ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R., and John P. McCormick, S.S. Published monthly by The Catholic University of America Press, Washington 17, D. C. Subscription price in U. S. currency or equivalent: United States, Canada, $6.00, Foreign, $6.00, 60 cents per copy. Second class postage paid at Washington, D. C. Business communications, including subscriptions and changes of address, should be addressed to The American Ecclesiastical Review, The Catholic University of America Press, Washington 17, D. C. Please address all manuscripts and editorial correspondence to The Editor, The American Ecclesiastical Review, The Catholic University of America, Washington 17, D. C. Copyright 1963 by The Catholic University of America Press. The School Question: a Bibliography on Church- 212 The Eastern Orthodox Church, Its Thought and Life, by Ernst Benz.. BOOKS RECEIVED 213 215 Firms with Episcopal Authorization to CHICAGO: CINCINNATI: NEW YORK: ОМАНА: ST. PAUL: ALT SILVER PLATE MANUFACTURING CO. DAPRATO STATUARY CO., 762 W. Adams St. FR. PUSTET CO., 210-216 East 4th St. THE EDWARD O'TOOLE CO., 65 Barclay St. RAMBUSCH DECORATING CO., 40 West 13th St. KOLEY PLATING CO., 2951 53-55 Harney St. THE E. M. LOHMANN CO., 413-415 Sibley St. In answer ents please mention THE AMERICAN ECCLESIASTICAL REVIEW SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION IN THE COMMONITORIUM The current interest in the Catholic-Protestant dialogue, the third assembly of the World Council of Churches at New Delhi, and the event of the twenty-first ecumenical council, have all been, partially at least, the fruits of research into Scripture and Tradition. and the nature of the Church. Comparatively recent, within the last century, have been the advance of Scriptural studies, the formal study of the stream of Tradition, and the scientific inquiry into the nature of the Church. Though it is not possible yet to predict the outcome of this sweeping movement, it is nonetheless possible to see in it the providential work of God. Modern-day discussion, closely connected, has focused on three points among many others: Scripture, Tradition, the Church. They are easily reduced to the ultimate question: Holy Writ or Holy Church? Because we are children of our age, and implicated in this whirl of religious thought, we are apt to think that we are the first to give the above matters steady scrutiny. But history proves the contrary, and one of the men who has made theological history, whose name keeps flitting across the pages on Scripture, Tradition, and the Church, is St. Vincent of Lerins. Who is this enigmatic figure, and what sort of writing is his Commonitorium? The primitive Church, let it be noted, was not without some knowledge of Scripture and Tradition. It possessed the Scriptures, and it lived in the strong current of Tradition, though it did not always take the occasion to look at Tradition in its perspective. One of the early ecclesiastical writers who did look back into the past was St. Vincent of Lerins. Vincent of Lerins is a puzzling, and for that reason captivating, theological figure of the early fifth century. Of the facts of his life little is known with certainty. The first account of him we find in Gennadius's De viris illustribus, written between 467 and 479. Gennadius briefly records that Vincent was a citizen of Gaul, a conventual of the monastery at Lerins, a priest-scholar, and the author of a stylistic polemic, Peregrinus against Heretics. The author had his second volume stolen from him, and in its place wrote and attached a summary to his first volume, and published it. He died during the reign of Theodosius and Valentinian.1 Lerins is an isle off the southeast coast of France, near modern Cannes. It is now called St. Honorat-perhaps after the founder of a monastery there. In Vincent's day, the monastery had a flourishing school of theology staffed by Honorat, Hilary, Caesar of Arles, Eucherius of Lyons, Faustus de Riez, Salvian, and others. At this time it achieved moderate fame by its patristic and theological studies. According to the testimony of Gennadius, Vincent died in the reign of Theodosius II (408-450) and Valentinian (425-455), probably before 450. The one definite fact in the whole biography of Vincent is the date of composition of his Commonitorium. Vincent himself