A Source Book for Ancient Church History Part 53

It should be recalled that Pelagius was a monk of exemplary life, and a zealous preacher of morality. It may be said that in him the older moralistic tendency in theology was embodied in opposition to the new religious spirit of Augustine. _Cf._ Bruckner, _op.

cit._, n. 4.

III. 1. However, within the last few days I have read some writings of Pelagius, a holy man, as I hear, who has made no small progress in the Christian life, and these writings contain very brief expositions of the Epistles of Paul the Apostle.(176)

III. 3. But we must not omit that this good and praiseworthy man (as they who know him describe him as being) has not advanced this argument against the natural transmission of sin in his own person.

(_c_) Pelagius, _Fragments_, in Augustines _De Gratia Christi et de Peccato Originali_. (MSL, 44:364, 379.)

The teaching of Pelagius can be studied not only in his opponents statements but in his own words. These are to be found in his commentary (see note to previous selection), and also in fragments found in Augustines writings and several minor pieces (see below).

I. 7. Very ignorant persons think that we do wrong in this matter to divine grace, because we say that it by no means perfects sanct.i.ty in us without our will: as if G.o.d could impose any commands upon His grace and would not supply also the help of His grace to those to whom He has given commands, so that men might more easily accomplish through grace what they are required to do by their free will. And this grace we do not for our part, as you suppose, allow to consist merely in the law, but also in the help of G.o.d. G.o.d helps us by His teaching and revelation when He opens the eyes of our heart; when He points out to us the future, that we may not be absorbed in the present; when He discovers to us the snares of the devil; when He enlightens us with manifold and ineffable gifts of heavenly grace.

Does the man who says this appear to you to be a denier of grace? Does he not acknowledge both mans free will and G.o.ds grace?

I. 39. Speaking of the text Rom. 7:23: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Now what you [_i.e._, Augustine, whom he is addressing] wish us to understand of the Apostle himself, all Church writers a.s.sert that he spoke in the person of the sinner, and of one still under the law, who by reason of very long custom of vice was held bound, as it were, by a certain necessity of sinning, and who, although he desired good with his will in practice, indeed, was driven into evil. In the person, however, of one man the Apostle designates the people who sinned still under the ancient law, and this people, he declares, are to be delivered from this evil of custom through Christ, who first of all remits all sins in baptism, to those who believe on Him, and then by an imitation of Himself incites them to perfect holiness, and by the example of virtues overcomes the evil custom of sins.

(_d_) Pelagius, _Epistula ad Demetriadem_. (MSL, 33:1100 _ff._)

This epistle, from which selections are given, was written probably about 412 or 413. As it gives a statement of the teaching of Pelagius in his own words, it is of especial historical interest. Demetrias was a virgin, and probably under the spiritual direction of Pelagius, though little is known of her. Text in Bruckner, _op. cit._, n. 56.

Ch. 2. As often as I have to speak of the principles of virtue and a holy life, I am accustomed first of all to call attention to the capacity and character of human nature, and to show what it is able to accomplish; then from this to arouse the feelings of the hearer, that he may strive after different kinds of virtue, that he may permit himself to be roused to acts which perhaps he had regarded as impossible. For we are quite unable to travel the way of virtue if hope does not accompany us. For all attempts to accomplish anything cease if one is in doubt whether he will attain the goal. This order of exhortation I follow in other minor writings and in this case also. I believe it must be kept especially in mind where the good of nature needs to be set forth the more in detail as the life is to be more perfectly formed, that the spirit may not be more neglectful and slow in its striving after virtue, as it believes itself to have the less ability, and when it is ignorant of what is within it, think that it does not possess it.

Ch. 3. One must be careful to see to it that one does not think that a man is not made good because he can do evil and is not compelled to an immutable necessity of doing good through the might of nature. For if you diligently consider it and turn your mind to the subtler understanding of the matter, the better and superior position of man will appear in that from which his inferior condition was inferred. But just in this freedom in either direction, in this liberty toward either side, is placed the glory of our rational nature. Therein, I say, consists the entire honor of our nature, therein its dignity; from this the very good merit praise, from this their reward. For there would be for those who always remain good no virtue if they had not been able to have chosen the evil. For since G.o.d wished to present to the rational creature the gift of voluntary goodness and the power of the free will, by planting in man the possibility of turning himself toward either side, He made His special gift the ability to be what he would be in order that he, being capable of good and evil, could do either and could turn his will to either of them.

