VIGILANTIUS, vij"i-lan'shi-us: Presbyter of Aquitaine; b. at Calagurris (probably the modern Martres, 142 m. s.s.e. of Bordeaux), doubtless before 370; d. after 406. He seems to have been possessed of some property, and' had #Iready been ordained. to the priesthood when, with a letter of introduction from Paulinus Nolanus, he visited Jerome at Bethlehem some years previous to 404. According to the letter of Jerome to Paulinus (Epist., lviii.), he had received Vigilantius with all kindness, but for some reason his guest had secretly left him. On his way beak to Gaul, and while in Italy, Vigilantius either addressed a letter to Jerome or submitted some treatise for his approval which his former host construed as an allegation that he was infected with the heresies of Origen, whereupon Jerome replied to Vigilantius in a letter of extreme bitterness (Epist., lxi.). In 406, after Vigilantius had returned to Aquitaine, two neighboring priests, Riparius and Desiderius, who felt their parishes infected by his proximity, wrote to Jerome asking him to prepare a refutation of his former guest. At the same time they sent, by a certain monk Sisinnius, the writings of Vigilantius. These Jerome had never seen before, although by 404 he had received from Riparius a summary of the views of Vigilantius. Sisinnius reached Bethlehem late in the autumn of 406 and intended to remain until the following Epiphany, but suddenly felt it to be his duty to leave for Gaul by way of Egypt sooner than he had expected. Jerome was accordingly obliged to dictate his Apologia ttdversus Vigilantium in a single night.

This Apologia forms almost the sole source for knowledge concerning Vigilantius. He had raised his voice against the prevailing cult of martyrs, or saints, the homage paid their graves, the prayers addressed to their relics, the building of and pilgrimage to churches erected especially in honor of them, the burning of candles to them, the holding of vigils at their tombs, and the singing of halleluiahs to them, since he deemed all this a concession to paganism. Vigils (q.v.) brought with them the danger of immorality; and the singing of halleluiahs should be restricted to Eastertide, that the populace might not forget the difference between the Redeemer and his redeemed saints. He inveighed against indiscriminate charity and against giving all to monks in pagan lands while the poor at home were left to starve. He had scant sympathy with monastic life, as being destructive to the care of souls, and he seems to have opposed the enforced celibacy of the clergy.

By charging Jerome with Origenistic heresy Vigilantius roused the implacable anger of his quondam host, especially as all question of the letter's orthodoxy had apparently been removed by the personal meeting of Jerome and Vigilantius. Jerome retorted with a counter-charge of yielding to heresy (Epist., lxi. I, Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., vi. 131), and as early as his Apologia adversus libros

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Rufini (probably early in 402) he was obliged to defend himself for having declared that Vigilantius had been contaminated by his associates in Alexandria. This charge Jerome repeated in 404, implying that Rufinus and his Egyptian friends had been the cause of Vigilantius' heresy. As a matter of fact, however, Vigilantius had learned to know and admire Origen at least as early as his journey through Egypt and Palestine, and he had not attacked Jerome because of abhorrence of anything savoring of Origenistic teachings, but had contradicted him as an independent and perhaps self-opinionated person, identifying-in the fashion of the Origenistic Controversy (q.v.)-the errors of his opponent with those of the great and dangerous Origen.

Little is known of Vigilantius except for the statements of Jerome. Gennadius, however, states that Vigilantius was a presbyter in the diocese of Barcelona, which would imply that after 406 he was transferred to Spain. Paulinus of Nola, writing to Severus, probably about 395, mentions (Epist., v.) a fellow countryman named Yigilantius whom he had sent to Campania with a letter. [It seems probable that Vigilantius was a proti;g6 of Sulpicius Severus, and that as a messenger of the latter he first came into relations with Paulinus of Nola. a. x. N.] It has been held that this was another Vigilantius, a baptized slave; but the term peer seems to refer merely to the relative youth of Vigilantius at the time, as compared with the age of Paulinus; and between this letter and the journey of Vigilantius to Palestine with a letter of introduction to Jerome sufficient time may well have elapsed for his ordination to the priesthood. The general education of Vigilantius seems to have been good, though his theological training was less perfect. Certain incautious expressions, as dubbing those who venerated relics "idolaters," betray the impetuous Gascon; his polemics were, however, not personal or partizan, but were inspired by his belief that religion was imperiled.

While, during his lifetime, Vigilantius was protected by his sympathizers, his permanent achievements were scanty. In his De dogmatibus ecclesiasticis (xl., Lxzciii.) Gennadius states that only the followers of Yigilantius and Eunomius rejected the veneration of relics and the building of and pilgrimage to churches in honor of the martyrs. Later the name of Vigilantius vani:;hes altogether, even by the time of Isidore of Seville. His motives were not dogmatic; he perceived and assailed a series of what he deemed abuses in the religious life of the Church of his time, considering these to be superstitions that formed the chief barrier to the victorious progress of Christianity. He assailed neither monasticism nor the merit arising from almsgiving nor celibacy in themselves, but only as leading by excess of emphasis to the opposite extreme. He feared that the veneration of martyrs would lead to depreciation of Christ, though some of his arguments, such as the inability of the dead to intercede successfully for the living, seem to have been afterthoughts. His arguments were without effect; he underestimated the religious needs of the multitudes, and was not himself high enough above their