26. How did the Early Church view the idea that all sins were equal?
A. Heresy of the Stoics
B. Heresy of the Nestorians
C. Heresy of the Donatists
ANSWER: A - Heresy of the Stoics. For 2,000 years, the Catholic Church has taught that there are degrees of sin (venial and mortal).
In a letter to St. Jerome, St. Augustine wrote: "The Stoics alone dared to argue the equality of all sins, against every experience of the human race. In following that opinion of theirs Jovinian showed himself a Stoic, though he was an Epicurean in grasping after and defending pleasures. You refuted him brilliantly from the Holy Scriptures (33). [Letter of Augustine to Jerome (32) 415 A.D., [167, 2, 4] See Jurgens Volume 3, page 9)
Mortal sin article (with Biblical citations)
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