Quod Ubique, Quod Semper, Quod Ab Omnibus

In the second chapter of his Commonitorium (c. 434), St. Vincent of Lérins sets down the most famous formula in the whole literature of Tradition: that the Church holds “that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all” — quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est. This file expounds the canon in Vincent’s own words: the prior question that drives him to it, the three notes of universality, antiquity, and consent, his own glosses on each, and the supplementary tests of councils and the consensus of the fathers that he adds when the three notes alone do not suffice. The assessment of how the test works in practice — its strengths and its difficulties — is reserved for the companion file.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism West; the canon of catholicity)

The Prior Question: Scripture and Its Interpretation

Vincent does not arrive at his canon as an abstract definition. He reaches it by way of a problem, and the problem is the interpretation of Scripture. Having resolved to seek “some general rule” by which to distinguish “the truth of the catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical depravity,” he poses to himself the obvious objection: since the canon of Scripture is complete and “sufficient, and more than sufficient, for all things,” why is there any need of the Church’s interpretive authority added to it (Vincent, Commonitorium 2; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11)?

His answer is not that Scripture is deficient but that it is deep. “Because of the very depth of Holy Scripture all do not receive it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems possible to elicit from it as many opinions as there are men” (Commonitorium 2; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). He runs through the heresiarchs by name to make the point — Novatian, Sabellius, Donatus, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, and the rest expound the Scriptures, and each expounds them his own way (Commonitorium 2; cf. Morris, FOTC 7). The heretic is not a man who ignores the Bible but a man who quotes it; the very abundance of divergent readings is what makes a rule of interpretation necessary. Hence, Vincent concludes, “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” (Commonitorium 2; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). The canon, then, is not a rival to Scripture but the Church’s way of drawing the line of catholic reading through a text that, left to private ingenuity, can be made to say anything (the fuller treatment of this point is given in The Sufficiency and Interpretation of Scripture).

The Formula

Within that same second chapter the rule is stated in the words that have carried it for fifteen centuries. “In the catholic Church itself,” Vincent writes, “all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all” — in ipsa item catholica ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est (Commonitorium 2; Latin in Moxon 1915; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). “For that is truly and in the strictest sense catholic,” he continues, “which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally” (Commonitorium 2; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11).

The sentence is built on the word catholic itself. Kath’ holou means “according to the whole,” and Vincent unfolds the term into three dimensions of wholeness: the whole of space, the whole of time, and the whole body of the faithful. The faith that is catholic is the faith held by the whole Church everywhere, the faith held from the beginning, and the faith held by the whole company of believers. To depart from any one of these is to fall short of catholicity in the precise sense the name carries. This is why the formula is not a list of three independent tests so much as a single criterion of wholeness viewed from three sides.

The Three Notes and Vincent’s Own Glosses

Vincent at once tells us how the three are to be followed, and his glosses are as important as the formula, because they fix the meaning of each note. “This rule we shall observe,” he writes, “if we follow universality, antiquity, consent” — sequemur autem universitatem antiquitatem consensionem (Commonitorium 2; Latin in Moxon 1915; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11).

Universality — universitas — is the note of space, the “everywhere.” “We shall follow universality,” he glosses, “if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses” (Commonitorium 2; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). The criterion is the agreement of the Church spread across the whole inhabited world: a doctrine confined to one region, one school, one people, has not the breadth that catholicity requires.

Antiquity — antiquitas — is the note of time, the “always.” “We shall follow antiquity,” Vincent continues, “if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed” (Commonitorium 2; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). The standard is the unbroken sense held by “the holy elders and fathers” (sancti maiores ac patres); the faith that is catholic is old, continuous with what was received, not a recent discovery. This is the note that will most occupy the section on development, for it raises at once the question how the faith can be both ancient and capable of genuine growth (see Profectus, Not Permutatio).

Consent — consensio — is the note of the faithful, the “by all.” “We shall follow consent,” he writes, “if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors” — si in ipsa vetustate omnium vel certe paene omnium sacerdotum pariter et magistrorum definitiones sententiasque sectemur (Commonitorium 2; Latin in Moxon 1915; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). The agreement in view is not a counting of heads among the unlettered but the convergence of the recognized teachers of the Church — the sacerdotes et magistri, the bishops and the doctors — and it is this patristic consensus that the consent-note names (treated in its own place as Consensus Patrum).

Two features of these glosses deserve to be marked at once, because they govern everything that follows. First, the three notes are nested: consent is sought “in antiquity itself” (in ipsa vetustate), so that the agreement that counts is agreement among the ancient fathers, not a present majority. Antiquity orders consent. Second, the consent-note already carries a qualification — “all, or at the least of almost all” (omnium vel certe paene omnium) — the magna pars clause that concedes the unanimity sought need not be mathematically complete. Vincent builds the qualification into the rule at its first statement, and it will reappear when he turns to hard cases.

