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Now does any one mean to maintain that Aerius, Jovinian, or Vigilantius, held justification by faith only in the sense of John Wesley, or of John Newton?
The semi-Pelagians held that man could turn to God by his own strength, but that divine grace was necessary to enable him to persevere. One heretic of this period deserves a special word of record. Vigilantius was a Gallic priest, remarkable for his eloquence and learning, and he devoted himself to an effort to reform the Church in Spain.
They cite Cyprian, because he asked Cornelius while yet alive to pray for his brothers when departing. By this example they prove the invocation of the dead. They quote also Jerome against Vigilantius. Thus the adversaries triumph, as though the war were already ended. Nor do those asses see that in Jerome, against Vigilantius, there is not a syllable concerning invocation.
I shall think so, until I find Ignatius and Aerius, in spite of their differences about bishops, agreeing in his doctrine of justification; until Irenæus and Jovinian, though at daggers drawn about baptism, shall yet declare Scripture to be the sole rule of faith; until Cyprian and Vigilantius, however at variance about the merit of virginity, uphold in common the sacred right and duty of private judgment.
The valor of Sarus, his fame in arms, and his personal, or hereditary, influence over the confederate Barbarians, could recommend him only to the friends of their country, who despised, or detested, the worthless characters of Turpilio, Varanes, and Vigilantius.
Vigilantius was a priest of Gaul or Spain, and flourished just at the time Jovinian died: he taught, 1. That those who reverenced relics were idolaters; 2. That continence and celibacy were wrong, as leading to the worst scandals; 3. That lighting candles in churches during the day, in honour of the martyrs, was wrong, as being a heathen rite; 4.
There was one Vigilantius in the early Church; his name might be interpreted 'The Watchful. He was at issue with St.
However, he was able to comprehend the remarks of Vigilantius, "who returned from a journey in Italy and the Holy Land disgusted with official Christianity. He protested vehemently against the idolatrous worship of images, the legacy of Paganism to the Church, a practice directly opposed to that of the Mosaic law which Jesus came, not to destroy, but to fulfill.
He maintained, moreover, that prayers addressed to departed saints were void of all efficacy; and treated with contempt fastings and mortifications, the celibacy of the clergy, and the various austerities of the monastic life. Under these circumstances we can scarcely wonder that Vigilantius was scouted as a heretic by all orthodox, lucre-loving clerics.
Jerome, that Porphyry, the most learned and able of the heathen writers against Christianity, resorted to the same solution: "Unless," says he, speaking to Vigilantius, "according to the manner of the Gentiles and the profane, of Porphyry and Eunomius, you pretend that these are the tricks of demons."
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