Jeannie Sellick: Female Bodies, Male Asceticism: Why the Jovinian Controversy Hinges on Female Virginity

Recent years have seen an increased interest in the controversy over the teachings of the monk Jovinian, which played out in Rome and its environs during the closing decades of the fourth century. Jovinian had scandalized many in the ranks of the Italian clergy by arguing that there was no difference in merit between married, widowed, and virgin Christian women. His most aggressive detractor was the pugnacious presbyter Jerome, whose two-volume treatise Against Jovinian is our most extensive source of information about Jovinian’s teaching. This paper examines Jovinian's ideology and Jerome's response from a perspective that has not been significantly emphasized in recent scholarship – that of gender. In both Jovinian’s mind and Jerome’s response, the issue of whether or not virginity was better than marriage rested squarely on female shoulders (or rather, female genitalia). During an age in which both female and male virginity was seen as a superior state, why did these two men place women’s bodies at the center of their debate? This paper will serve as an exploration of why the issue female marital status loomed so large in the minds of Jovinian, Jerome, and their other 4th century colleagues. In an attempt to answer this question, I look to the omnipresent discussions of female virginity in the 4th century as well as examine how the controversy can be viewed as a competition between Jovinian and Jerome for the patronage of a powerful group in Rome – wealthy patrician women.