supplies us with it in chapter XXIX, 7, where he says he chose the example of the Council of Ephesus in Asia, which took place "three years previously," while Bassus and Antiochus were consuls.2 The third ecumenical council was held at Ephesus in 431, hence Vincent wrote in 434. This fact is corroborated by other historical references in the text.3 What the real title of his book was is not at all certain, but the most common title, which appears five times in the context and in modern editions and translations, is Commonitorium or Com 1 ML, LVIII, 1097-1098. * G. Rauschen, Vincentii Lerinensis Commonitoria (“Florilegium Patristicum," Fasc. V: Bonnae, 1906). As far as I can judge, this is the best critical edition. Unless otherwise noted, all pieces of translation in this article are taken from R. E. Morris, "Vincent of Lerins, The Commonitories," in The Fathers of the Church, VII (New York, 1949). 8 J. Madoz, El Concepto de la tradicion en S. Vicente de Lerins (“Analecta Gregoriana," Vol. V; Romae: Pontificiae Universitatis Gregorianae, 1933), p. 48. Besides penning this critical study, Madoz discovered in 1940, in the library of Ripoll, Northern Catalonia, a second work of Vincent's, the Excerpta sancte memorie Vincentii lirinensis insule presbiteri ex uniuerso beate recordationis Augustini episcopi in unum collecta. It is an unedited book of selections from Augustine's writings on the Trinity and Incarnation, comprising a prologue, a series of ten dogmatic titles, and a recapitulation. The importance of this discovery lies in the manifest admiration the monk of Lerins had for the bishop of Hippo, the care with which he made the selections, and the praise he bestowed on St. Augustine. It will to be taken into account in passing judgment on Vincent's reputed lagianism. Altaner thinks that perhaps the terms used in the Creed monitories. Its meaning is clear from several passages, particularly chapters I, 7 and XXXIII, 7. Vincent intends to write for his own use, "to aid my memory, or rather, to check my forgetfulness," and "in order to refresh my memory." In modern English the work may be entitled Memoranda or Own Remembrancer or Wayfarer's Notebook." After lying in literary death for a millennium, Vincent's Commonitorium (one complete book and a fragment of a second) was reborn with the advent of Protestantism. During the Middle Ages it was a forgotten book, its four or five manuscripts relegated to the dusty shelves of libraries to be kept for posterity. Catalogs of medieval libraries did not list it. The great scholastics, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, ignored it. After the first edition of John Sichard, in his Antidotum contra diversas omnium fere saeculorum haereses (Basel, 1528), it appeared in thirty-five editions before the close of the sixteenth century, and altogether has been edited and translated over one hundred fifty times, its fame and influence steadily increasing up to the present. It has been the fortune of the Commonitorium to have had a very checkered and often contrary influence on Protestants and Catholics. The nineteenth century, which marked an epoch in the book's history, saw the theologians of the Anglican Reform and Old Catholics quoting it against Rome with no less confidence than the Catholic theologians. Long ago, historians had seen that it espoused Semipelagianism, and somewhat later both historians and theologians Quicunque were taken from these excerpts. Cf. J. Madoz, "Un tratado desconocido de San Vicente de Lerins," Gregorianum, XXI (1940), pp. 75-94; J. Lebreton, "Saint Vincent de Lerins et Saint Augustine" Recherches de science religieuse, XXX (July, 1940), pp. 368-369; B. Altaner, Patrologie (2d ed. rev.; Freiburg: Herder, 1950), p. 403. A third work, Objectiones Vincentianae, has come to be known through Prosper of Aquitaine's refutation, Capitula objectionum Gallorum calumniantium (ML, LI, 177-182 and 155-170, respectively). It consists of eighteen objections to St. Augustine's doctrines of grace and predestination. 4 Madoz, El concepto, p. 47; Morris, "Vincent of Lerins,” p. 267, n. 1. 5 R. S. Moxon, The Commonitorium of Vincentius of Lerins (Cambridge: University Press, 1915), p. xi. 6 Madoz, El concepto, pp. 55 f. 7A. D'Alès, "La fortune du 'Commonitorium,'" Recherches de science religieuse, XXVI (June, 1936), pp. 334 f. |