David G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient

Reviews / Vigiliae Christianae 65 (2011) 99-109 101 David G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy (Oxford Early Christian Studies), Oxford: OUP, 2009; xx+316 pp.; ISBN 978-0-19-956553-5; ₤ 26 (pb). The hardcover edition of this book, published in 2007, was not reviewed in this journal. Now that there is a paperback edition, it seemed useful to draw the readers’ attention to it. This is a thoroughly researched and well- written book, probably the best work there is on the Jovinianist controversy. At the end of the fourth century, the monk Jovinian sparked an immense theological controversy by his teaching that married and celibate Christians are equal in God’s sight. His work is lost, but it can be recon- structed on the basis of the works of those who combated him, mainly pope Siricius, bishop Ambrose, and especially the ever cantankerous Jerome, who launched an utterly vicious and unfair counterattack in his Adversus Jovinianum. This reconstruction is carried out very carefully and convincingly in the first chapter of Hunter’s book. In it he emphasizes that the essential element in Jovinian’s teaching is his conviction that there is only one reward in heaven for all those who have been born again in bap- tism and have kept their faith. Asceticism, however impressive it may be, does not change the basis fact that all true believers are of the same merit before God. In a fascinating second chapter, H. shows how fiercely debated matters of marriage and celibacy were in late fourth-century Rome (where Jovinian lived), not only between pagans and Christians, but also between ascetic Christians and their Christian opponents, especially the more well-to-do aristocratic Christians in Rome who often had sympathy for Jovinian’s view. He also demonstrates how, in the long run, the asceticists could win this debate because the Christian aristocratic upper class found ways to integrate asceticism into their lifestyle in such a way that they won more than they lost. Capter 3 reviews Christian discussion of marriage and celibacy in the first three centuries. H. shows how the role played by the Encratite heresy and its refutation facilitated regarding the new asceticism in the fourth century initially as heretical. In other words, Jovinian’s resis- tance to ascetic elitism was motivated by anti-heretical concerns. Especially the fact that the NT Pastoral Epistles spoke out so clearly in favour of marriage helped Jovinian’s predecessors, foremost among which are the Apolo- gists and Clement of Alexandria, to speak out against the elevation of asceticism above marriage. ‘The Pastoral Epistles provided a foundation on which developed a Christian tradition that favoured the emerging clerical hierarchy and conformity to the established values of Graeco-Roman soci- © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/157007210X530289 102 Reviews / Vigiliae Christianae 65 (2011) 99-109 ety’ (96), namely the high standards of conjugal morality, which became a recurrent theme in early Christian apologetics. Since the Apologists and Clement, the notion of ‘heresy’ was to include the encratite rejection of sexual intercourse and marriage. By the beginning of the third century Christian ‘orthodoxy’ entailed the acceptance of marriage and the repudia- tion of radical encratism. But in the first half of that century a different wind began to blow: Thinkers such as Tertullian, Cyprian, and Origen, ‘while avoiding the extremes of radical extremism, developed approaches to marriage and sexuality that echoed in significant ways the perspectives of Tatian and his followers’ (113). Central to this new discourse was the notion that celibacy is superior to marriage. In spite of its originally ‘heretic’ character, this notion gradually won the day and in the long run it definitively changed the character of Christian discourse on sexuality. Jerome’s frontal attack on Jovinian is largely inspired by Tertullian, and so later generations of Christians would be exposed to the latter’s encratism. Origen is another excellent example of the (moderate) encratite perspec- tive that became increasingly prominent in third-century ascetical discourse. ‘Although he did not embrace the full extremes of radical encratism, his reflections on the body and sexuality reflect the encratite dichotomies that we have seen in Tatian and elsewhere’ (126). But Jovinian’s affinities were clearly with the tradition articulated by the Pastoral Letters, the Apol- ogists, and Clement of Alexandria. So who is the ‘heretic’? In ch. 4, H. examines the persistence of this anti-heretical tradition in the late fourth century, esp. in the writings of Epiphanius, Filastrius, and Ambro- siaster. The emergence of monasticism, the spread of Manichaeism, and the imperial persecution of heresy were factors that conspired to render some forms of ascetic piety liable to accusations of heresy. There was, indeed a remarkable increase in accusations of heresy in the final decades of the fourth century, even to the point that Jovinian could accuse people like Jerome of ‘Manichaeism’ (precisely the useful passe-partout accusation that led to Priscillian of Avila’s condemnation and execution in 386!). Jovinian shared much in common with ‘orthodox’ fourth-century polemi- cists and was closer to the mainstream Christian opinion than his opponents would have us believe. It was all about the basic question whether God’s material creation is good and whether his command to be fruitful and multiply is still valid (as it always remained in Judaism) or revoked by the new covenant. H. convincingly argues that a continuous anti-encratite tradition, beginning in the second century, eventually found expression in the work of Jovinian and others. ‘Ambrosiaster suggested that those who criticize the work of God, such as human reproduction, do so because they .

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