A couple of weeks ago, I said that I would be redirecting my focus from the Origenist Controversy to the Jovinian Controversy. And by that I don’t mean an explicit break from what we’ve learned from Origen, Epiphanius, Theophilus, Evagrius, Rufinus or Jerome. Rather, I am changing emphases, in such a way that will not only bring greater light to even the Origenist Controversy (for we are not so soon leaving Palestine and the Bethlehem Monastery), and then to the Jerome’s later controversy with Pelagius.
For the remarkable thing about the Jovinian Controversy, which makes it pertinent to our purposes, is that from it, the English, wrestler-like ascetic Pelagius emerges as a critic of Jerome’s Against Jovinianus. And so, this controversy is invaluable if one wishes to understand Jerome’s later anti-pelagian polemics, as well as Pelagius’ theology. Furthermore, Augustine is prompted to begin his first treatises in support of marriage and virginity, which would lead him on the trajectory of an unavoidable collision with Jerome’s English critic.
In the following posts, I will attempt to delve into the Jovinian Controversy by examining the players, the politics, the social-networks, and the theology involved therein. I will make much use of David G. Hunter’s Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy, the most comprehensive book on the subject in the English language, as well as the similarly scholarly books, The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire by Michele Salzman, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies by J.N.D. Kelly, and The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity by Peter Brown. For primary texts, I will be utilizing the letters and treatises of Jerome as found in the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers series, vol. 6, which have been skillfully translated into English by the Hon. W.H. Fremantle, M.A. The writings of Augustine I will be using have come from the first series of The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, and, finally, an English translation of Pelagius’ letters on virginity and to certain virgins can be found in B.R. Rees’ prestigious volume, Pelagius: Life and Letters (as well as a catalogue of his writings in Quastens’ Patrology, volume IV). This list of sources would also remain incomplete if I did not once more mention the formative role Robert F. Evans’ research has played in my investigation of these topics, especially his insightful little book, Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals.
So, then, on to Jerome, Jovinian, and the Jovinian Controversy.