The Supplementary Tests of the Third Chapter

The three notes are not Vincent’s last word but his first, for he knows that they do not apply themselves automatically and that history will furnish cases where they seem to fail. The third chapter is given over to exactly this: “What is a Christian to do,” he asks, “if some part of the Church cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member?” (Commonitorium 3; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). And he presses the question one stage harder: what if “some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole?” (Commonitorium 3; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11).

Vincent’s answer is a graduated series of resorts, each engaged when the one before it gives out. First, against a partial corruption, he sets universality: the sound whole is to be preferred to the diseased part (Commonitorium 3). Second, where the contagion has spread so far that universality can no longer be read off the present Church, he sets antiquity: “then he will take care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty” (Commonitorium 3; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). Antiquity is the resort that novelty cannot reach, because the past is fixed and cannot be re-infected.

Third, where even within the field of antiquity an error has so spread that a single father, or even a few, cannot settle the matter, Vincent turns to the general council: if a novelty attempts the whole Church, the Christian “will take care to cleave to the decrees, if such there be, of an ancient General Council” (Commonitorium 3; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). The conciliar definition is the Church’s own authoritative declaration of what antiquity held.

Fourth and last, where no council has ruled on the point, Vincent prescribes the comparison of the fathers. The Christian must then “collate and consult the opinions of the ancients, of those, namely, who, though living in divers times and places, yet continuing in the communion and faith of the one catholic Church, stand forth as approved authorities; and whatsoever he shall ascertain to have been held, written, taught, not by one or two of these only, but by all, equally, with one consent, openly, frequently, persistently, that he must understand that he himself also is to believe without any doubt or hesitation” (Commonitorium 3; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). Three conditions are written into this last test, and each is load-bearing. The fathers consulted must be those who “continued in the communion and faith of the one catholic Church” — orthodoxy of life and communion is the entrance qualification. They must be “approved” teachers. And what is sought is not any opinion of theirs but what they held “with one consent” (uno sensu), “openly, frequently, persistently.” A consensus so qualified, Vincent holds, may be followed “without any doubt.”

The Shape of the Rule

Read whole, the canon is therefore a single instrument with a graduated structure rather than a flat checklist. At its head stands the threefold note — everywhere, always, by all — which states the form of catholicity. Beneath it stand the supplements of the third chapter, which tell the inquirer what to do when the form cannot be applied directly: prefer the whole to the part; where the part has grown large, fall back on antiquity; within antiquity, follow a general council; where no council has spoken, follow the unanimous consent of the approved fathers. Universality, antiquity, and consent remain the criteria throughout; the supplements are the procedure for reaching them when the present face of the Church is clouded.

The whole apparatus is held together by a single conviction, which the Commonitorium states and re-states: the faith is not the possession of any individual, any age, or any region, but of the whole Church across all time. “What is the deposit?” Vincent asks elsewhere in the work. “That which has been entrusted to thee, not that which thou hast thyself devised: a matter not of wit, but of learning; not of private adoption, but of public tradition” (Commonitorium 22; trans. Heurtley, NPNF II/11). The canon of the second and third chapters is the practical rule by which that public, catholic, traditional faith is to be told apart from the private and the novel — and as a positive instrument of discernment it is, in Vincent’s hands, luminous. How serviceable it proves when its three notes are pressed against the hard cases of history is the matter of the companion study (see The Threefold Test Examined).

See Also

• The Threefold Test Examined — how the canon works in practice, its strengths and the difficulties scholars have pressed against it
• Consensus Patrum — the patristic-consensus principle that the consent-note names
• The Sufficiency and Interpretation of Scripture — the prior question that drives Vincent to the canon
• Profectus, Not Permutatio — how antiquity is reconciled with genuine doctrinal growth
• Holy Tradition — the Orthodox doctrine of Tradition the canon serves

References

• Vincent of Lérins. The Commonitory of Vincent of Lérins. Trans. C. A. Heurtley. In A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Vol. 11. Oxford and New York, 1894. (Anchor translation; the prior question of Scripture and interpretation and the heresiarch catalogue at ch. 2; the formula quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus and the glosses on universality, antiquity, and consent at ch. 2; the supplementary tests of the whole-over-part, antiquity, the general council, and the consensus of the fathers at ch. 3; “what is the deposit” at ch. 22.)
• Moxon, Reginald S., ed. The Commonitorium of Vincentius of Lerins. Cambridge Patristic Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915. (Latin text; quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est; sequemur autem universitatem antiquitatem consensionem; the omnium vel certe paene omnium qualification at ch. 2.)
• Morris, Rudolph E., trans. “The Commonitories.” In The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 7: Niceta of Remesiana, Sulpicius Severus, Vincent of Lérins, Prosper of Aquitaine. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1949. (Translation consulted for chapters 2–3.)
• Guarino, Thomas G. Vincent of Lérins and the Development of Christian Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013. (On the canon as a “first principles” rule and on the nesting of the three notes under antiquity and consensus.)