VINCENTIUS
1158 VINCENTIUS LIRINENSIS
paratively recent English one by the Rev. W. B.Flower, London, 1866.
Further, the Commonitorium has gatheredaround itself a literature of its own. How farits leading principles have been accepted, eitherexplicitly or implicitly, in the past; how farthey made a line of demarcation between thosewho accepted and those who rejected the Refor-mation ; to what extent they are available inthe controversies between the various Christiancommunions, or in the contest between Christi-anity and unbelief;—these are questions whichhave all been keenly and ably discussed. Toreview these controversies would far exceed thelimits of this work, but it seems right to callattention to one or two features of the debate,which have not received elsewhere the noticewhich they deserve.
It has been asserted that the Commonitoriumlays down a broad line of demarcation betweenthe Protestant and the Roman churches. This ap-pears to be an over-statement. It is true thatany Protestants, who regard the Bible as its ownsole and all-sufficient witness and interpreter,must be inclined to set aside the work of Vincentas needless and superfluous, and hence perhapsits rejection by Rivet, Bailie, and other foreignProtestants. But this verdict has not, even onthe continent of Europe, been an universal one.The Magdeburg Centuriators distinctly pronouncein its favour as a work of learning and acuteness;as a book which reveals and forcibly assails thefrauds of heretics; which supplies a remedy andantidote against their poisons; which sets fortha weighty doctrine and displays knowledge ofantiquity with skill and clearness in its treat-ment of Holy Scripture/ As regards England,the praise given by Casaubon to the principlesof its Reformation, the challenge of Jewell, anda large consensus of 17th century divines, allrest, more or less explicitly, upon the famousdictum, of Vincent,—which, indeed, derives con-siderable support from certain portions of thePrayer-Book, Articles, and Canons. 8
It is, of course, equally true that RomanCatholic divines, especially at the epoch of theReformation and long after, also professed to taketheir stand upon the principles asserted in theCommonitorium. The fact that Knox’s opponent,Winzeit, published a translation of Vincent’streatise, as ?n aid to the Roman side of the con-troversy, is hut one instance out of many thatmight be adduced.
There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of theRoman Catholic controversialists who thus acted.They were not in a position to judge the evi-dence on behalf of this and that portion ofmedieval doctrine and practice, and they ap-pealed with confidence to such stores of learning
f We have translated freely from the original, as citedby Natalis Alexander {Hist. Eccles. saeculum v. cap. v.art. xvii.). It may be well to subjoin a part of the pas-sage ; —««Scriptum esse eruditum et acntum; quodqueHaereticorum fraudes clare in apertum producat, detegat,atque egregie impugnet.. .praesens valde remedium, etantidotum, quasi contra eorundem venena ministret,..elucet doctrinae ipsius magnitudo... in Scripturarum trac-tationc argutum, facilem et perspicnttm.”
s E.g. The positions of the creeds, the language ofArticle xx., and the canon urging preachers to interpretHoly Scripture in accordance with the general teachingthe 1‘aihers.
as lay open to them. A day came when thisconfidence was rudely shaken. The Benedictineeditions of the works of the Fathers appeared,with honest and discriminating criticism appliedto their writings. Not only was it seen howconsiderable a portion of their works, which hadbeen long accepted as genuine aud authentic,was in reality spurious, but it also became evi-dent that while distinctively Roman tenets andpractices received much support from the ser-mons and treatises relegated into the appendixof each volume, the case was widely differentwhen reference had to be made to the genuinePatristic remains. In time a new school ofRoman Catholic divines arose, of whom FatherPetau (Petavius) may perhaps be considered theearliest, as he is certainly among the greatest.In our own age the process of development in thechurch of Rome has widened the breach betweenher teaching and the principles of Vincent ofLerins. The church which has set forth thedoctrine of the Immaculate Conception of theVirgin Mother, not merely as a lawful opinion,but as a dogma, has, to all appearance, for everbroken with the maxim : Quod semper , quod ubi -que , quod ab omnibus. And, indeed, the processof self-refutation, which Cardinal Newman hasendeavoured to achieve in the notes to his re-issue of his Anglican work on the Via Media*seems to give up the Vincentian rule, and onlyto argue that Anglicanism, no less than Roman-ism, has failed to carry it out.
But even if it can be shown that there aresome few cases of controversy between Christianbodies, to which it is difficult to apply the testof Vincent’s maxim, its general value must stillbe pronounced to be very great. Most especiallyin the contest of belief with unbelief, its efficacyis deeply felt, inasmuch as both in faith andmorals there still exists, despite of differences, acode which may fairly be called the Creed ofChristendom: and that code is mainly based,even if sometimes unconsciously, upon the prin-ciples asserted in the Commonitorium of St. Vin-cent of Lerins. [J. G. C.}
VINCENTIUS (12), a monk of Lerins in thefirst half of the 5th century, a brother of St. Lu-pus of Troyes (Eucherius, De Laude Eremi , 42,Pair. Lat. 1. 711), must be distinguished fromhis more famous namesake, the author, who wasalso a monk of Lerins (Ceillier, viii. 468), thoughsome have identified them (see Boll. Acta SS.Jul. vii. 59). [S. A. B.]
VINCENTIUS (13), a priest, a Gaul bybirth ; thought to be identical with Vincentius, apresbyter, who signed the decrees of the councilof Riez in 439 on behalf of bishop Constantinus(Labbe, v. 1196.) Gennadius {Pat. Lat. lviii.1104) speaks of him as well-versed in Scripture,learned, and eloquent, and author of a Commen-tary on the Psalms , part of which he had himselfheard him read. This work is lost. It has beenthought by some that he is the author of TheObjections, defending the teaching of St. Augus-
h Tbe original work was published in 1837, its authorbeing then Fellow of Oriel College ami Vicar of St. Mary’s,Oxford. The third edition, published in 1877, cont>insthe notes from a Homan Catholic stand-poiut, which “ 1,”says the author, “ consider a reiutation.*’