Following his controversy with the Manicheans, Augustine briefly engaged in the Jovinianist controversy. The controversy had already been occurring for almost a decade with its leader, Jovinian, condemned in 393.25 Nevertheless, he obtained a substantial following causing enough ascetics to abandon their vows of celibacy and prompting Augustine to write against him in 401: On the Good of Marriage and On Holy Virginity.26 Jovinian, according to Jerome, chiefly argued against the growing position that special merit could be gained from ascetical practices and asserted there was no distinction between those who were married and those who were consecrated as virgins.27 Ambrose, and later Augustine, also report that Jovinian denied the belief that Mary maintained her
25 A synod at Rome under Siricius and one at Milan under Ambrose condemned Jovinian. There have been various dates proposed for the condemnation of Jovinian. Most scholars, however, believe the date to be 393, since Jerome‘s silence of the condemnation in Against Jovinian, and his subsequent mention of it in ep. 49.2 (394) suggests that he had no knowledge of the condemnation during the writing of Against Jovinian, which was certainly written in 393; see, J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and
Controversies (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 182. In 398, Emperors Honorius and Theodosius issued an imperial edict decreeing that Jovinian and his followers were to be flogged and banished to Boa (cod.
Theod. 16.5.53).
26 haer. 82 and retr. 2.22. I am following the traditional dating for these treatises. However, David Hunter offers a persuasive argument for a later dating; see ―Augustine, Sermon 354A: Its Place in His Thought on Marriage and Sexuality,‖ AugStud 33, no.1 (2002): 40-4, and Pierre-Marie Hombert, Nouvelles recherches de chronologie augustinienne (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 2000), 105-36.
27 Jerome‘s lists Jovinian‘s position in four theses in Adv. Iovinian. 1.3 (PL 23: 224): ―[1] virgines, viduas, et maritatas, quae semel in Christo lotae sunt, si non discrepent caeteris operibus, ejusdem esse meriti….
[2] qui plena fide in baptismate renati sunt, a diabolo non posse subverti…. [3] inter abstinentiam ciborum, et cum gratiarum actione perceptionem eorum, nullam esse distantiam…. [4] esse omnium qui suum baptisma servaverint, unam in regno coelorum remunerationem.‖
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virginity in partu.28 As David Hunter points out, baptism was the ―critical category‖
behind Jovinian‘s arguments.29 Jovinian believed that the emphasis on ascetical
superiority threatened the sanctifying role of baptism by shifting the corporate holiness of the church to a hierarchy of individuals. He also feared that the growing ascetical trend possessed Manichean sensibilities and that a theory advancing Mary‘s virginity in partu was a docetic denial of Christ‘s humanity.30
Despite his theological and scriptural justifications, Jovinian‘s position against the elevated status of virginity, as Peter Brown describes, ―touched a raw nerve in the clerical sensibility of his age,‖ and elicited harsh criticism, especially from Jerome.31 Jerome perceived Jovinian‘s position as fundamentally antinomian and contrary to God‘s justice, arguing that it placed a virtuous celibate on the same meritorious level as an adulterer;32 through an emphasis on 1 Corinthians 7:8, Jerome locates marriage between the virtue of celibacy and the evil of fornication, making marriage a lesser good or a better evil.33
Augustine, however, takes a via media approach. He refutes the extreme positions of Jovinian and Jerome and argues for both the goodness of marriage and the elevation of
28 Ambrose, ep. 42.4; Aug., c. Jul. 2.2.4. For the development of Marian piety, as well as the most comprehensive study on the Jovinian controversy in English, see David G. Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: the Jovinianist Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
29 David G. Hunter, ―Helvidius, Jovinian, and the Virginity of Mary in Late Fourth-Century Rome,‖ JECS 1, no. 1 (1993): 51. See also Hunter, ―Jovinian,‖ ATAE, 475-6.
30 Aug., c. Jul. 1.2.4; nupt. et conc. 2.15 and c. Jul. imp. 4.121-2; Jer., Adv. Iovinian. 1.5 and 9. For an excellent overview of the debate, see also David G. Hunter, ―Resistance to the Virginal Ideal in Late- Fourth-Century Rome: The Case of Jovinian,‖ TS 48 (1987): 45-65.
