Against Jovinian 2.33–2.38

So far we have answered the propositions part by part; the following discourse will answer them all in common. The Lord says to his disciples: "Whoever wishes to be greater among you, let him be the least of all." If we are all to be equal in heaven, we humble ourselves here in vain, so as to be greater there. Of the two debtors, of five hundred denarii and fifty, he to whom more is forgiven loves more. That is why the Savior says: "I tell you, her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much; but he to whom less is forgiven loves less." He who loves less, and to whom less is forgiven, will certainly be in a lower rank. The householder, going on a journey, handed over his property to his servants, to one five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his own ability. Something similar is written in another Gospel: that a nobleman, going to a far country to receive a kingdom for himself and return, called ten servants and gave each of them a mina; of whom one gained ten minas, another five; and each, according to his ability and gain, received either ten or five cities. Further, another, who had received one talent or one mina, buried what he had received or tied it up in a handkerchief, and kept it for his master's coming. First we must consider that if the righteous labor not in hope of advancement, as our Zeno would have it, but so as not to lose what they had received, then the one who buried the mina and the talent, so as not to lose what he had received, did not sin; and the caution of the one who kept it is more to be praised than the useless labor of those who sweated without reward for their labor. Next, that this very talent which is taken from the timid or negligent servant is given not to the one who had gained less, but to the one who had gained more, that is, the one who had been set over ten cities. If number does not make rank, why did he say, "He gave to each according to his own ability"? If the gains of five talents and of ten are the same, why are not ten cities given to the one who had gained less and five to the one who had gained more? And that the Lord is not content with what we have but always desires greater things, he himself shows when he says: "Why did you not give my money to the bankers, so that when I came I might have demanded it with interest?" The apostle Paul too, knowing this, forgets what is behind and stretches out to what is ahead, that is, advances daily; nor does he keep the grace he received daintily in a handkerchief, but as a greedy trader is renewed day by day and thinks he is decreasing unless he is always increasing. Six cities of refuge are described in the Law for those who had killed men unintentionally; and these cities are priestly cities. I should like to ask whether you place these fugitives among your goats or among our sheep. If they were goats, they would be killed like other murderers and would not enter the cities of God's ministers. If you say sheep, they will certainly not be such sheep as graze with complete freedom and without fear of wolves. And it will be proved to you that they are indeed sheep, but straying ones; at the right hand, yet not standing but fleeing, until the high priest dies and, descending to the underworld, sets free the souls of the fugitives. The Gibeonites come to meet the children of Israel, and when the other nations are cut down, they are kept as woodcutters and water-carriers. And they are of such merit with God that the line of Saul was destroyed because of the wrongs done to them. Among whom will you place them? Among the goats? But they were not killed, and they are avenged by the Lord's sentence. Among the sheep? But divine Scripture says they were not of the same merit as the Israelites. You see, then, that they stand at the right, but in a much lower rank. Between David, a holy man, and Saul, a most wicked king, Jonathan was in the middle. We can neither put him among the kids, since he is worthy of the prophet's love, nor among the rams, lest we make him equal to David, especially since he too was killed. He will be, then, among the sheep, but in a lower order. And as between David and Jonathan, so between sheep and sheep you are compelled to accept differences. "The servant who knew his master's will and did not prepare, nor act according to his will, will be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know and did things worthy of stripes will be beaten with few. For to everyone to whom much is given, much will be required of him; and to whom much is entrusted, more will be demanded of him." See, more or less is entrusted to one servant and another, and according to the quality of what was entrusted and of the sin, the number of stripes too is imposed.

