Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/669

 PELAGIUS

605

PELAGIUS

cit., 812), "Ceterum sine operibus fidei, non legis, mortua est fides". But the commentary on St. Paul is silent on one chief point of doctrine, i. e. the signifi- cance of infant baptism, which supposed that the faithful were even then clearly conscious of the exist- ence of original sin in children.

To explain psychologically Pelagius's whole line of thought, it does not suffice to go back to the ideal of the wise man, which he fashioned after the ethical principles of the Stoics and upon which his vision was centred. We must also take into account that his intimacy with the Greeks developed in him, though unknown to himself, a one-sidedness, which at first sight appears pardonable. The gravest error into which he and the rest of the Pelagians fell, was that they did not submit to the doctrinal decisions of the Church. While the Latins had emphasized the guilt rather than its punishment, as the chief characteristic of original sin, the Greeks on the other hand (even Chrysostom) laid greater stress on the puni-shment than on the guilt. Theodore of Mopsuestia went even so far as to deny the possibility of original guilt and consequently the penal character of the death of the body. Besides, at that time, the doctrine of Chris- tian grace was everywhere vague and undefined; even the West was convinced of nothing more than that some sort of assistance was necessary to salvation and was given gratuitously, while the nature of this assist- ance was but little understood. In the East, more- over, as an offset to widespread fatalism, the moral power and freedom of the will were at times very strongly or even too strongly insisted on, assisting grace being spoken of more frequently than prevenling grace (see Grace). It was due to the intervention of St. Augustine and the Church, that greater clear- ness was gradually reached in the disputed questions and that the first impulse w;is given towards a more careful development of the dogmas of original sin and grace (cf. Mausbach, "Die Ethik des hi. Augustinus", II, 1 sqq., Freiburg, 1909).

II. Pelagiu-s and C.elestius (411-5). — Of far- reaching influence upon the further progress of Pelagianism was the friendship which Pelagius con- tracted in Rome with Cielestius, a lawyer of noble (probably Italian) descent. A eunuch by birth, but endowed with no mean talents, Cselestius had been won over to asceticism by his enthusiasm for the monastic life, and in the capacity of a lay-monk he endeavoured to convert the practical maxims learnt from Pelagius, into theoretical principles, which he successfully propagated in Rome. St. Augustine, while charging Pelagius with mysteriousness, men- dacity, and shrewdness, calls Cxlestius (De peccat. orig., xv) not only "incredibly loquacious", but also open-hearted, obstinate, and free in social inter- course. 'Even if their secret or open intrigues did not escape notice, still the two friends were not molested bv the official Roman circles. Hut matters changed when in 411 they left the hospitable soil of the me- tropolis, whii-h had l)een sacked by .Marie (410), and set sail for North .Africa. \\'hen they landed on the coast near Hippo, Augustine, the bishop of that city, was ab.sent, being fully occupied in settling the Dona- tist disputes in Africa. Later, he met Pelagius in Carthage several times, without, however, coming into closer contact with him. After a brief sojourn in North .Africa, Pelagius travelled on to Palestine, while Ca?lestivis tried to have himself made a presbyter in Carthage. But this plan was frustrated by the deacon Paulinus of Milan, who submitted to the bishop, Aurelius, a memorial in which six theses of Caelestius — perhaps literal extracts from his lost work "Contra traducem peccati" — were branded as hereti- cal. These theses ran as follows: (1) Even if Adam had not sinned, he would have died. (2) Adam's sin harmed only himself, not the human race. (3) Chil- dren just born are in the same state as Adam before his

fall. (4) The whole human race neither dies through Adam's sin or death, nor rises again through the resurrection of Christ. (5) The (Mosaic) Law is as good a guide to heaven as the Gospel. (6) Even be- fore the advent of Christ there were men who were without sin. On account of these doctrines, which clearly contain the quintessence of Pelagianism, Cae- lestius was summoned to appear before a synod at Carthage (411); but he refused to retract them, alleg- ing that the inheritance of Adam's sin was an open question and hence its denial was no heresy. As a result he was not only excluded from ordination, but his six theses were condemned. He declared his intention of appealing to the pope in Rome, but with- out executing his design went to Ephesus in Asia Minor, where he was ordained a priest.

Meanwhile the Pelagian ideas had infected a wide area, especially around Carthage, so that Augustine and other bishops were compelled to take a resolute stand against them in sermons and private conver- sations. Urged by his friend Marcellinus, who "daily endured the most annoying debates with the erring brethren", St. Augustine in 412 wrote the two famous works: "De peccatorum meritis et remissione libri III " (P. L., XLI V, 109 sqq.) and "De spiritu et litera" (ibid., 201 sqq.), in which he positively established the ex- istence of original sin, the necessity of infant baptism, the impossibility of a life without sin, and the neces- sity of interior grace (spirilus) in opposition to the e.xterior grace of the law (litera). When in 414 dis- quieting rumours arrived from Sicilj' and the so-called "Definitiones Ca'Icstii" (reconstructed in Garnier, "Marii Mercatoris Opera", I, 384 sqq., Paris, 1673), said to be the work of Ca'lestius, were sent to him, he at once (414 or 415) published the rejoinder, "De perfectione justitia' hominis" (P. L., XLIV, 291 sqq.), in which he again demolished the illusion of the possibility of complete freedom from sin. Out of charity and in order to win back the erring the more effectually, Augustine, in all these writings, never mentioned the two authors of the heres}' by name.

Meanwhile Pelagius, who was sojourning in Pales- tine, did not remain idle; to a noble Roman virgin, named Demetrias, who at Alaric's coming had fled to Carthage, he wrote a letter which is still extant (in P. L., XXX, 15-45) and in which he again inculcated his Stoic principles of the unlimited energy of nature. Moreover, he published in 415 a work, now lost, "De natura", in which he attempted to prove his doctrine from authorities, appealing not only to the writings of Hilary and Ambrose, but also to the earlier works of Jerome and Augustine, both of whom were still alive. The latter answered at once (415) by his treatise "De natura et gratia" (P. L., XLIV, 247 sqq.). Jerome, however, to whom Augustine's pupil Orosius, a Spanish priest, personally explained the danger of the new heresy, and who had been chagrined by the severity with which Pelagius had criticized his com- mentary on the Epistle to the Eplicsians, thought the time ripe to enter the lists; this he did by his letter to Ctesiphon (Ep. cxxliii) and by his graceful "Dialogus contra Pelagianos" (P. L., XXIII, 495 sqq.). He was assisted by Orosius, who, forthwith accused Pelagius in Jerusalem of heresy. Thereupon, Bishop John of Jerusalem "dearly loved" (St. Augustine, "Ep. clxx-ix") Pelagius and had him at the time as his guest. He con- voked in July, 415, a diocesan council for the investi- gation of the charge. The proceedings were hampered by the fact that Orosius, the accusing party, did not understand Greek and had engaged a poor interpreter, while the defendant Pelagius was quite able to defend himself in Greek and uphold his orthodox-y. How- ever, according to the personal account (written at the clo.se of 415) of Orosius (Liber apolog. contra Pelagium, P. L., XXXI, 1173), the contesting parties at last agreed to leave the final judgment on all ques- tions to the Latins, since both Pelagius and his adversa-