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| Introduction.
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Introduction.
Very little is known of
the author of the following Treatise. He writes under the assumed name
of Peregrinus, but Gennadius of Marseilles,398
| 398 De Scriptoribus
Ecclesiasticis. Gennadius’s work is to be found at the end of
the second volume of Vallarsius’s edition of St. Jerome’s
works. |
who flourished a.d. 495, some sixty years
after its date, ascribes it to Vincentius, an inmate of the famous
monastery of Lérins, in the island of that name,399
| 399 Now St. Honorat, so called from St.
Honoratus, the founder of the monastery.
The monastery seems at first to have consisted of an
aggregation of separate cells, each of which, according to the usage of
that time, would be called a “monasterium.” “Tota
ubique insula, exstructis cellulis, unum velut monasterium
evasit.”—Cardinal
Noris, Histor. Pelag. p. 251.
“Monasterium potest unius monachi habitaculum
nominari.”—Cassian.
Collat. xvii. 18.
Among its more prominent members,
contemporary with Vincentius, were Honoratus and Hilary, afterwards
successively bishops of Arles, and Faustus, afterwards bishop of Riez,
all of them in sympathy with the neighbouring clergy of Marseilles,
opposed to St. Augustine’s later teaching, and holding what was
afterwards called Semipelagian doctrine.
The adjoining islet of St. Marguérite, one of the Lérins group, has acquired notoriety of late, from
having been the place to which Marshal Bazaine, the betrayer of Metz,
was banished in 1873. | and his ascription has been universally
accepted.
Vincentius was of Gallic nationality. In earlier
life he had been engaged in secular pursuits, whether civil or military
is not clear, though the term he uses, “secularis militia,”
might possibly imply the latter. He refers to the Council of Ephesus,
held in the summer and early autumn of 431, as having been held some
three years previously to the time at which he was writing “ante
triennium ferme.”400
This gives the date of
the Commonitory 434. Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, was still
living.401
Sixtus the Third had succeeded to the See of
Rome;402
his predecessor, Celestine, having died in
432. Gennadius says that Vincentius died, “Theodosio et
Valentiniano regnantibus.”403
| 403 De Illustr. Eccles.
Scrip. c. 84. | Theodosius
died, leaving Valentinian still reigning, in July, 450.
Vincentius’ death, therefore, must have occurred in or before
that year.
Baronius places his name in the Roman Martyrology,
Tillemont doubts whether with sufficient reason.404
He is commemorated on the 24th of May.
Vincentius has been charged with Semipelagianism.
Whether he actually held the doctrine which was afterwards called by
that name is not clear. Certainly the express enunciation of it is
nowhere to be found in the Commonitory. But it is extremely probable
that at least his sympathies were with those who held it. For not only
does he omit the name of St. Augustine, who was especially obnoxious to
them, when making honorable mention at any time of the champions of the
faith, but he denounces his doctrine, though under a misrepresentation
of it, as one of the forms of that novel error which he
reprobates.405
| 405 Cardinal Noris does not
hesitate to say of him, “Non modo Semipelagianum se prodit, sed
disertis verbis Augustini discipulos tanquam hæreticos
traducit.”—Historia Pelagiana, p. 245. See
below, Appendix II. | Indeed, whoever will
compare what he says in § 70 of the heresy which he describes but
forbears to name, with Prosper’s account of the charges brought
against Augustine by certain Semipelagian clergymen of
Marseilles,406
| 406 See Prosper’s
letter to Augustine in Augustine’s works, Ep. 225, Tom. ii. Ed.
Paris, 1836, etc. | will have little
doubt that Vincentius and they had the same teacher in view, and were
of the same mind with regard to his teaching.
Be this however as it may, when it is
considered that the monks of Lérins, in common with the general
body of the churchmen of Southern Gaul, were strenuous upholders of
Semipelagianism, it will not be thought surprising that Vincentius
should have been suspected of at least a leaning in that direction.
