RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Vincent of Beauvais Vincent of Lerins
the same time, then appeal must be made to an-. cient teachings in the Church, in which case the heresy in question will usually be found to be opposed to the entire ancient Church. If, however, similar errors were represented in early times by a single theologian or by a portion of the Church, then the final appeal must be taken to the prevailing majority of teachers in churches in early times. Vincent was firmly convinced that the Church Catholic had been, from the very first, the possessor of truth, and of the whole truth necessary for salvation; and heretics without exception are innovators seeking to destroy a portion of the inheritance of the Church. In matters of faith he held that the surest decisions must ever be sought in the writings of the ancients.
Vincent did not write his Commonitorium because of a purely academic interest in the establishment of a canon of Catholic faith, but tacitly to assail the Augustinian doctrine of Predestination (q.v.). Although Augustine is never mentioned by name, and while Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum are rejected with horror, the language employed is essentially Semipelagian, and the entire work is filled with allusions to Augustine and his system of polemics. He would not, indeed, rob that great master of his fame. Nevertheless, he was keenly aware of the dangers of Augustine’s teachings, and therefore called upon all Christendom to bethink themselves before it should be too late, giving them a canon disastrous to the new-fangled doctrine of predestination, for whose support no ancient Father of the Church could be cited.
Thus Vincent devised his canon and wrote his book to aid in the controversy then raging among the Gallic theologians concerning free-will or grace. There is little doubt that he belonged to the majority who emphasized the necessity both of the human will and of divine grace as opposed to the strictly Augustinian Prosper of Aquitaine. In a brief treatise by Prosper Pro Augustint doctrina responsiones ad capitula objectionum Vincentianarum (MPL, xlv. 1848-50, li. 177-182) are contained sixteen theses evidently composed by a Semipelagian in criticism of the doctrine of predestination. Since Prosper combated these theses as set up by Vincent, they can scarcely have been posited by any other Vincent than the monk of Lerins. They seem to have been promulgated before their author wrote the pseudonymous Commonitorium. It is not impossible that Vincent did not intend them to be made public, but that Prosper in some way gained possession of a copy of them.
It has also been suggested that Vincent, if not the author of the Capitula calumniantium Gallorum, closely akin to the Objectiones Vincentiane and answered by Prosper in another work (MPL, xlv. 1835-44, li. 155 sqq.), at least inspired and influenced them. Such a hypothesis, however, even if granted, adds little to the information given by the Commonitorium alone, that Vincent was one of the Gallic clergy who, in the fifth century, were decidedly opposed to the innovations of Augustine. He can scarcely have restricted himself to the halfhidden allusions in his Commonitorium to what he considered a deadly heresy, but none of his possible
Vincent of Saragossa Vincent Ferrer
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
anti-Augustinian polemics has survived, and even Gennadius did not know of their existence. (G. A. JéLicHer.) Breuiocrapay: Gennadius, De vir. ill., lxv., Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2d ser., iii. 396; F. X. Elpelt, Des heiligen Vincent von Lerin Ermahnungsbuch, Leben und Lehren, Breslau, 1840; MHefele, in Bettrige zur Kirchengeschichte,
Archiologie und Liturgik, i (1864), 145-174; Poitel, De
utroque Commonitorio Lerinensi, Nancy, 1895; H. Koch,
in TQS, 1899, pp. 396 sqq.; idem, Vincenz von Lerin und
Gennadius, in TU, 3d ser., 1, part 2, 1907; Vincenti
Lerinensis Commonitoria, in Florilegium patristicum, ed.
G. Rauschen, Bonn, 1906; F. Brunetiére and P. de La-
briolle, Vincent of Lerins, Paris, 1906; KL, xii. 985-989;
DCB, iv. 1154-58; Schaff, Christian Church, iii, 244, 613-
614, 862-863; Neander, Christian Church, vol. ii. passim;
the literature under SmEMIPELAGIANISM, and the works on {. the church history of his period.
VINCENT OF SARAGOSSA, SAINT: Spanish saint and martyr of the early fourth century. According to tradition, he was born of a noble family at Osca (the modern Huesca, 180 m. n.e. of Madrid), was deacon of Bishop Valerius of Saragossa, and on the outbreak of the Diocletian persecution was taken with his bishop to Valencia to defend the faith before Datian, where he spoke with such eloquence that while the bishop was merely banished, he was exposed to the most horrible tortures, thrown into a dark hole, and made to le on sharp stones and pointed sherds, whereupon angels turned his couch of pain to a soft bed. He then began to preach to the multitudes attracted by the miracle, and even Datian, declaring himself conquered, commanded that Vincent be taken from his place of torture. When, nevertheless, he died, the rage of Datian broke forth afresh. He ordered the corpse to be thrown to wild beasts, when angels and even ravens protected it. The body was then sunk into the sea in a sack filled with stones, but it emerged and was borne by the winds to a haven, where the faithful buried it, later reverencing the relics by founding a chapel. This legend (contained in its fullest form in ASB, Jan., 1. 394-397; in briefer recension, Analecta Bollandiana, i. 263-270; and in entirely different form, MPG, ecxiv. 735-756) is at least as old as the fourth century, as is shown by the four sermons of Augustine in honor of Vincent (Sermones, cclxxiv.—celxxvii.; MPL, xxxviii. 1252-68) and the references of Prudentius in the fifth hymn of his Peristephanon (MPL, Ix. 378- 411) and Paulinus of Nola (xix. 153).