31 Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 360.
32 Adv. Iovinian. 1.4.
33 Adv. Iovinian. 1.8-9, 12-13.
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celibacy. He does so by turning the debate into an ecclesiological one and suggests both roles participate in what only the church as a corporate body possesses: holiness and motherhood. For Augustine, marriage is a participation in the first bond of society, and through its mutual fidelity and the procreation of children mimics the fecundity and unity of the church in a sacramental fashion;34 however, only the church can function as a spiritual mother, since parents cannot produce Christians physically.35 Virgins participate in the church‘s role as the virgin betrothed to Christ (2 Cor 11:2) and embody the eternal incorruptibility through their freedom from sexual relations;36 virgins can also spiritually participate in the motherhood of the church, as can all Christians who follow the will of God.37 While virgins physically embody their spiritual participation in the holiness of the church and can function as mothers spiritually, only the church is truly married to Christ and bears consecrated virgins.38 Whereas Jerome and Ambrose saw virgins as married to Christ, which is evident in their readings of Song of Songs, Augustine, like Jovinian, emphasizes the virgin church as the only spouse of Christ.39
34 b. conjug. 1, 3-4, 9, 21.
35 virg. 7.
36 virg. 2 and 54.
37 virg. 5.
38 virg. 2 and 11.
39 Elizabeth A. Clark, ―The Uses of Song of Songs: Origen and the Later Latin Fathers,‖ in Ascetic Piety W ‟ , ed. Elizabeth A. Clark (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1986), 386-427. For Jovinian‘s understanding of Song of Songs as well as a similar exegetical reading of Psalm 45, see David G. Hunter, ―The Virgin, the Bride, and the Church: Reading Psalm 45 in Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine,‖ ChHist 69, no. 2 (2000): 281-303.
129 3. Donatism and the Universal/Mixed Church
Coetaneous with involvement in the Jovinianist controversy, Augustine also directed his attention against the Donatists, and in doing so, developed a thoroughgoing ecclesiology in his attempt to rival the Donatist claim of being the true church in North Africa and the only one to offer a valid baptism. When Augustine entered into the debate, the North African church had been in schism for nearly ninety years. The schism
originated from the devastating effects of the Diocletian persecution (303-4).40 As with other preceding persecutions, many Christians, both clerical and lay, failed to uphold the discipline of the church, with many either denying Christ or surrendering sacred texts to the authorities (traditio). Consequently, questions concerning the holiness of the church arose once again, but this time they were centered on varied interpretations of Cyprian‘s ecclesiology. Because Cyprian had located the presence of the Holy Spirit within the unity of the college of bishops, the central concern became focused on the worthiness of clerics who had collaborated with imperial authorities.
This concern turned into an ecclesial conflict with the election of Caecilian as the bishop of Carthage. While Caecilian had a strong support base, some questioned the actions of Caecilian and his predecessor, Mensurius, during the Diocletian persecution.41 Those opposing Caecilian argued that his consecration was invalid not only because it
40 W. H. C. Frend, The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2000), 3-24.
41 See for instance, Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs, 20. However, the date of this document is debated.
Maureen A. Tilley keeps with the traditional dating prior to Caecilian‘s election in 311/2; see Donatist Martyr Stories: The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996), 25-7 and again in The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 57-69. Alan Dearn more recently has challenged the early dating, positing the terminus post quem of the text to be following the Council of Carthage in 411; see, ―The Abitinian Martyrs and the Outbreak of the Donatist Schism,‖ JEH 55, no. 1 (2004): 1-18.
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bypassed canonical procedure by not involving the Numidian primate but also because it was performed by someone suspected of being a traditor. In 312,42 a group of seventy Numidian bishops led by their episcopal primate, Secundus of Tigisi, declared that Caecilian‘s consecration was invalid and elected a new bishop, Majorinus, to replace him.43 Two factions formed between those who supported Caecilian and those who supported Majorinus and his successor, Donatus.
