, and there is no difference between a hundred and seven; so in this case too the number does not prejudice anything, where the fruitfulness of this ground is proclaimed: especially since the evangelist Mark counts backward, thirty, sixty, and a hundred. The Lord says: 'He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.' As, then, Christ is in us without any difference of degrees, so we too are in Christ without degrees. 'Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.' He who is righteous loves; to him who loves the Father and the Son come and dwell in his lodging. And where there is such an inhabitant, I think nothing can be lacking to the host. And when he says, 'In my Father's house are many dwellings,' he does not mean different dwellings in the kingdom of heaven, but the number of churches throughout the world, which is known to be one through seven. 'I go,' he says, 'and will prepare a place for you,' not places. If this promise belongs properly to the twelve apostles, then Paul is excluded from this place, and the vessel of election will be thought superfluous and unworthy. John and James, because they asked for more than the others, did not obtain it; and yet their dignity was not diminished, because they were equal to the other apostles. 'Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit?' Temple, he says, not temples, to show God as an inhabitant equally in all. 'I do not pray for these only, but for those who will believe in me through their word, that as you, Father, are in me and I in you, we are one, so all may be one in us. The glory you gave me I have given them; I have loved them as you loved me.' And as we are Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one God, so let there be one people in them, that is, as most dear children, partakers of the divine nature. Bride, sister, mother, and whatever other names you may think of, it is the gathering of the one Church, which is never without bridegroom, brother, son. It has one faith, and is not defiled by variety of doctrines nor split by heresies. It remains a virgin. Wherever the Lamb goes, it follows him; it alone knows the song of Christ."

"But if," he says, "you object to me, 'Star differs from star in glory,' you will hear that star differs from star, that is, the spiritual from the carnal. We love all our members equally, and do not prefer the eye to the finger, nor the finger to the ear; but in the loss of any of them the pain is common to the members. We enter this world equally and go out of it equally. There is one earthly Adam and another heavenly. He who is in the earthly is on the left and will perish; he who is in the heavenly is on the right and will be saved. He who says to his brother 'Fool' and 'Raca' will be liable to Gehenna; and he who is a murderer and adulterer will likewise be sent to Gehenna. In persecution, he who is burned, he who is strangled, he who is beheaded, he who flees, he who dies shut up in prison: there are various kinds of struggle, but one crown of the victors. Between the brother who had always been with the father and the one who was afterwards received back in repentance, there is no difference. To the laborers of the first hour, the third, the sixth, the ninth, and the eleventh, one denarius is paid equally; and, what will surprise you more, the reward begins with those who labored less in the vineyard."

By these and similar testimonies of the divine Scriptures, which the clever disputant bends to the perversity of his doctrine, who even of God's elect would not be tempted? And as the apostle John says that many Antichrists have come, this is the true preaching of Antichrist, which makes no difference between John himself and the last penitent. At the same time I wonder how our slippery serpent and Proteus changes himself into monsters of various shapes. For he who is an Epicurean in intercourse and fullness suddenly becomes a Stoic in the recompense of merits. He exchanges Jerusalem for Citium, Judea for Cyprus, Christ for Zeno. If one may not turn aside even a little from virtues, and all sins are equal, and he who steals bread when hungry is guilty of the same crime as he who kills a man, then you too are held guilty of the greatest crimes. Unless, of course, you say that you have not even the least sins, and, while all the apostles and prophets and saints, as I discussed in the second proposition, lament that they are sinners, you alone boast of righteousness. Before, you went barefoot; now your feet are not only shod but adorned. Then you were clothed in a coarse tunic and a black undershirt, dirty and pale, with a hand calloused by work; now you go about adorned in linen and silk garments and the clothes of the Atrebates and of Laodicea. Your cheeks are red, your skin shines, your hair is curled at the back and front; your little paunch sticks out, your shoulders rise, your throat swells, and from your fat jaws the words come out half choked. Certainly in such a difference of diet and dress there must be sin either here or there. Not that I assert there is sin in food or clothes, but that variation and change for the worse is close to blame. And what is blamed is far from virtue; what is far from virtue is enslaved to vice; what is convicted of vice is joined to sin. And what is sin, according to your opinion, is assigned to the left side and to the flock of goats. Either, then, return to your former way of life, so that you may be a sheep at the right hand; or, if you have changed your former view by a perverse repentance, you will be numbered among the goats, whether you will or not, even though you have shaved your beard.