At an early period the veneration of the saint spread from Spain and Africa to France. Gregory of Tours states that the Frankish kings Childebert and Chlotar were driven to raise the siege of Saragossa by a sight of the tunic of Vincent (MGH, Script. rer. Merov., I., ii. 133), and the anonymous author of the Liber historve Francorum (ib. pp. 283- 284), writing about 727, records that to the princes the garment was given by the bishop of the city. The relic was honored in the church of St. Vincent built at Paris by Childebert, the later church of St. Germain des Prés. The Aquitanian monastery of Castres claimed to possess the body of Vincentius after 864. On the other hand, Stephen, the precentor of Lisbon, declared that the body was brought from Valencia to Lisbon in 1175 (ASB, Jan., ii. 408— 413; Analecta Bollandiana, i. 270-278); and the Epistola Hermanns abbatis Sancti Martini Tornacen-
sis de corpore Sancti Vincenti diaconi (Analecta Bollandiana, ii. 243-246) shows that it was venerated in Valencia as late as 1145. Portions of the saint’s remains were also reverenced elsewhere, his head at Le Mans, one arm at Vitry-le-Frangois, and the other at Bari in Apulia, ete. Basilicas of St. Vincent are mentioned by Venantius Fortunatus, and the French cathedrals of Chalons-sur-Séone, Macon, Viviers, and Sti Malo were named in his honor. Rome has three churches named after him.
Vincent is honored as the patron saint of stolen goods, as well as in perils at sea; while wine-growers deem sunshine on his day (Jan. 22) a good omen. His attribute is a gridiron with pointed nails (the latter distinguishing him from St. Lawrence), and sometimes also the raven protecting his corpse.
(G. Krtcer.) BipuioGRAPHY: Tillemont, Mémoires, v. 215-231, 673-677;
P. B. Gams, Kirchengeschichte Spaniens, i. 376-382, Re-
gensburg, 1862; J. E. Stadler and J. N. Ginal, Heiligen-
lexikon, v. 705-708, Augsburg, 1882; P. Allard, La Per-
secution de Diocletien, i. 40, 237, 244, 249-250, Paris, 1890;
H. Leclercq, L’ Espagne chrétienne, pp. 82-85, Paris, 1906;
KL, xii. 999-1001; DCB, iv. 1152.
VINCENT DE PAUL, SAINT: Founder of the Roman Catholic orders of the Lazarists and the Sisters of Merey (qq.v.); b. at Ranquines (a village near Dax, 125 m. w. of Toulouse), Gascony, Apr. 24, 1576; d. at Paris Sept. 27, 1660. He received his early training from the Franciscans at Dax, and then studied in Toulouse 1597-1600. In 1605, while on a voyage to Narbonne, he was captured by corsairs and taken to Tunis, where he fell into the hands of a French renegade whom he succeeded in restoring to the Church, who also brought him back to France. Vincent then went to Rome, and there won the favor of Cardinal d’Orsat, who employed him on a mission to Henry IV. He thus came to Paris early in 1609, and became chaplain to Margaret of Valois. Here, while aiding a troubled theologian to escape from doubt, Vincent himself became involved in a skepticism from which he was freed only by vowing to devote his entire life to the poor.
In 1612 Vincent was made parish priest at Clichy, and in the following year became chaplain and tutor to the family of Philip Emanuel, count of Gondy, finding wide scope for activity among the peasantry of the estate. In 1617, his pupils no longer requiring his care, Vincent became parish priest at the wretched town of Chatillon-les-Dombes, where he founded the first confrérie du charité for the personal aid of the poor by women. Meanwhile the Count and Countess de Gondy induced Vincent to return to their house in 1618. He now founded a number of sisterhoods like that at Chatillon, and gave special attention to the galley slaves, for whom he established a hospital. In 1619 King Louis XIII. ~ appointed him royal almoner of the galleys of France. At Macon in Burgundy, in 1628, he found an enormous number of beggars, for whom, with the aid of the civil and religious authorities, he established an organization which did away with mendicancy.
In 1624 Vincent formed the beginnings of his body of mission priests for the care of the poor. He received as the mother-house of his order the