What began as a rivalry between two factions in North Africa became a matter of imperial involvement, which inevitably cemented the division between the two parties.
Majorinus and his party petitioned the emperor for imperial recognition, which was necessary for the reception of imperial subsidies. Constantine ordered an investigatory synod to be conducted under the auspices of the Roman bishop Miltiades, which decided in favor of Caecilian (5 Oct. 313). The party of Majorinus, however, quickly appealed on the grounds that Caecilian was deposed by a larger ecclesial council and that Miltiades was unfit to judge the case based on his own connection to traditores. In an attempt to pacify the party of Majorinus, the synod of Arles (1 August 314) was convened, which reaffirmed the prior decision of the Roman synod but also forbade the practice of rebaptizing Christians. Believing political machinations affected the decision at Arles, a Donatist delegation appealed to the emperor personally; however, Constantine reaffirmed the authority of the prior synods and decreed that Donatist properties were to be
confiscated and its leaders exiled. Donatist leaders refused to comply with the imperial
42 I prefer the traditional dating of 311/2 for Caecilian‘s consecration, as opposed to the early dating of 307/8. For support of later dating, see Frend, The Donatist Schism, 11-22 and W. H. C. Frend and K.
Clancy, ―When did the Donatist Schism Begin?,‖ JTS 28 (1977): 104-9. For support of earlier dating, see T. D. Barnes, ―The Beginnings of the Donatism,‖ JTS 26, no. 1 (1975): 18-20 and A. R. Birley, ―Some Notes on the Donatist Schism,‖ Libyan Studies 18 (1987): 29-41.
43 Here and throughout for the Donatist schism, I am largely following Frend, The Donatist Schism, 141-68 and Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo, 237-75.
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decision, which was met with sporadically severe bouts of imperial coercion, especially in the years of 317 to 321 and 346 to 348.44
Violence against the Donatists only strengthened their position that their cause was indeed the correct one. The Donatists, as Maureen A. Tilley demonstrates,
understood themselves as a collecta, a ritually pure group chosen by God.45 Although Catholics could point toward unworthy clerics within the Donatist ranks and later to the violence committed by the circumcellions, the Donatists understood themselves as the preservers of North African theology and practice.46 Against the Catholics whom they perceived as persecutors colluding with the imperial government, the Donatists saw their community as the one, true church, and as such, the exclusive possessors of the Holy Spirit. Appealing to Cyprian‘s baptismal theology, the Donatists insisted that any community other than their own was necessarily impure, and that those in communion with the Catholic Church, since it was in communion with traditores, lacked the Holy Spirit and its principal sacrament.47 Like Cyprian, the Donatists believed that baptisms performed outside of the community were not actual baptisms, and since they had never received the Holy Spirit, anyone converting required another baptism to be received into the community.48
44 See Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa, 57-76 and James Alexander, ―Count Taurinus and the Persecutors of Donatism,‖ Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 2 (1998): 247-67.
45 Maureen A. Tilley, ―Sustaining Donatist Self-Identity: From the Church of the Martyrs of the Collecta of the Desert,‖ JECS 5, no. 1 (1997): 21-35.
46 Barnes questions the account of Nundinarius, which both Optatus and Augustine relied upon in their denunciations against the Donatists for having traditores in their ranks; see ―The Beginnings of Donatism,‖
14-16.
47 c. litt. Pet. 2.25.58.