But what good is it to call a one-eyed man one-eyed and to show the inconsistency of the accuser, when the series of propositions must be refuted? We do not deny that the sheep and goats on the right and left are two orders of the righteous and sinners. That a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree good, no one doubts. We too divide the ten virgins, wise and foolish, into good and bad. We are not ignorant that in the flood the righteous were set free and the sinners overwhelmed by the waters. That in Sodom and Gomorrah the righteous man was rescued and the impious consumed by fire is plain to all. We know too that Egypt was struck with ten plagues and Israel was safe. That the righteous crossed the Red Sea and Pharaoh was drowned with his army, little children sing even in school. The Scriptures teach that six hundred thousand fell in the desert because they were unbelieving, and that only two entered the land of promise; and the rest, which you described, down to the laborers in the vineyard, as two orders of good and bad. But what sort of thing is it that, because there is a division between good and bad, you assert that there is no difference among the good themselves, or on the other hand among the bad, and that it makes no difference whether in the flock someone is a ram or a little ewe; whether they have first or second wool; whether a sheep is mangy and sick, or vigorous and leaping? Especially since Ezekiel, by the authority of his prophecy, shows rational sheep and a difference between sheep and sheep, saying: "Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, and between rams and goats, and between the fat sheep and the lean. Because you pushed with side and shoulder, and butted all the weak sheep with your horns until they were scattered." And so that we might know what sheep these are, he at once added: "But you, my flocks, the sheep of my pasture, are men." Will Paul, then, be the same as that penitent who had slept with his father's wife, because he was received back into the Church after repentance; and, because he too is at the right hand, will he shine in the same glory as the Apostle? And how is it that in one field the tares and the wheat grow together until the harvest and the consummation of the world? By what consistency are good and bad fish held in Christ's dragnet and the net of the Gospel? Why in Noah's ark, the type of the Church, were there different animals and, according to the quality of their merits, different dwellings? Why did the queen stand at the Lord's right hand in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety? Why did Joseph, in the form of Christ, have a coat of many colors? Why does the Apostle say to the Romans: "To each as God has apportioned the measure of faith. For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, whether prophecy according to the measure of faith, or ministry in ministering, he who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhorting, he who gives in simplicity, he who leads in diligence," and the rest? And in another place: "One judges one day above another, another judges every day alike; let each be fully persuaded in his own mind." And to the Corinthians: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building." And again elsewhere: "According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. For no one can lay any other foundation than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. And if anyone builds on this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, each one's work will become manifest; for the day of the Lord will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort each one's work is. If anyone's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." If he whose work burned and perished, and who suffered the loss of his labor, will lose the reward of his labor but will himself be saved, yet not without the testing of fire; then he whose work which he built on it remains will be saved without the testing of fire, and between salvation and salvation there will certainly be some difference. And in another place too: "Let a man so account us as ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Here, now, it is required among stewards that one be found faithful." Do you want to know that there is a great difference between steward and steward (I do not speak of the bad and the good, but of the good themselves who stand at the right hand)? Hear what follows: "Do you not know that those who work in the sacrifices eat of the sacrifices, and those who serve the altar share in the altar? So too the Lord has ordained that those who proclaim the Gospel should live by the Gospel. But I have used none of these things. Nor have I written these things that it should be done so in my case; for it is better for me to die than that anyone should make my glory void. For if I preach the Gospel, there is no glory for me, for necessity is laid on me; woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel. For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, a stewardship has been entrusted to me. What then is my reward? That in preaching the Gospel I may make the Gospel of Christ free of charge, so as not to abuse the right given me in the Gospel. For though I was free from all, I made myself the slave of all, that I might win the more." Can you say that those sin who live by the Gospel and share in the sacrifices? Certainly not; for the Lord ordained that those who preach the Gospel should live by the Gospel. But the Apostle, who does not use this right, but labors with his own hands so as not to burden anyone, and works night and day, and ministers to those who are with him, surely does this so that, laboring more, he may receive a somewhat greater reward.

Let us run on to the rest. "There are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are divisions of operations, but the same God, who works all in all. But to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what is profitable." And again: "As the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ." But lest you should say that in one body the different members have one merit, he at once describes the ranks of the Church and says: "And God has set some in the Church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the greater gifts; and yet I show you a more excellent way." And after discussing the virtues of love at length, he added: "Whether there are prophecies, they will be done away; whether tongues, they will cease; whether knowledge, it will be destroyed. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part will be done away." And in what follows: "But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. Pursue love, desire spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy." And again: "I wish you all to speak with tongues, but rather to prophesy; for greater is he who prophesies than he who speaks with tongues." And again: "I thank God that I speak with tongues more than you all." Where the gifts are different, and one is greater, another less, and all are called spiritual, they are certainly sheep and stand at the right hand; and between sheep and sheep there is some difference. The apostle Paul indeed speaks in humility: "I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace in me was not in vain, but I labored more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which is in me." Yet in humbling himself he shows that some apostles can be less and others greater; and he who is called the vessel of election and labored more than all, God is not unjust to forget his work and to repay unequal merit with an equal reward. Next we read: "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive; but each in his own order." Since each will rise in his own order, the merits of those who rise are certainly different. "Not all flesh is the same flesh; there is one flesh of men, another of beasts, another of birds, another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; but the glory of the heavenly is one and that of the earthly another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead." This you, the learned interpreter, explained by saying that the spiritual differ from the carnal! Then both the spiritual and the carnal will be in heaven, and not only the sheep but your goats too will ascend to the kingdom of heaven. "Star," he says, "differs from star in glory": not sheep and goats, but sheep and sheep, that is, star and star. Then: "There is one glory of the sun," he says, "and another glory of the moon." Lest you should claim that star and star are the whole human race, he put the sun and moon, which you certainly cannot number among the goats. "So," he says, "is the resurrection of the dead": so that the righteous will shine with the brightness of the sun, and those in the next rank will glow with the splendor of the moon, so that one is the Morning Star, another Arcturus, another Orion, another the Mazzaroth, and the other names of stars contained in the sacred volume of Job. "For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive what he has done through the body, whether good or bad." And lest you should say that we are made manifest before Christ's judgment seat so that the good may receive good and the bad evil, he teaches in the same letter: "He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows in blessings will also reap of blessings." Certainly both he who sows more and he who sows less are on the right side; and though there is one kind of sowing, they differ in measure and number. The same Paul writes to the Ephesians: "That the manifold and varied wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places through the Church." Do you see that the varied and manifold wisdom of God is proclaimed in the different ranks of the Church? And in the same letter as well: "But to each of us grace was given according to the measure of the gift of Christ": not that the measure of Christ is different, but that as much of his grace is poured in as we are able to draw.