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Which religious practices did St. Jerome defend in Contra Vigilantium?
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St. Jerome
Saint Jerome, oil on canvas by JosĆ© de Ribera (Jusepe de Ribera, Lo Spagnoletto), c. 1638ā40; in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
In his polemical work Contra Vigilantium (406), St. Jerome defended several religious practices that had been challenged by the priest Vigilantius. Specifically, Jerome provided a defense of the following:
- Monasticism: The ascetic lifestyle and withdrawal from worldly concerns.1
- Clerical celibacy: The practice of requiring members of the clergy to remain unmarried.1
- Practices connected with the cult of martyrs: This included the veneration of the remains and shrines of martyrs, which were central to the development of Christian pilgrimage and the belief in the presence of saints at their burial sites.12