48 This did not always hold true, since Donatists did readmit without baptizing those who were baptized in communities that had schismed from their own ranks, such as the Maximianists. Augustine used this
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Against the claims of the Donatists, Augustine develops a different ecclesiology from that which had been traditionally espoused in North Africa. He does not rely simply on the notion of a pure or historical church, since the Donatists themselves were claiming themselves to be as such. Building on both Cyprian‘s and Optatus of Milevis‘s
ecclesiologies,49 Augustine constructs, as J. Patout Burns states, ―a form of church
identity which was positive rather than negative, inclusive rather than oppositional.‖50 On the one hand, Augustine maintains the Cyprianic notion that outside of the church
salvation is not possible. For him, the true church is pure, holy, and one. Yet, on the other hand, he takes seriously the human condition and acknowledges that the
temporal/historical church, which, while connected to the true church, nevertheless possesses sinners, as it is comprised of humans in a postlapsarian state. He often uses the parable of the weeds in Matthew 3:24-30 as scriptural evidence for this viewpoint.51 Augustine separates the church between its temporal/physical phase, which contains both sinners and saints, and its eschatological/spiritual phase, which is comprised only of the perfected communion of saints.52
Central to the debate between Augustine and the Donatists was the efficacy of baptism performed in other ecclesial communities. Because the church temporally
apparent liturgical inconsistency against the Donatists to argue for the universality of baptism (see bapt.
1.5.7, and c. litt. Pet. 1.11.12).
49 For Optatus‘ influence on Augustine, see Robert B. Eno, ―The Work of Optatus as a Turning Point in the African Ecclesiology,‖ The Thomist 37 (1973): 668-85, and Serge Lancel, Saint Augustine, trans. Antonia Nevill (London: SCM Press, 2002), 283.
50 J. Patout Burns, ―Establishing Unity in Diversity,‖ Perspectives in Religious Studies, 32, no. 4 (2005):
391.
51 bapt. 6.25.48.
52 civ. Dei. 20.9.
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included sinners, the sacrament of baptism could not be dependent upon the worthiness of the baptizer or the worthiness of the recipient.53 He argues that, if the presence of the Holy Spirit, which is required for baptism, is dependent upon the worthiness of an individual, then no one can be sure whether or not they have received an actual baptism;
therefore, he concludes that the sacrament must belong to Christ and the church
independent of the baptizer. For him, the necessary elements for a valid baptism are water and the proper invocation.54 The waters of baptism for Augustine are sanctified
independent of the minister by the utterance of Matthew 28:19, through which the recipient receives an indelible mark. He repeatedly likens this mark to a military tattoo (nota militaris).55 Just as in the military practice of the time, he argues that the
permanency of the mark precludes its repetition and serves as a reminder to whom allegiance is owed.56
Although Augustine maintains that baptism exists in heretical and schismatic churches, he makes a distinction between the existence and the effect of the sacrament.57 Interpreting Matthew 18:18 as referring to the community of saints, Augustine argues that the power of forgiveness belongs exclusively to the church within the bonds of charity. While a baptism can be received outside of the true church, its effects cannot.58
53 bapt. 4.10.17.
54 bapt. 3.10.15.
55 bapt. 1.4.5; c. ep. Parm. 2.29; en. Ps. 39.1; s. 260A.2.
56 For a more thorough analysis of this analogy and its relationship to the Donatist polemic, see my study,
―On the Mark: Augustine‘s Baptismal Analogy of the Nota Militaris,‖ AugStud 38, no. 2 (2007): 353-63.
57 bapt. 1.14.22 and 19.29; c. litt. Pet. 2.35.82; Jo. ev. tr. 5.
58 bapt. 5.28.39. It is unclear whether Augustine understands baptism in heretical/schismatic churches to be momentarily efficacious in the forgiveness of sins or not at all due to the separation from the Church; for a strong analysis of the genetic development of Augustine‘s thought concerning the Holy Spirit in
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Using the Petrine typological association of Noah‘s ark with baptism (1 Peter 3:20-1), Augustine argues that only within the unity of the church is forgiveness possible. Unlike Cyprian and the Donatists, he locates the church not in a local community or college of bishops but in the universal community of saints. As such, anyone outside of the Catholic Church cannot receive the effects of baptism, since their physical separation manifests their internal separation from unity. Physical presence in the Catholic Church did not, however, necessarily guarantee salvation either, since an individual could be separated spiritually from the true church. By separating the existence and efficacy of baptism in such a fashion, Augustine retains the exclusivity of the church and guarantees its perfected holiness in spite of claims made by the Donatists. This notion becomes a central feature in Augustine‘s use of mater ecclesia during this time period.