The Commonitory of St. Vincent of Lerins

WHY READ THIS BOOK?

THE VINCENTIAN CANON is the definitive threefold test of Catholic Orthodoxy as expressed by St. Vincent of Lérins in his two Commonitoria (with the second now lost and replaced by a summary). Essentially, it is this: care must especially be had that---that be held which has been believed in all places, at all times, and by all the faithful. By this touchstone, we may distinguish Catholic Truth from pernicious error.

HERESY is that which is committed by a baptized person who, while remaining nominally a Christian, pertinaciously denies or doubts any of the truths that must be believed with Divine and Catholic faith. It requires very little (as it were) to become a heretic. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the conscious rejection of even one Article of Revelation is not only sufficient to render one guilty of heresy, but it also shows that person has no faith.... In a heretic, who rejects a single article of faith, there remains not the virtue of faith. Consequently, heretics have no share in the Kingdom of God. St. Ignatius of Antioch teaches the same about schismatics; and moreover, St. Anthony the Great warns us to not have a single thing to do with schismatics and absolutely nothing with heretics.

Why? Because it is very easy for the unwary to catch their contagion for heretics tend to be very slippery people who are quite adept at quoting Scripture in order to wrest It into conformance with their novel ideas. Thus, did Satan the theologian recite from the Psalms in order to tempt Our Lord---which serves as a warning to us to guard against these fatal tricks of the devil, lest we voluntarily throw ourselves down from the heights of the Catholic Church to be dashed to pieces on the rocks of heresy below.

Therefore, does Church Father St. Vincent of Lérins admonish us to adhere to the the Holy Faith of the holy Fathers,'' and to stick to It with the tenacity of glue. And it is unto this purpose that he wrote this little treatise as a salvific aid for the faithful of every generation.