Tillemont, who forbears to express himself decidedly, but evidently
inclines to that view, says “L’opinion qui
le condamne et l’abandonne aux Semipelagiens passe
aujourd’hui pour la plus commune parmi les
savans.”407
It has been matter of question whether Vincentius is to
be credited with the authorship of the “Objectiones
Vincentianæ,” a collection of Sixteen Inferences alleged to
be deducible from St. Augustine’s writings, which has come down
to us in Prosper’s Reply.
Its date coincides so nearly with that of the
Commonitory as to preclude all doubt as to the identity of authorship
on that score,408
| 408 The Objectiones
Vincentianæ must have been published at some time between
the publication of St. Augustine’s Antipelagian Treatises and the
death of Prosper. They are to be found in Prosper’s Reply,
contained in St. Augustine’s works, Appendix, Tom. x. coll. 2535.
et seq. Paris, 1836, etc. | and it must be
confessed that its animus and that of the 70th and 86th sections of the
Commonitory are too much in keeping to make it difficult to believe
that both are from the same pen.
Vincentius’s object in
the following treatise is to provide himself, as he states, with a
general rule whereby to distinguish Catholic truth from heresy; and he
commits what he has learnt, he adds, to writing, that he may have it by
him for reference as a Commonitory, or Remembrancer, to refresh his
memory.
This rule, in brief, is the authority of Holy
Scripture. By that all questions must be tried in the first instance.
And it would be abundantly sufficient, but that, unfortunately, men
differ in the interpretation of Holy Scripture. The rule, therefore,
must be supplemented by an appeal to that sense of Holy Scripture which
is supported by universality, antiquity, and consent: by universality,
when it is the faith of the whole Church; by antiquity, when it is that
which has been held from the earliest times; by consent, when it has
been the acknowledged belief of all, or of almost all, whose office and
character gave authority to their determinations. This is the famous
“Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus,” with which
Vincentius’s name is associated.409
The
body of the work is taken up with its illustration and
application.
The work consisted originally of two books; but
unfortunately the second was lost, or rather, as Gennadius says, was
stolen, while the author was still alive; and there remains to us
nothing but a recapitulation of its contents, which the author,
unwilling to encounter the labour of rewriting the whole, has drawn
up.410
In prosecution of his purpose Vincentius proceeds
to show how his rule applies for the detection of error in the
instances of some of the more notorious heretics and schismatics who up
to his time had made havoc of the Church,—the Donatists and the
Arians, for instance, and the maintainers of the iteration of Baptism;
and how the great defenders of the Faith were guided in their
maintenance of the truth by its observance.411
But the perplexing question occurs: Wherefore, in
God’s providence, were persons, eminent for their attainments and
their piety, such as Photinus, Apollinaris, and Nestorius, permitted to
fall into heresy?412
To which the answer
is, For the Church’s trial. And Vincentius proceeds to show, in
the case of each of these, how great a trial to the Church his fall
was. This leads him to give an account of their erroneous teaching
severally,413
from which he
turns aside for a while to expound the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity
as opposed to the heresy of Photinus, and of the Incarnation as opposed
to the heresies of Apollinaris and Nestorius, in an exposition
remarkable for its clearness and precision.414
It
contains so much in common with the so-called Athanasian Creed, both as
to the sentiments and the
language, that some have inferred from
it, that Vincentius was the author of that Formulary.415
| 415 Antelmi, Nova de Symbolo Athanasiano Disquisitio.
See the note on § 42, Appendix I. |
Returning from this digression, Vincentius
proceeds, after promising to deal with these subjects more fully on a
future occasion,416
to two other very
signal instances of heretical defection caused by the disregard of
antiquity and universality; those of Origen417
and Tertullian,418
of both of whom
he draws a vivid picture, contrasting them, such as they were before
their fall with what they became afterwards, and enlarging on the
grievous injury to the Church generally, and the distressing trial to
individuals in particular, consequent upon their defection.
