Saint Vincent of Lérins

Gallic Theologian

• Born: Late fourth century
• Birthplace: Probably in or near Toul, Belgica (now in France)
• Died: c. 450
• Place of death: Lérins, Marseilles, or Troyes (now in France)

Vincent was one of the leaders in the Gallic opposition to the concept of Augustinian predestination. After his death, Vincent came to be known primarily for his formula for distinguishing orthodoxy from heresy.

Early Life

Vincent of Lérins (lay-ra) was probably a native of Toul in northern Gaul and belonged to a well-to-do family. He and his brother, Lupus, would have received a classical education. Vincent also was learned in ecclesiastical literature: In the 490’s, Gennadius of Marseilles described him as “a man learned in the holy scriptures and sufficiently instructed in the knowledge of ecclesiastical dogma.” Sometime during his youth, Vincent held an unspecified civil or military secular office. Around 425-426, however, he and his brother, like many other young aristocrats, adopted the monastic life, going to the island of Lérins, near Nice. The abbot there, Honoratus, was another northerner; he perhaps came from near Dijon. Another monk who entered the monastery at about this same time was Honoratus’s younger relative Hilary, whose sister Pimeniola married Lupus.

Unlike many of the monks, who remained laymen, Vincent was ordained a priest. He was active in the quasi-familial atmosphere of the monastery. Along with Honoratus, Hilary, and the priest Salvian, later of Marseilles, he assisted in the education of Salonius and Veranus, the young sons of the monk Eucherius. Many of these monks went on to become bishops in their own right, Honoratus and Hilary at Arles, Eucherius at Lyons, and Lupus at Troyes. Vincent, however, remained a monk and may have spent time also at Marseilles as well as with his brother in the north: “Avoiding the turmoil and crowds of cities, I inhabit a little dwelling on a remote farmstead and within it the retreat of a monastery.”

Life’s Work

Vincent is known primarily for his involvement in ecclesiastical debates, especially in the controversy in Gaul surrounding some of the teachings of Saint Augustine. Augustine was much respected in Gaul, and every fifth century Gallic theologian cited him, at least on occasion, as an authority. Vincent compiled some excerpta from Augustine on the Trinity and the Incarnation. Augustine’s opposition to Pelagianism, which denied original sin and the need for grace, was consistent with the prevalent Gallic orthodoxy. For example, according to a Gallic chronicler writing in 452, in 400 “the insane Pelagius attempts to befoul the churches with his execrable teaching.”

The sticking point, however, was Augustine’s concept of predestination, and according to that same source in the entry for the year 418, “the heresy of the predestinarians, which is said to have received its impetus from Augustine, once arisen creeps along.” Predestination, which taught that only certain individuals were “predestined” for salvation, was seen as denying free will and as related to fatalism, Priscillianism, or Manichaean dualism.

The Gallic ambivalence toward Augustine ended in the mid-420’s with the publication of his De correptione et gratia (426; On Admonition and Grace, 1873). In 426, John Cassian published an attack on both Pelagianism and unconditional predestination. At about that same time, two of Augustine’s supporters, the laymen Prosper of Aquitane and Hilarius, wrote letters to him, still extant, decrying the situation in Gaul. According to Prosper,

Many of the servants of Christ who live in Marseilles think that, in the writings which Your Sanctity composed against the Pelagian heretics, whatever you said in them about the choice of the elect according to the fixed purpose of God is contrary to the opinion of the fathers and to ecclesiastical feeling.

In order to strengthen his case against the Gallic antipredestinarians, Prosper went so far as to accuse them of being Pelagians, referring to their “spirit of Pelagianism” and describing some of their teachings as the “remnants of the Pelagian depravity.” Prosper’s accusation has gained sufficient credence that the antipredestinarian party in Gaul has been given the misleading designation “Semi-Pelagian,” in spite of the fact that all known influential Gallic theologians, including the Semi-Pelagians, condemned Pelagianism as heartily as did Augustine himself.

A more accurate depiction of Gallic sentiments is given by Prosper in the same letter to Augustine, when he reported on the short-lived Bishop Helladius of Arles:

Your Beatitude should know that he is an admirer and follower of your teaching in all other things, and with regard to that which he calls into question [predestination], he already wished to convey his own thoughts to Your Sanctity through correspondence. . . .

In 430, Augustine died. Shortly thereafter, Prosper, seeing himself as the defender of Augustine in the struggle against the Gallic antipredestinarians, returned to the attack in three tracts, including the Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula objectionum Vincentianarum (c. 431-434; The Defense of Saint Augustine, 1963). As a result, the Gauls also entered the pamphlet war; one of their most important writers was Vincent of Lérins. Although none of these anti-Augustinian works survives, Prosper’s responses to them give a good idea of Vincent’s objections. Augustine was accused of fatalism, of denying that all share the chance for salvation, and even of asserting that predestination compelled some to sin. The Gauls denounced Augustine for teaching that those predestined to salvation had no need to lead a Christian life, to be baptized, or to have free will.

It soon appeared to Prosper, however, that he was unable to sway his Gallic opponents with his rhetoric. He and Hilarius then exercised the increasingly popular last resort of so many disgruntled Gallic ecclesiastics: They went to Rome and appealed to the pope. As a result, Pope Celestine I, probably in 431, addressed a letter to several Gallic bishops, rebuking them for allowing the teaching of improper beliefs. Celestine, however, had been led to believe that the Gauls were infected with Pelagianism and on this basis were questioning the Augustinian interpretation of free will. Scholars have searched Celestine’s letter in vain for any reference to the real reason that the Gauls opposed Augustine.

