The Lerintian canon

St. Vincent of Lérins is the attributed author of the Commonitory though not much is known about him other than that he was a prisoner at a monastery of the island of Lérins. It has also been hypothesized that St. Vincent even wrote the Athanasian Creed based on the statements of Trinitarian theology that St. Vincent establishes. St. Vincent is a proponent of antiquity over novelty and because of this, his canon has been heeded by traditionalists of many denominations of Christianity. By what authority does your particular denomination heed? For many Catholics, we live under this impression that we're the only Christian expression of the faith that gives heed to authority. We have a Pope. We listen to him. It's whatever he says. We love our catechisms. Etc. But this is not how the authority of our faith has historically taken root.

I have often inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent in learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways; first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church. (The Commonitory, ch. II, 4)

St. Vincent asks the following and gives an answer, "What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole? Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty." (ch. III, 7) If it is a small portion, then we follow the decrees of an ancient General Council, if there be any, above all else. The Catholic Christian is obligated to hold fast to the doctrines of antiquity over and above all other novelties. This is how the Catholic faith has been preserved and handed down to us through the ages. There may be many who hold to the novelty but St. Vincent instructs us to follow the example of the martyrs and confessors who held fast to the antiquity of the faith over the novelties that the wolves had been stating was the Catholic faith (ch. V). There are many instances throughout history of this whether it be on the Apollinarianism, Donatism, Arianism, iconoclasticism, etc. But the Catholic faith was only preserved through the final rejection and denunciation of these errors.

Appealing to Galatians 1:8, St. Vincent affirms that "if any one, be he who may, attempt to alter the faith once for all delivered, let him be accursed" (ch. VIII). There may be eminent and well-learned men who arise doing this...reject them! (ch. 10) Could it be an angel? Reject it! A friend? Accursed! The Lerintian canon is simple. These men are permitted to fail in order to test one's faith in God. I remember my mentor when I was an Anglican. He was a Ruthenian Catholic deacon and he always talked about how he was "old-fashioned", trusting only in God, not the earthly hierarchy. I learned much about the Christian faith from him. I took this to heart very well. We put our trust in God, not in Tertullian or Origen of whose errors were particularly great to us because they were so well-learned (XVII-XVIII) The true Catholic, according to St. Vincent, "will believe that, and only that, which he is sure the Catholic Church has held universally and from ancient time; but that whatsoever new and unheard-of doctrine he shall find to have been furtively introduced by some one or another, besides that of all, or contrary to that of all the saints, this, he will understand, does not pertain to religion, but is part of a trial" (ch. XX, 48)

We now turn to that great and saintly enunciator of our Catholic faith, Abp. Marcel Lefebvre who was one of the few who took a stance against the regime of novelty in the Church at its earliest goings. How then, are we to understand the authority of the Pope? Does doctrine develop? That doctrine develops, Lefebvre refutes,

But, one will object, the dogma that makes Mary the Mother of God only dates back to 431, transubstantiation to 1215, papal infallibility to 1870, and so on. Has there not been an evolution of? No, not all. The dogmas which have been defined in the course of the ages were contained in Revelation; the Church has just made them explicit. When Pope Pius XII defined in 1950 the dogma of the Assumption, he said specifically that this truth of the assumption into heaven of the Virgin Mary, body and soul, was included in the deposit of Revelation that had already existed. (Open Letter to Confused Catholics, 125)

Quoting Bossuet, he writes "When it is a matter of explaining the principles of Christian morality and essential dogmas of the Church everything that does not appear in the Tradition of all time, and especially the early times, is from then on not only suspect but wrong and to be condemned" (ibid). And "we must not forget the Church is not totalitarian society of the Nazi or Marxist type" (142). The Pope can only be infallible when he has defined an already established position of the Church but in assessing whether a Pope is to be condemned for heresy is subjected to the degree he intended to bind the Church to his error (148). When we look at the document Fratelli Tutti of Pope Francis, we read a lot of errors into it. And many people have lost the faith that Francis is the Pope. But to what extent the document is infallible needs to be assessed. As a sober friend of mine stated, "the document is not infallible". Precisely! Not only did it not declare itself to be infallible but it is writhe with error and fraud! Can we accept Vatican II? All of the dogmatic councils are binding but the Vatican II Council was not conferred dogmatic standing by the Popes. The Popes did not wish this. We cannot abrogate the Council of Trent or the First Seven Ecumenical Councils, because they were declared dogmatic. Vatican II, we can accept the statements in it that pertain to religion and the Tradition of the Church, but we are not bound to accept the whole of (127).

So let us defend then that which was believed everywhere, always, and by all! Amen!