St. Vincent and the True Church

In 434 the Monk St. Vincent wrote the Commonitorium. His concern was in how we can distinguish the true faith from errors. He writes at a time when there were many variant groups claiming to represent the apostolic faith. Here are some excerpts:

VINCENT OF LERINS The Commonitory
Chapter 2 - A General Rule for distinguishing the Truth of the Catholic Faith from the Falsehood of Heretical Pravity

“how and by what sure and … universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: …. to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways; first, by the authority of Scripture and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.

But here some one perhaps will ask, “Since the canon of Scripture is complete and sufficient of itself for everything….what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church's interpretation? For this reason: because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.

Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. …. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.”
(from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 11, PC Study Bible formatted electronic database Copyright © 2003, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Why is this so important? We live in an age not unlike St. Vincent’s. There are as many opinions as there are teachers. One church teaches that Communion is merely a memorial meal with no other significance, another teaches that it is the very body of Christ. Orthodox churches teach that there is a correct way to worship and other churches teach that any act done with sincerity is worship (resulting in finger painting during a Sunday service being called “worship” – and yes, I have seen this with my own eyes). One body of churches teach that homosexual people in committed relationships may be married or ordained by the church, another teaches that women may not be admitted to Holy Orders. It can get confusing. At what point does personal opinion stray beyond the bounds of the faith when, according to our social values, everyone’s opinion is equally valid?

This is the “postmodern” dilliemma. The real problem with truth in our age is not “what is truth” but rather what is the truth about truth and who owns it? What church or group can claim the authority to teach the faith? St. Vincent helps us with this problem by telling us that the true teaching of the church can be verified by what has been believed always, everywhere and by all. We can understand it this way: Jesus promised that he would be with the church always and that the Holy Spirit would lead the church into all truth. If this is true then we have to trust that God has always been at work in the church. We can then look back across time and allow history to witness to us those things that have been most consistently believed and practiced by all people, across the particularities of any one time and the varied cultural influences always threatening the church. We can take a “majority position” and feel relatively safe in the fact that no one culture has inordinately dominated the interpretation of the faith. When we look at history in this way we can see that the Reformation was necessary. For example the Roman Church practiced innovations that were not consistent with what had been believed always, everywhere and by all. But we can also see that present day Protestantism is a far cry from this norm as well and is straying even farther. We would also see that the Orthodox churches of the east most closely adhered to this norm across the ages and in all places.

Our cultural value places the individual as the highest authority. Truth is determined by each person for him/her self. This is, in part, the exaggeration of the Protestant Reformation after 500 years. The result is a multiplication of denominations and churches. How many denominations must we have? In fact the result is that people no longer believe in institutions because this sort of radical individualism expressed in multiplying Christian denominations undermines any claim to authority. This exaggerated Protestantism has literally undermined the Church everywhere, making its claims unbelievable.

The result is that we can witness two divergent reactions to this problem: individuals disavow institutions or move towards institutions that poses a very conservative and strong argument for their authority. And so the numbers of people who are "de-churched" grow and there is marked growth in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Pentecostal/evangelical (with the strong fundamentalist appeal to Holy Scripture) and even Mormons as the recent Pew Studies show. These statistics show that they reject this modern condition and intuitively know that they must return to an authoritative community. The result is that many people are returning to the Orthodox and Catholic churches. And this crisis of authority extends across the Protestant spectrum. From the Emergent church movement, to the Convergence movement, the adoption of historic practices have been taken up in varying degrees in an attempt to console the modern insecurity brought about by the crisis of authority. Unfortunately these Protestant groups can never really escape this insecurity because at the end of the day they are defining for themselves what exactly constitutes the "fullness of the faith". When you are making it up as you go along you can never really feel secure about what you are doing. And this is what happens when the historic faith, its shape and practice, is divorced from it's native economia (here meaning the administration of the faith according to the mind of the authoritative Church).

Ofcourse, this does not mean that these true, right believing Churches cannot err or that this economia prevents them from misusing the Faith entrusted to them. What it does mean is that these churches are far more resilient to error. Newer churches are far more susceptible to erroneous teaching, or more subtle still, errors of opinion or behavior that render the whole less apostolic even if the doctrines held appear to be similar. While there can be similar errors in behavior or opinion in the true Churches the effects are mitigated by a much deeper, richer, and more established culture and body of teaching. Newer movements are at the mercy of the behavior and teaching of the few. And who is to say that the teaching is truly apostolic? Any appeal to the apostolic faith must be "reinterpreted" by the few in order to excoriate authoritative teaching that might make the movement appear less authoritative. This can only result in propping up a schism or worse still, a heresy.

Thus, the appeal to that which has been believed always, everywhere and by all cannot be minimalistic, as if there were merely a minimum standard of doctrine believed in order to adhere to the Apostolic faith. Rather it is an appeal to the entire mind of the church, calling us not merely to dogmatic belief but right belief, leading to right action.