Vincent of Lérins

Saint Vincent of Lérins

Also known as
Vincentius

memorial
24 May

Profile

Our Saint today may have been a soldier at one time, but we are glad he made the lateral move into theology. He retired to become a monk at Lerins, France where he wrote a treatise defending the faith against newfangled weird theologies that popular thinkers were coming up with. These unorthodox types have been popping up since right after the apostles, modalists, gnostics, judizers, montanists, arians…the list goes on and on to this day.

Vincent wrote the treatise; Commonitory, which was a great defense of the faith. In it he includes, among other things, a rule of thumb way to figure out how to distinguish the True Faith from Heresy; if some new concept is in accord with the real faith or some new type of bushwah: Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est which means: has this idea been believed everywhere, always, and by all. If it doesn’t fill all of these criteria it is not part of the faith. An example, we know Gnosticism is not part of the faith, even though it is believed by many it was not believed always, everywhere and by all; none of the apostles were Gnostics for example. Another example, the Flatulent Martin Luther’s concept of Sola Scriptura…..well, you get the idea……

Born
Toulouse, France

Died
c.445 in Lerins, France of natural causes