VIGILANTIUS

VIGILANTIUS, the opponent of ecclesiastical corruptions in the fourth century, was born about the year A.D. 306, at Casères, in Spain, a village on the northern side of the Pyrenees. The father of Vigilantius kept the Mansio or station at Calagorris, where travellers were supplied with post-horses and guides to conduct them through the passes; and this brought the young mountaineer under the notice of Sulpicius Severus the historian, who took him into his service, and employed him in the management of his estates and in the sale of the wines which they produced.¹ For his good conduct in this situation he was taken into the confidence of his patron, and lived with him more in the character of a friend than a dependant. There are some beautiful letters still extant, which passed between Sulpicius Severus and Paulinus of Nola, in which Vigilantius is mentioned in the warmest terms of affection;² and no doubt he was indebted to his familiar acquaintance with these two eminent persons for his first serious impressions. Sulpicius devoted the whole of his immense property to the exercise of almsgiving and hospitality. Vigilantius observed the melancholy effects produced in the noble mind of his protector by his extra vigilant conduct, and learnt to avoid the lessons which degraded "the Christian Sallust," as Sulpicius was called, to the level of a credulous narrator of false miracles.³ Vigilantius continued to pass his time in the society of Sulpicius in Aquitaine, or of Paulinus in Campania, until the year 394 or 395 A.D., and with them he had the best opportunities of cultivating sacred learning, and of discussing theological questions. But succeeding to considerable property on the death of his father about that time, he resolved to take a journey to the East for his mental improvement, and carried a letter of introduction from Paulinus to Jerome,⁴ who was then dwelling as a recluse in Palestine. This introduction, which took place after he was in priest's orders, was a turning-point in his life. Jerome, who began by speaking of Vigilantius as "the holy presbyter,"⁵ and "Christian brother,"⁶ soon changed his opinion, and heaped every epithet upon him that was most expressive of contempt and resentment. He punned upon his name, and called him "Dormitanti," and inveighed against him as an ignorant pretender to learning.⁷ "Tapster," "madman," "monster," "possessed of a devil," "heretic," "Samaritan," "worse than a Jew;" these were some of Jerome's terms of reproach applied to Vigilantius; but we search in

Vignola vain for any fair grounds of accusation in justification of such language, which has been condemned by some of the best writers of the Romish Church. No charges of heterodoxy on the great doctrines of atonement and justification, no imputation of doubtful faith on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, are advanced against him. The sum and substance of Jerome's indictment amounts to this, that Vigilantius denied the sanctity of relics; that he refused to worship and burn lights at the tombs of the martyrs, and to invoke saints; that he disapproved of vows of celibacy, of pilgrimages, and of nocturnal watchings in cemeteries;¹ that he doubted the presence of departed spirits at the places where their bodies were buried; that he questioned the tales of miracles said to have been wrought at the sepulchres of the martyrs; and that he protested against the imputed efficacy of prayers, either for or to the dead.² Unfortunately we have nothing left but Jerome's account of the controversy; and Vigilantius only speaks for himself in the pages of his adversaries, in some of which he is represented precisely in the same light, and almost in the same words, as the early Christians were by their pagan calumniators. After making some stay in Palestine and Egypt, Vigilantius returned to Gaul in 396;³ and on his way he visited a Christian community in the Cottian Alps, the ancestors, as we have reason to believe, of the Valdenses, among whom he found persons entertaining the same opinions as his own.

During the eight years that followed, he officiated as priest in the diocese of Toulouse, not far from the Pyrenees; but he does not seem to have been confined to the duties of his parish;⁴ for we read of his making excursions into different parts of Gaul to collect books, to copy MSS., and to put himself into communication with bishops and clergy whose sentiments were similar to his own. The influence of the Pyrenean presbyter was exercised in another way; he employed much of his time and his fortune in the transcription and circulation of copies of the Scriptures.⁵ The zeal of Vigilantius in his endeavour to check the progress of innovation was unremitting till the time of his death, which took place, it is supposed, at the beginning of the fifth century.