Jerome, responding to a no-longer extant treatise by Vigilantius criticising the cult of relics, written and distributed in Gaul in the early 400s, quotes the example of the bishops of Rome, who celebrate the eucharist over the graves of the Apostles *Peter (00008) and *Paul (00036), and refutes Vigilantius' mockery of the link between the souls and the bodies of the martyrs. Against Vigilantius, written in Latin in Bethlehem (Palestine) in 406.
E08342
Literary - Theological works
Jerome of Stridon
Jerome, Against Vigilantius (Contra Vigilantium) 8
Male facit ergo romanus episcopus, qui super mortuorum hominum Petri et Pauli, secundum nos ossa veneranda, secundum te uile puluisculum, offert domino sacrificia et tumulos eorum Christi arbitratur altaria? Et non solum unius urbis, sed totius orbis errant episcopi, qui cauponem Vigilantium contemnentes, ingrediuntur basilicas martyrum, in quibus puluis uilissimus et fauilla nescio quae iacet linteamine colligata, ut polluta omnia polluat, et quasi sepulcra pharisaica foris dealbata sint, cum intus immundo cinere sordeant. Et post haec de barathro pectoris sui caenosam spurcitiam euomens audet dicere: "Ergo cineres suos amant animae martyrum et circumuolant eos semperque praesentes sint, ne forte si aliquid precator aduenerit, absentes audire non possint?" O portentum in terras ultimas deportandum! Rides de reliquiis martyrum et cum auctore huius haereseos Eunomio ecclesiis Christi calumniam struis, nec tali societate terreris, ut eadem contra nos loquaris quae ille contra ecclesiam loquitur. Omnes enim sectatores eius basilicas apostolorum et martyrum non ingrediuntur, ut scilicet mortuum adorent Eunomium, cuius libros maioris auctoritatis arbitrantur quam Euangelia. Et in ipso esse credunt columen ueritatis, sicut aliae haereses paraclitum in Montanum uenisse contendunt et Manichaeum ipsum dicunt esse paraclitum.
‘Does the bishop of Rome do wrong when he offers sacrifices to the Lord over the venerable bones of the dead men Peter and Paul, as we should say, but according to you, over a worthless bit of dust, and judges their tombs worthy to be Christ's altars? And not only is the bishop of one city in error, but the bishops of the whole world, who, despite the tavern-keeper Vigilantius, enter the basilicas of the dead, in which a worthless bit of dust and ashes lies wrapped up in a cloth, defiled and defiling all else.’ Thus, according to you, the sacred buildings are like the sepulchres of the Pharisees, whitened without, while within they have filthy remains, and are full of foul smells and uncleanliness. And then he dares to expectorate his filth upon the subject and to say: “Is it the case that the souls of the martyrs love their ashes, and hover round them, and are always present, lest haply if any one come to pray and they were absent, they could not hear?” Oh, monster, who ought to be banished to the ends of the earth! Do you laugh at the relics of the martyrs, and in company with Eunomius, the father of this heresy, slander the Churches of Christ? Are you not afraid of being in such company, and of speaking against us the same things which he utters against the Church? For all his followers refuse to enter the basilicas of Apostles and martyrs, so that, forsooth, they may worship the dead Eunomius, whose books they consider are of more authority than the Gospels; and they believe that the light of truth was in him just as other heretics maintain that the Paraclete came into Montanus, and say that Manichaeus himself was the Paraclete.’
Vigilantius is yet another one in a long line of heretics. By despising relics he despises the martyrs who shed their blood for the faith.
Text: Feiertag, 2005, p. 18-9.
Translation: Fremantle, 1893.
Eucharist associated with cult
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Altar
Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave
Rejection, Condemnation, SceptisismRejection of the cult of relics
RelicsBodily relic - corporeal ashes/dust
Bodily relic - bones and teeth
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - Popes
Cult Related ObjectsPrecious cloths
Source
Jerome’s treatise Against Vigilantius is one of the earliest testimonies to an open polemic on the cult of relics within Christianity. When writing it, Jerome was already a famous biblical scholar and redoubtable polemicist. Vigilantius may have been a minor personage in the history of late antique literature, but he was well connected with a few authors and clerics who played an essential role in the development of the cult of saints in the West.We meet Vigilantius for the first time in 395, when he arrived at Jerome's monastery in Bethlehem with a letter of recommendation from Paulinus of Nola. He spent there less time than his host had expected (Jerome, Letter 58.11) and parted company with him over a disagreement whose details are uncertain, but nothing suggests that it concerned his attitude toward the veneration of relics.
