Jovinian was right

The blogger Zwinglius likes to praise mine own saint Jerome. I expect Jerome would think very little of Zwinglius' own blog. Anyway here's one where Jerome is his usual acerbic self - here, against one Jovinian.

In this case Zwinglius, as a liberal Protestant, would likely prefer Jovinian. I know I do.

Jovinian is one of those thinkers whose works and thoughts are preserved only from what their enemies cited of them. The classic(al) example is Celsus, who survives through Origen, Origen being a fairminded "fisker" as these things went. The last-word on Jovinian was from Jerome, whose thought on Perpetual Virginity became dominant and Jovinian thereby "discredited".

It turns out that Jovinian off-and-on has been revived by Protestants, seeking means around Latin Catholic dogmata. As to whether Jovinian deserves this revival, here follow his five-theses per newadvent =

1. That a virgin is no better as such than a wife in the sight of God.
2. Abstinence is no better than a thankful partaking of food.
3. A person baptized with the Spirit as well as with water cannot sin.
4. All sins are equal.
5. There is but one grade of punishment and one of reward in the future state.

I'll start with the third. This looks Muhammadan. Every Jew is baptised at the miqveh. For Jews and for Christians and for Veggie Tales, Jonah then had the Spirit and finally - delivering the Spirit to the sinners of Nineveh - sinned. Score that one for Jerome.

All sins are inequal, of course - but... do we in our own worlds know in our own hearts which of our sins caused the most damage? This can sometimes only be known years in advance. Say someone gets drunk, lies about some girl and then commits an assault against some guy. The violent assault is a crime, for which the man is arrested. But the latter victim shrugs off the bruises and carries on, especially since the Law has justly avenged his injury, so he lives his own life thereafter in peace. The former victim - where does she go to get her reputation back? It follows that although sins might be inequal, in our eyes and in G-d's; G-d alone knows which sins those be. We would be better off treating the one sin on par with the other. Jovinian probably gets this one on points.

The last comment leads against Purgatory... or does it? We might all (except Mary) taste punishment, until we've accepted what G-d requires to earn our reward. Jovinian's own thought might not have matured. Or Jerome might not have been fair to Jovinian.

Moving on to the first, I'll lay out my cards: Jovinian was right, and Jerome was he who was operating from a stance of immaturity. Infertility is evil in of itself, which if voluntary makes it a sin by definition.

Jerome tries to get around this Tatianism by comparing the "holy virgin" (an oxymoron) to gold where the virtuous wife or husband is silver. A house will not be made of pure gold; there is a place for silver, or iron and concrete - even straw (praise Christ Jerome did not include lead). Here all work together. I suppose this goes to Jerome's last couple points, that the Judgement will assign rank.

There are points about which sin turns out to have incidental effects or longlasting effects, which we might debate; but there is no debate - or should be no debate - about whether natalism itself be voluntary. G-d Himself told Noah and his family to be fruitful and to multiply. Jerome had better pray there be no ranks in the next world because his rank could well fall behind Jovinian's. Zwinglius', by my reading, has the worst-of-both-worlds here.