I'm not sure how much truth we can credit Jerome with in respect of Jovinian. He set out to represent Jovinian as a paragon of licentiousness. In
Book II Jerome accused Jovinian of being a de facto Latin reincarnation of Basildes.
"
Basilides, the master of licentiousness and the grossest sensuality, after the lapse of so many years, and like a second Euphorbus, was changed by transmigration into Jovinian, so that the Latin tongue might have a
heresy of its own. Was there no other province in the whole world to receive the gospel of pleasure, and into which the serpent might insinuate itself, except that which was founded by the teaching of Peter, upon the rock Christ? Idol temples had fallen before the standard of the Cross and the severity of the
Gospel: now on the contrary
lust and
gluttony endeavour to overthrow the solid structure of the Cross."
Jerome further accuses Jovinian of being at the head of an army of worldings:
"But the very women, unhappy creatures! Though they deserve no pity, who chant the words of their instructor (for what does God require of them but to become mothers?), have lost not only their chastity, but all sense of shame, and defend their licentious practices with an access of impudence. You have, moreover, in your army many subalterns, you have your guardsmen and your skirmishers at the outposts, the round-bellied, the well-dressed, the exquisites, and noisy orators, to defend you with tooth and nail. The noble make way for you, the wealthy print kisses on your face. For unless you had come, the drunkard and the glutton could not have entered paradise. All honor to your virtue, or rather to your vices! You have in your camp, even amazons with uncovered breasts, bare arms and knees, who challenge the men who come against them to a battle of lust. Your household is a large one, and so in your aviaries not only turtle-doves, but hoopoes are fed, which may wing their flight over the whole field of rank debauchery. Pull me to pieces and scatter me to the winds: tax me with what offenses you please: accuse me of luxurious and delicate living: you would like me better if I were guilty, for I should belong to your herd."
"Beware of the name of
Jovinianus. It is derived from that of an idol. [That is, Jove.] The Capitol is in ruins: the temples of Jove with their ceremonies have perished. Why should his name and vices flourish now in the midst of you, when even in the time of Numa Pompilius, even under the sway of kings, your ancestors gave a heartier welcome to the self-restraint of Pythagoras than they did under the consuls to the debauchery of Epicurus?"
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Jerome's contrary views in
Book I are extreme, ranging from near idolatry of virginity (synonymous with the worship of the Magna Mater Cybele), to purported advocacy of self-castration for men:
"The virtue of woman is, in a special sense, purity....Let my married sisters copy the examples of Theano, Cleobuline, Gorgente, Timoclia, the Claudias and Cornelias; and when they find
the Apostle conceding second marriage to depraved women, they will read that before the light of our religion shone upon the world wives of one husband ever held high rank among matrons, that by their hands the sacred
rites of Fortuna Muliebris were performed, that a
priest or Flamen twice married was unknown,
that the high-priests of Athens to this day emasculate themselves by drinking hemlock, and once they have been drawn in to the pontificate, cease to be men."
"And yet John, one of the disciples, who is related to have been the youngest of the Apostles, and who was a virgin when he embraced Christianity, remained a virgin,
and on that account was more beloved by our Lord, and lay upon the breast of Jesus" [never says any such thing in the bible].
An anecdote of Zosimus tells how Constantine imported a statue of the Mother of the gods from Kyzikos, one of her major cult centers, and had it adapted to a statue of the Virgin Mary [
Source].
Jerome seems to be unaware of how his appeal to the practices of pagan priests, and his idolatry of virginity, could be construed as confounding Christianity with the eastern cults of paganism.
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Jerome's bizarre views are further propounded in his treatise against Helvidius, composed at Rome in 383. Jerome had responded to Helvidius's use of Gen 1:28 by maintaining that the Old Testament edicts were no longer binding on Christians: "Be fruitful and multiply" was
abrogated by 1 Cor 7:9 ("The time is short; from now on let those who have wives live as though they had none"). [contrariwise Jesus - Matt 5:18].
Jerome explains: "The reason why the wood grows up is that it may be cut down. The field is sown that it may be reaped. The world is already full, and the population is too large for the soil." In Ep. 22, Jerome argued that in the beginning, when the world was empty, it was quite appropriate that the blessing of children should be promised. "But as the crop gradually increased, a reaper was sent in."
Jerome views are echoed by encratites such as Hieracas. "Hieracas was a learned ascetic who flourished about the end of the 3rd century AD at
Leontopolis in Egypt, where he lived to the age of ninety, supporting himself by calligraphy and devoting his leisure to scientific and literary pursuits, especially to the study of the Bible. He was the author of Biblical commentaries in Greek and Coptic, and is said to have composed many hymns. He became leader of the so-called sect of the Hieracites, an ascetic society from which married persons were excluded, and of which one of the leading tenets was that only the celibate could enter the kingdom of heaven." [
Source].
Jerome can be charged emulating the encratic heresy of Hieracas. According to Athanasius, who refuted Hieracas in his First Letter to Virgins, Hieracas held that ‘marriage is evil inasmuch as virginity is good,’ Ep. virg. 24; trans. in David Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (OECS; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 282. Hieracas saw marriage in the Old Testament as allowed, but taught that Christ imposed celibacy on all believers.
David G. Hunter (p.131 "Marriage Heresy and Celibary"): "Although the ascetical teachings of Hieracas were later to become associated with Manichaeism, it is clear that Hieracas had much more in common with the ancient encratite tradition. Like Tatian, Hieracas appears to have based his call to ascetic renunciation on a radical interpretation of the sayings of Jesus and Paul. By all accounts, then, the ascetical theology of Hieracas represented a continuation of Tatian's radical encratism in fourth-century monastic garb. (Susanna Elm has suggested that the radicalism of Hieracas may have been a ‘strand of asceticism prevalent in all of Egypt’ throughout the fourth century. See her
‘Virgins of God’: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 339–42, quotation at 341. Later Byzantine Christians associated Hieracas with the Manicheans: S. Lieu, ‘An Early Byzantine Formula for the Renunciation of Manichaeism: the Capita VII Contra Manichaeos of (Zacharias of Mitylene)’, JAC 26 (1983), 152–218.
Epiphanius (Haer. 67.8.3) accuses the Hieracites of fostering the practice of ‘surreptitious wives’ (συνεισάκτους γυνα κας), that is, ascetic women who lived with ascetic men in a spiritual partnership. ‘No one can worship with them without being a virgin, a monk, continent or a widow’ (Haer. 67.2.9). [cf.
De Cent.]
Further on Hieracas, see James E. Goehring, ‘Hieracas of Leontopolis: The Making of a Desert Ascetic’, in his Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Early Egyptian Monasticism (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 110–33.
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[cont.]