Soon after his return to Italy, Vigilantius set off again, this time carrying a letter of Paulinus to Gaul, to Sulpicius Severus (Paulinus, Letter 5, E05092). He reached his destination in 396, most probably the same year in which Victricius of Rouen wrote In Praise of the Saints (E00717) and Sulpicius Severus the Life of St Martin (E00692), two manifestos of a new, ascetic religiosity, hostile to the clerical establishment. It is highly probable that the publication of these texts and bad memories of his stay with Jerome, one of the most zealous promoters of virginity and the monastic life, then conflict with his bishop, and finally a visit to Sulpicius Severus, who also was in conflict with several Gallic bishops, made Vigilantius speak out against the views and practices of the milieu which he had hitherto belonged to.
However, these are only conjectures. For after his return to Gaul, Vigilantius disappears from our sources for a few years. We next find him living in Calagurris in Gaul (today's Saint-Martory, and not Calagurris in the Iberian Peninsula), about 70 km south-west of Toulouse. We know this from Jerome’s Letter 109 (E08347), written in 404, to the priest Riparius of Toulouse, who reported to him Vigilantius' rejection of the cult of relics.
We do not know when exactly Vigilantius wrote his treatise criticising this phenomenon. Perhaps it was directly triggered by the solemn transfer of the body of the bishop and martyr Saturninus to the newly built church in Toulouse, in 402 or 403. But this connection could have worked in two ways. It is possible that Vigilantius reacted to an event that he had witnessed, but he also could have already begun to voice his criticisms earlier, thus making Bishop Exsuperius of Toulouse, the organiser of the ceremony, anxious of possible reactions: we know Exsuperius sought permission from the emperor to transfer Saturninus’ body and this caution may indicate that he had already encountered some criticism of the cult of relics, perhaps from Vigilantius (Hunter 1999, 408-9).
Be that as it may, the treatise in which Vigilantius set out his theses was written in 406 at the latest, because in this year Jerome, still living in Bethlehem, received it. The treatise has not survived and we know it only from the discussion and quotations in Jerome's pamphlet against it. According to Jerome, Vigilantius criticised several new religious customs: the promotion of virginity, especially among the clergy; the veneration of relics and the belief in miracles performed by them; night vigils and the singing of alleluias outside Easter; and the sending of financial aid to monasteries in the Holy Land. These practices developed partly independently, but were all popular in the same milieu that Jerome, Paulinus of Nola, and Sulpicius Severus belonged to.
Vigilantius argued that the custom of kissing relics, enclosing them in precious vessels and ceremoniously carrying them from one place to another are forms of idolatry, consisting in the worship of material objects. He believed that the martyrs, whose sanctity he acknowledged, lived with God in heaven, and had no link whatsoever with their mortal remains. In Letter 109, Jerome also reproached Vigilantius for considering the remains of the saints to be impure. In the Against Vigilantius, written two years later, however, this topic does not feature at all. This suggests that in 404 Jerome wrongly attributed to Vigilantius the same views which were characteristic of pagan criticism of the cult of relics. When he finally received Vigilantius' treatise, however, he found no such views in it.
We do not know what reactions Jerome's treatise provoked among his contemporaries. After 406 Vigilantius disappears from our sources and this stage of the public discussion of relics died out. It is doubtful that his supporters (Jerome writes that he had them even among the bishops) would have been persuaded by the treatise sent from Bethlehem, but it seems that neither its addressee nor anyone else dared to take up the challenge formulated in the last sentences of Jerome's polemic: ‘But if Dormitantius [=Vigilantius] wakes up that he may again abuse me, and if he thinks fit to disparage me with that same blasphemous mouth with which he pulls to pieces Apostles and martyrs, I will spend upon him something more than this short lucubration. I will keep vigil for a whole night in his behalf and in behalf of his companions, whether they be disciples or masters…’ (Against Vigilantius 17).
Bibliography
Edition:Feiertag, J.-L., Adversus Vigilantium (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 79C; Turnhout: Brepols, 2005).
Translation:
Fremantle, W.H., Against Vigilantius, in: The Principal Works of St. Jerome, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 6 (Buffalo, NY, 1893).
Further reading:
Hunter, D.G., "Vigilantius of Calagurris and Victricius of Rouen: Ascetics, Relics, and Clerics in Late Roman Gaul," Journal of Early Christian Studies 7 (1999), 401–430.
Wiśniewski, R., The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
Robert Wiśniewski
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00008 | Paul, the Apostle | Paulus | Certain | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain |
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