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.
CHAP. VII. – (preview)
The deposit of faith unalterable.
When therefore some such mercenaries going through cities and provinces hawking* about their errors for filthy lucre, came to the Galatians; and when the Galatians having heard them they became affected with a distaste for truth, and were delighted with the filthy abominations of heretical novelty, removing far from them the manna of Apostolic and Catholic doctrine; then the Apostolic power exercised its authority, and with the utmost severity decreed; “but though we or an angel from heaven preach a Gospel to you beside that which we have (Like the Bible and Tract retailers of the present time.) preached to you, let him be anathema.” Gal. 1.v. 8. What is that he says, “but though we?” Why not rather, “but though I?” This is the meaning. Although Peter, although Andrew, although John, in fine, although the whole college of Apostles should preach to you beside what I preached, let him or them be anathema. A dreadful restriction by which he spares neither himself nor the rest of the Apostles, in order to keep inviolate the primitive faith. Still it is not enough. He says: “ although an angel from heaven should preach to you beside what you have received, let him be anathema.” It was not enough to restrict man in order to keep inviolate the faith once handed down by tradition, without including the angelic order; for he says: “ although an angel from heaven.” He did not thereby mean that the blessed and heavenly angels can now fall into sin; but this is what he says; if it were a thing that can be, whosoever shall attempt to change the faith handed down by tradition let him be anathema. But perhaps it may be said; the Apostle had spoken thus lightly and decreed from human zeal and not divine inspiration. God forbid. For the Apostle continues the subject big with importance, and again inculcates it with all the force of reiterated asseveration ; “ If any one preach to you a Gospel besides that which you have believed, let him be anathema.” He did not say, if any one teach you besides what you received; but he said: “let him be anathema,” that is, let him be separated, cut off, excommunicated for fear the baneful contagion of one sheep would infect the sound flock of Christ by the infusion of its poisonous heresy.
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