But it will be asked, Is Christian doctrine to
remain at a standstill? Is there to be no progress, as in other
sciences?419
Undoubtedly there
is to be progress; but it must be real progress, analogous, for
instance, to the growth of the human body from infancy to childhood,
from childhood to mature age; or to the development of a plant from the
seed to the full-grown vegetable or tree; it must be such as the
elucidation of what was before obscure, the following out into detail
of what was before expressed only in general terms,420
| 420 §§
55–60. For instances in point, he might have referred to the
enlargement and expansion of the earlier Creed, first in the Nicene,
afterward in the Constantinopolitan Formulary. Thus, in the Definition
of the Faith of the Council of Chalcedon, the Fathers are careful to
explain that they are making no addition to the original deposit, but
amply unfolding and rendering more intelligible what before had been
less distinctly set forth: “Teaching in its fulness the doctrine
which from the beginning hath remained unshaken, it decrees, in the
first place that the Creed of the 318 (the original Nicene Creed)
remain untouched; and on account of those who impugn the Holy Spirit,
it ratifies and confirms the doctrine subsequently delivered,
concerning the essence of the Holy Spirit, by the hundred and fifty
holy Fathers, (the Constantinopolitan Creed), which they promulgated
for universal acceptance, not as though they were supplying some
omission of their predecessors, but testifying in express words in
writing their own minds concerning the Holy Spirit.” |
not the addition of new doctrine, not the rejection of old.
One difficulty which is not unlikely to perplex a
simple Christian is the readiness with which heretics appeal to
Scripture, following therein the example of their arch-leader, who, in
his temptation of our Lord, dared to make use of arms drawn from that
armoury.421
This leads to the
question, How are we to ascertain the true sense of Scripture? And, in
the answer to it, to a more detailed exposition of the general rule
given at the outset.
Scripture, then, must be interpreted in accordance with
the tradition of the Catholic Church, our guide being antiquity,
universality, consent.
With regard to antiquity, that interpretation must be
held to which has been handed down from the earliest times; with regard
to universality, that which has always been held, if not by all, at
least by the most part, in preference to that which has been held only
by a few; with regard to consent, the determination of a General
Council on any point will of course be of summary authority, and will
hold the first place; next to this, the interpretation which has been
held uniformly and persistently by all those Fathers, or by a majority
of them, who have lived and died in the communion of the Catholic
Church. Accordingly, whatsoever interpretation of Holy Scripture is
opposed to an interpretation thus authenticated, even though supported
by the authority of one or another individual teacher, however eminent,
whether by his position, or his attainments, or his piety, or by all of
these together, must be rejected as novel and unsound.
Here the first Commonitory ends; but it ends with a
promise of a still further and more detailed inquiry, to be prosecuted
in the Commonitory which is to follow, into the way in which the
opinions of the ancient Fathers are to be collected, and the rule of
faith determined in accordance with them.
Unfortunately that promise, however fulfilled according
to the author’s intention, has been frustrated to his readers.
The second Commonitory, as was said above, was lost, or rather stolen,
and all that remains to us is a brief and apparently partial
recapitulation of its contents and of the contents of the
preceding.
In this
Vincentius repeats the rule for ascertaining the Catholic doctrine
which he had laid down at the outset, enlarging especially upon the way
in which the consent of the Fathers is to be arrived at, and
illustrating what he says by the course pursued by the Council of
Ephesus in the matter of Nestorius,—how the Fathers of the
Council, instead of resting upon their own judgment, eminent as many of
them were, collected together the opinions of the most illustrious of
their predecessors, and following their consentient belief, determined
the question before them. To this most noteworthy example he adds the
authority of two bishops of Rome, Sixtus III., then occupying the Papal
Chair, and Celestine, his immediate predecessor,—the gist of the
whole being the confirmation of the rule which it had been his object
to enforce throughout the Treatise—that profane novelties must be
rejected, and that faith alone adhered to which the universal Church
has held consentiently from the earliest times, Quod
ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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