On the Good of Marriage: 27 (Lighthouse Church Fathers)

This treatise and the following were written against somewhat that still remained of the heresy of Jovinian. S. Aug. mentions this error in b. ii. c. 23 de Nuptiis et Conc. Jovinianus he says who a few years since tried to found a new heresy said that the Catholics favored the Manichæans because in opposition to him they preferred holy Virginity to Marriage. And in his book on Heresies c. 82. That heresy took its rise from one Jovinianus a Monk in our own time when we were yet young. And he adds that it was soon overborne and extinguished say about A.D.390 having been condemned first at Rome then at Milan. There are letters of Pope Siricius on the subject to the Church of Milan and the answer sent him by the Synod of Milan at which St. Ambrose presided. Jerome had refuted Jovinian but was said to have attempted the defense of the excellency of the virgin state at the expense of condemning marriage. That Augustin might not be subject to any such complaint or calumny before speaking of the superiority of Virginity he thought it well to write on the Good of Marriage. This work we learn to have been finished about the year 401 not only from the order of his Retractations but also from his books on Genesis after the Letter begun about that year. For in b. ix. on Genesis c. 7 where he commends the Good of Marriage he says: Now this is threefold faithfulness offspring and the Sacrament. For faithfulness it is observed that there be no lying with other man or woman out of the bond of wedlock: for the offspring that it be lovingly welcomed kindly nourished religiously brought up: for the Sacrament that marriage be not severed and that man or woman divorced be not joined to another even for the sake of offspring. This is as it were the rule of Marriages by which rule either fruitfulness is made seemly or the perverseness of incontinence is brought to order. Upon which since we have sufficiently discoursed in that book which we lately published on the Good of Marriage where we have also distinguished the Widows continence and the Virgins excellency according to the worthiness of their degrees our pen is not to be now longer occupied. This very work is referred to in Book I. on the Deserts and Remission of Sins c. 29. --Bened. Ed.