De bono coniugali and De sancta virginitate

Abstract The Good of Marriage and On Holy Virginity are separate treatises but closely interconnected as comparing these modes of Christian commitment. They were composed in the same year, a.d. 401. Augustine had personal experience of both states, having had two concubines (he fathered a son by the first) and having lived a celibate life following his conversion in a.d. 386. His treatment of marriage and consecrated virginity is rooted in the New Testament, above all in Paul's I Cor. 7, and is indebted to earlier Christian discussions, especially those of Ambrose. The two works are directed against the Manichees on the one hand, who argued that marriage and procreation were evil, and on the other, to repair the damage done by the controversy between Jovinian (arguing that the married state was as meritorious as virginity) and Jerome (who in exalting virginity denigrated marriage).