The definitive Gallic response to Celestine and Prosper came in 434, when Vincent, under the pseudonym Peregrinus (the pilgrim), wrote Commonitoria (The Commonitory of Vincent of Lérins, 1554), also known as Adversus haereticos, a tract ostensibly issued as a general guide for discerning heresy from orthodoxy. Vincent, stating that “the fraudulence of new heretics demands great care and attention,” issued what would become the standard definition of orthodoxy, the so-called Vincentian canon: Orthodox belief was “quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est” (that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all). Vincent therefore espoused a triple test—ecumenicity, antiquity, and universal consent.

Although Vincent taught that the true basis for orthodox belief lay in the Scriptures, he also placed great emphasis on church tradition, because the Scriptures were capable of many different interpretations. How was one to distinguish between legitimate doctrinal evolution, which came with greater maturity and understanding, and heretical innovation? In Vincent’s view, the established Church and all the orthodox church fathers were collectively the holders of dogmatic truth and stood as the guarantors of the proper interpretation.

Vincent soon, however, narrowed his discussion down to a consideration of “novelty” and “recent heresies, when they first arise.” Vincent’s particular concerns were to respond to Celestine’s letter and to defend the Gallic antipredestinarian position even though, as usual, Augustine was not mentioned by name. In his final argument against novelty, Vincent turned Celestine’s own arguments against him: “Let [Celestine] speak himself, let him destroy the doubts of our readers himself. He said ‘let novelty cease to assault tradition.’” The “inventors of novelty,” whoever they might be, should be condemned.

Vincent concluded by arguing that because Pelagius, Coelestius (another Pelagian), and Nestorius, who had separated the human and divine natures of Christ, all had been condemned, it was necessary for Christians “to detest, pursue, and persecute the profane novelties of the profane.” The doctrine of predestination also was novelty, and as such was to be condemned. By using Celestine’s own arguments, Vincent rejected Celestine’s and Prosper’s claims that the Gallic antipredestinarians were guilty of wrongdoing. Vincent and the Gauls showed that, however much they might respect authorities such as Augustine and the bishop of Rome, they reserved final judgment for themselves. For the rest of the century, the Gallic theological establishment continued to reject predestination and to define ever more carefully its own conception of the interaction among grace, effort, and free will.

Vincent’s treatise is the last extant evidence for the predestination controversy for nearly forty years. Prosper apparently gave up his efforts to influence the Gauls, admitted defeat, and permanently moved to Rome. His move did not mean, however, that there did not continue to be predestinarians in Gaul or that everyone agreed with the views expressed by Vincent. Gennadius of Marseilles reported that the reason the second book of The Commonitory of Vincent of Lérins survived only in outline form was that the complete version had been stolen. Vincent himself is not heard from again, and Gennadius states that he was dead by the year 450.

Significance

Vincent of Lérins wrote and taught at a time when the Western Church was in theological ferment. There was a growing concern with various kinds of heretical beliefs, their identification and suppression. One previously popular view, Pelagianism, had just been condemned. Another, more recent theory of Augustine, predestination, although accepted in other parts of the Roman Empire, in Gaul was considered heretical. This Gallic rejection of foreign influence was reflected in other spheres of the Church as well. Throughout the fifth century, for example, the Gauls, especially the monks of Lérins, refused to acknowledge any direct papal authority in Gaul.

Vincent was one of the primary figures in the Gallic theological discussions of the 420’s and 430’s. His articulate condemnation of predestination was accepted in Gaul for nearly a century. In the sixth century, however, after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West and the division of Gaul into barbarian kingdoms, the Gallic church no longer was able to maintain its independence. In 529, at the Second Council of Orange, the southern Gallic bishops, now under the influence of the pope and the Italian court, condemned the earlier rejection of strict predestination. Vincent’s method for distinguishing orthodox from heretical beliefs, however, continued to be applied; it still provides the standard definition.

Bibliography

Cooper-Marsdin, Arthur Cooper. The History of the Islands of the Lérins: The Monastery, Saints, and Theologians of S. Honorat. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1913. An English-language account devoted to the monastery where Vincent lived and worked. Includes index.

Creswell, Dennis R. Saint Augustine’s Dilemma: Grace and Eternal Law in the Major Works of Augustine of Hippo. New York: Peter Lang, 1997. A study that examines, among other topics, Saint Augustine’s views on predestination.

Mathisen, Ralph W. Ecclesiastical Factions and Religious Controversy in Fifth-Century Gaul. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1989. A detailed account of Vincent’s ecclesiastical environment, including descriptions of the monastery at Lérins, Vincent’s life and works, and the theological controversies in which Vincent became involved. Includes a detailed bibliography.

Vincentius Lerinensis, Saint. The Commonitory of Vincent of Lérins. Translated by C. A. Huertley. Vol. 11 in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers. Reprint. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1955. This English translation of Vincent’s work includes a scholarly preface that discusses the background and context of Vincent’s literary efforts in detail.

Vincentius Lerinensis, Saint. Vincent of Lérins: Commonitories. Translated by Rudolph E. Morris. Vol. 7 in Niceta of Remesiana. New York: Fathers of the Church, 1949. An English translation of Vincent’s most influential work. Includes critical commentary.