The whole description of the land of Judea and of the tribes is a type of the future Church in heaven. Let us read Joshua the son of Nun, let us read the last parts of Ezekiel, and we shall see that what in the one is distributed on earth as history, in the other is promised spiritually in heaven. What do the seven and eight steps in the description of the temple mean? What again does it mean that in the Psalter, after the letters of the hundred and eighteenth psalm, by which we are taught a mystical alphabet, we arrive by fifteen steps at the point where we can sing: "Behold now, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God"? Why do two and a half tribes live beyond the Jordan, where there is much cattle, while the remaining nine and a half either drive the former inhabitants from their homes or live with them? Why does the tribe of Levi receive no portion in the land, but the Lord is its portion; and among the Levites and priests themselves, only the high priest enters the Holy of Holies, where the cherubim and the mercy seat are? Why do the other priests use only linen garments, and not have the vestment woven with gold, blue, scarlet, purple, and fine linen? The Levites and priests of the lower rank receive wagons and oxen; those of the higher order carry the ark of the Lord on their shoulders. If you take away the order of the tabernacle, the temple, the Church; if all who are at the right hand are approved, as the saying goes, for one pay of soldiering, then bishops are in vain, presbyters for nothing, deacons without cause. Why do virgins persevere? Why do widows labor? Why do married women keep continent? Let us all sin, and after repentance we shall be the same as the apostles are!

But now we have begun to see land from the open sea, and after mountains of waves and foaming billows, and the ship now lifted on high, now plunging into the depths, little by little the harbor opens to the weary and exhausted. We have spoken of married women, widows, virgins. We have preferred virginity to widowhood, widowhood to marriage. The passage of the Apostle discussing questions of this kind has been expounded, and each objection answered. Secular literature too has been brought into view: which women were virgins, which were married once, and on the other hand what troubles the marriage bond sometimes has. We passed to the second division, in which he denies that those who have received baptism with full faith can afterwards sin. And we taught that, except God, every creature is subject to fault; not that all have sinned, but that they can sin, and the fall of their like is a fear to those who stand. Third, we came to fasts; and since our opponent's proposition had been twofold, appealing either to the philosophers or to the examples of the divine Scriptures, we too answered both. The fourth, that is the last division, had distributed sheep and goats, right and left, the righteous and sinners, into two orders, wishing to show that there is no difference between righteous and righteous, sinner and sinner. And to prove this he had heaped up countless examples from the Scriptures, as if they agreed with his sense. To this question we have answered with arguments and with examples from the Scriptures, and have crushed the old opinion of Zeno by common sense as well as by divine reading.

It now remains to address our Epicurus, wallowing in his little gardens among young men and silly women. The fat, the sleek, the whitened favor you. Add, if you like, after the Socratic jest, all the pigs and dogs, and, since you love flesh, the vultures too, eagles, hawks, and owls. The multitude of Aristippus will never frighten us. Whomever I see handsome, whomever curled, with hair arranged and cheeks ruddy, they belong to your herd, or rather they grunt among your pigs. Those of our flock are sad, pale, poorly dressed, and like strangers in this world; though silent in speech, they speak by dress and bearing: "Woe is me, that my sojourning is prolonged; I have dwelt with the dwellings of Kedar," that is, in the darkness of this world, because "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." Do not boast that you have many disciples. The Son of God taught in Judea, and only twelve apostles followed him. "I have trodden the winepress alone," he says, "and of the nations there is no man with me." In his passion he remained alone, and even Peter's constancy toward him wavered; but the whole people applauded the teaching of the Pharisees, saying: "Crucify, crucify such a man. We have no king but Caesar"; that is, we follow vices, not virtues; Epicurus, not Christ; Jovinian, not the apostle Paul. That many assent to your opinion is a sign of pleasure; for they do not so much approve you speaking as favor their own vices. In the circles of the streets every day a sham soothsayer beats the buttocks of fools and, with a twisted stick, knocks the teeth of those who bite; and yet there is always someone to be taken in. And do you count it great wisdom if more pigs run after you, whom you fatten as bacon for Gehenna? Since your preaching, and the baths in which men and women wash together, all the incontinence which formerly covered burning lust with the garments, as it were, of modesty has been stripped bare and exposed: what was hidden before is now in the open. You have revealed such disciples; you have not made them. Your teaching has achieved this, that sins do not even have repentance. Your virgins, whom with most prudent counsel, such as no one ever read or heard, you taught from the Apostle, "It is better to marry than to burn," have turned secret adulterers into open husbands. The Apostle did not urge this, not the vessel of election. It is Virgil's counsel:

It is nearly four hundred years since the preaching of Christ has shone in the world. Since then countless heresies have torn his tunic; almost all error had come from the Chaldean, Syriac, and Greek languages. Basilides, the master of luxury and the most shameful embraces, after so many years has been transformed into Jovinian as into Euphorbus, so that the Latin language too might have its heresy. Was there no other province in the whole world to receive the preaching of pleasure, into which the twisting serpent might creep, but the one which Peter's teaching had founded upon the rock, Christ? The standard of the cross and the austerity of preaching had destroyed the temples of idols; on the other side, the luxury of the penis, the belly, and the throat strives to overthrow the strength of the cross. That is why God speaks through Isaiah: "My people, those who call you blessed deceive you and confuse the paths of your feet." And through Jeremiah as well: "Flee from the midst of Babylon, and let each save his soul; and do not believe the false prophets, who say 'Peace, peace,' and there is no peace"; who keep repeating, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." "Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish things; they have not uncovered your iniquity to call you to repentance"; "who devour God's people as they eat bread; they have not called upon God." Jeremiah, announcing captivity, was stoned by the people. Hananiah the son of Azzur broke wooden yokes for the present and prepared iron ones for the future. False prophets always promise sweet things and please for a little while. Truth is bitter, and those who preach it are filled with bitterness. For the Lord's Passover is celebrated with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, and is eaten with bitter herbs. A fine voice indeed, for the bride of Christ to hear among virgins and widows and the celibate (whence the very name is given them, because those who abstain from intercourse are worthy of heaven): "Fast seldom, marry often. For you cannot fulfill the works of marriage unless you take honeyed wine, meat, and nuts. Strength is needed for lust. Flesh soon wastes and withers. Do not fear sexual immorality. He who has once been baptized in Christ cannot fall; for he has the comfort of marriage to work off his lusts. And even if you do fall, repentance will restore you; and you who were hypocrites in baptism will be of solid faith in repentance. Nor be troubled, thinking that there is any difference between the righteous and the penitent, and that a lower rank grants pardon but takes away the crown. For there is one reward. He who stands at the right will enter the kingdom of heaven." By these counsels your swineherds are richer than our shepherds, and the goats drag very many she-goats with them. "They have become like maddened horses after the mares"; as soon as they see women, they neigh after them, and, shameful to say, console their incontinence with examples from the Scriptures. And the silly women themselves, wretched and not deserving pity, chanting their teacher's words ("For what does God seek but seed?"), have lost not only chastity but shame as well, and defend their lust with greater boldness than they practice it. You have besides many reserves in your army, buffoons and skirmishers on guard, fat, groomed, sleek, loud, who defend you with fists and heels. The nobles make way for you, the rich kiss your head. For had you not come, the drunken and belching could not enter paradise! Well done, your virtue, or rather your vices! You have in your camp Amazons too, with one breast bare and arm and knee naked, challenging the men who come against them to the battle of lusts. And since you are a wealthy householder, in your aviaries not turtledoves but hoopoes are kept, which fly around all the dens of fetid pleasure. Pluck me, scatter me, throw at me whatever charges you like, accuse me of luxury and delicacies: you will love me more if I am such, for I shall be of your herd.

But I will speak to you, who have wiped out by the confession of Christ the blasphemy written on your forehead. Mighty city, city mistress of the world, city praised by the Apostle's voice, interpret your name. Rome is a name either of strength among the Greeks or of loftiness according to the Hebrews. Keep what you are called: let virtue make you lofty, not pleasure low. The curse which the Savior threatened against you in the Apocalypse you can escape by repentance, having the example of the Ninevites. Beware of the name of Jovinian, which is derived from the idol Jove. The Capitol is squalid, the temples and ceremonies of Jupiter have fallen. Why should his name and his vices flourish among you? Even under the kings, and under Numa Pompilius, your ancestors more readily accepted the continence of Pythagoras than under the consuls the luxury of Epicurus.