Jovinian, a former monk, taught that virginity was no higher than marriage, that fasting was no better than eating with thanks, and that the baptized could not fall. St. Jerome answers him in two long books.
He overstates his case in places, as the Church later noted, but the book shows how seriously the early Church took ascetic struggle.
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About this edition
Translated by W. H. Fremantle, with G. Lewis and W. G. Martley, in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 6 (1893), edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace.
This translation is in the public domain. We took the text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library and left out the editors’ footnotes.
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