Church Father
"The formulator of the Vincentian Canon — whose simple three-part test for authentic Christian tradition has served as the standard criterion of orthodoxy for fifteen centuries"
Almost nothing is known about Vincent’s life. He was a monk at the famous Abbey of Lerins — a major intellectual centre of fifth-century Western Christianity — and was ordained a priest. His single work, the Commonitorium, was written in AD 434 under the pseudonym Peregrinus (Pilgrim). It contains the famous Vincentian Canon: “In the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.” Ubique, semper, ab omnibus — everywhere, always, by all.
"In the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all — following universality, antiquity, and consent."
"Let the understanding, knowledge, and wisdom of each and all grow and progress mightily with the passing of the ages and the centuries — but only along its own line of development, within the same dogma, the same sense, the same judgment."
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