One of Pope Francis’s favorite theologians, as many will remember, was the early church writer St. Vincent of Lérins. Again and again, Francis cited a few lines from this fifth-century thinker, lines that endorsed the need for theological development, while also emphasizing that tradition is not stolid and immobile, but living and dynamic. Francis’s beloved citation runs: “Christian doctrine follows the law of progress. It is consolidated through the years, enlarged over time, and refined by age.” The pope enjoyed citing this passage because it made clear that growth and change are part and parcel of the Christian faith.
I have argued that Francis was often selective in his citation of Vincent’s thought. For while the Lerinian endorses growth, it is development that is linear and organic in kind, preservative of the past. Vincent says that doctrinal growth inevitably occurs over time. But such growth must conserve the same meaning (idem sensus) of earlier doctrinal achievements. For example, while theological speculation about the identity of Jesus Christ is warranted, it can never contradict or reverse the affirmations of the Council of Nicaea. This is why Vincent is wedded to biological metaphors. Doctrine develops the way a child grows to an adult and a seed to a plant. There is change, certainly, but change that always maintains the original nature.
While Francis was dedicated to Vincent, Pope Leo has established himself as an ardent proponent of the thought of St. Augustine. For example, on the solemnity of Corpus Christi, Leo stated: “As Saint Augustine writes, Christ is truly ‘panis qui reficit, et non deficit’”—that is, “bread that restores and does not run short; bread that can be eaten but not exhausted.” And in his homily a few weeks ago, to those about to be ordained priests, Leo quoted an Augustinian passage he has already cited several times: “For you I am a bishop, with you I am a Christian.”
Two popes citing different Church Fathers is not particularly interesting. But what makes this contrast noteworthy is that Vincent and Augustine, who were roughly contemporaries, were until recently considered fiery theological opponents. For centuries, the argument has been made that Vincent’s most celebrated work, the Commonitorium, was first and foremost an anti-Augustinian tract. Why this charge?
Prosper of Aquitaine, a disciple of Augustine’s thought, wrote to the bishop of Hippo in a.d. 428, noting that the clergy of Marseilles and southern Gaul (where Vincent’s monastery of Lérins was located) believed that Augustine’s teaching on predestination rendered human effort meaningless and injected the concept of “fate” into the life of the Church. Further, according to the Gaulish monks, we first receive God’s grace through our natural ability, that is, by our asking, seeking, and knocking, as the Gospel countenances. The beginning of salvation is thereby located in the human being rather than in God’s unmerited grace. While outlining his argument, Prosper refers to a document called Objectiones Vincentianae (Vincentian Objections), thereby placing the monk of Lérins at the center of the controversy and, indeed, portraying him as Augustine’s chief opponent.
Given Prosper’s comments, later scholars started to comb Vincent’s work, hoping to discover evidence of his opposition to Augustine. The seventeenth-century Dutch humanist Gerardus Vossius was the first to insist that Vincent’s Commonitorium was a masked attack on Augustine. And this charge has been repeated by numerous scholars over the centuries, including the influential historian Adolf von Harnack.
But is Vincent truly anti-Augustinian? In fact, he never even mentions Augustine in his major work. On what basis, then, can it be claimed that his Commonitorium is an anti-Augustinian tract?
Here are a few of the oft-cited reasons: Vincent polemicizes against Origen and Tertullian, eminent church teachers who tragically fell into error. Is Vincent tacitly suggesting that Augustine belongs to this wayward ilk? And in an impassioned plea, the Lerinian warns that an esteemed teacher, even if he is a doctor, a bishop, or a martyr, cannot be trusted if he deviates from the consensus of the Church. Is this a dart aimed straight at Augustine, the celebrated bishop and doctor? Further, Vincent sides with Pope Stephen against Cyprian of Carthage when discussing the rebaptism controversy of the third century. Perhaps Vincent is making this sly argument: The bishop of Rome once suppressed the error of a prominent African. Should not the present bishop of Rome act against another distinguished African’s innovations?
The consensus that Vincent was an ardent opponent of Augustine slowly started to change with the 1940 discovery and publication of a florilegium of texts by St. Augustine on the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, texts assembled by none other than St. Vincent. The collected excerpts reveal the Lerinian as an enthusiastic admirer of Augustine’s trinitarian thought. But this gives rise to inevitable questions: Is it possible that an earnest devotee of Augustine’s work in one area of theology—going so far as to collect and publish passages from his work—would issue a vitriolic attack on him as well? Is it likely that Vincent, the proponent of Augustine’s Christology, is also the author of the polemical Objectiones?
Given these questions, there has emerged a strengthening scholarly consensus that the Objectiones may not be the work of the Lerinian after all. While the monks of southern Gaul likely entertained doubts about aspects of Augustine’s theology, would any of them have regarded this resolute champion of Christian faith as a heretic?
Most historians agree that Vincent, along with the clergy of southern Gaul generally, harbored tendencies that later theology would call semi-Pelagian. But fewer are now convinced that Vincent should be tarnished by the anti-Augustinian aura that has encircled him for centuries (and may even have precluded his citation by Vatican II). After all, while the Church recognized (at the Second Council of Orange in a.d. 529) that Augustine was right on the absolute priority of grace, it left aside the thorny question of predestinarian theory, an issue at the heart of the monks’ concerns.
Francis and Leo may have different theological heroes—but their heroes need not be considered adversaries. Perhaps just here the venerable axiom can be legitimately invoked: diversi sed non adversi. Vincent and Augustine were quite different on certain theological questions, but not opposed on the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