Ch. 8. We defend the advantage of nature not in the sense that we say it cannot do evil, since we declare that it is capable of good and evil; we only protect it from reproach. It should not appear as if we were driven to evil by a disease of nature, we who do neither good nor bad without our will, and to whom there is always freedom to do one of two things, since always we are able to do both. Nothing else makes it difficult for us to do good than long custom of sinning which has infected us since we were children, and has gradually corrupted us for many years, so that afterward it holds us bound to it and delivered over to it, so that it almost seems as if it had the same force as nature.

If before the Law, as we are told, and long before the appearance of the Redeemer, various persons can be named who lived just and holy lives, how much more after His appearance must we believe that we are able to do the same, we who have been taught through Christs grace, and born again to be better men; and we who by His blood have been reconciled and purified, and by His example incited to more perfect righteousness, ought to be better than they who were before the Law, better than they who were under the law.

(_e_) Marius Mercator, _Commonitorium super nomine Clestii_, ch. 1. (MSL, 48:67.) _Cf._ Kirch, nn. 737 _ff._

The Council of Carthage and the opinions of Clestius condemned at that council, 411.

Marius Mercator, a friend and supporter of Augustine, was one of the most determined opponents of Pelagianism, as also of Nestorianism. His dates are not well determined. In 418 he sent works to Augustine to be examined by the latter, and he seems to have lived until after the Council of Chalcedon, 451. The work from which the selection is taken was written, 429, in Greek, and translated and republished in Latin, 431 or 432. With the following should be compared Augustines _De Gratia Christi et Peccato Originali_, II, 2_f._, and _Ep._ 175:6; 157:3, 22.

A certain Clestius, a eunuch from his mothers womb, a disciple and auditor of Pelagius, left Rome about twenty years ago and came to Carthage, the metropolis of all Africa, and there he was accused of the following heads before Aurelius, bishop of that city, by a complaint from a certain Paulinus, a deacon of Bishop Ambrose of Milan, of sacred memory, as the record of the acts stands in which the same complaint is inserted (a copy of the acts of the council we have in our hands) that he not only taught this himself, but also sent in different directions throughout the provinces those who agreed with him to disseminate among the people these things, that is:

1. Adam was made mortal and would have died whether he had sinned or had not sinned.

2. The sin of Adam injured himself alone, and not the human race.

3. New-born children are in that state in which Adam was before his fall.

4. Neither by the death and sin of Adam does the whole race die, nor by the resurrection of Christ does the whole race rise.

5. The Law leads to the kingdom of heaven as well as the Gospel.

6. Even before the coming of the Lord there were men without sin.

(_f_) Pelagius. _Confessio fidei_. (MSL, 45:1716 _f._) Hahn, 209.

The confession of faith addressed to Innocent of Rome, but actually laid before Zosimus, in 417, consists of an admirably orthodox statement of the doctrine of the Trinity and of the incarnation, an expansion of the Nicene formula with reference to perversions of the faith by various heretics, and in conclusion a statement of Pelagiuss own opinions regarding free will, grace, and sin. It is due to the irony of history that it should have been found among the works of both Jerome and Augustine, long pa.s.sed current as a composition of Augustine, _Sermo CCx.x.xVI_, and should have been actually quoted by the Sorbonne, in 1521, in its articles against Luther. It also appears in the _Libri Carolini_, III, 1, as an orthodox exposition of the faith. The pa.s.sages which bear upon the characteristic Pelagian doctrine are here given.

Fragments of the confessions of other Pelagians, _e.g._, Clestius, and Julius of Eclanum, are found in Hahn, 210 and 211. For the proceedings in the East, see Hefele, 118.

We hold that there is one baptism, which we a.s.sert is to be administered to children in the same words of the sacrament as it is administered to adults.

We execrate also the blasphemy of those who say that anything impossible to do is commanded man by G.o.d, and the commands of G.o.d can be observed, not by individuals but by all in common, also those who with the Manichans condemn first marriages or with the Cataphrygians condemn second marriages. We so confess the will is free that we say that we always need the aid of G.o.d, and they err who with the Manichans a.s.sert that man cannot avoid sins as well as those who with Jovinan say that man cannot sin; for both take away the liberty of the will. But we say that man can both sin and not sin, so that we confess that we always have free will.

(_g_) Augustine, _Sermo_ 131. (MSL, 38:734.) _Cf._ Kirch, n. 672.

_Causa finita est._

Late in 416 synods were held in Carthage and Mileve condemning Pelagianism. On January 27, 417, Innocent wrote to the Africans, approving their councils and condemning Pelagianism, incidentally stating the supreme authority of the Roman See and requiring that nothing should ever be definitively settled without consulting the Apostolic See (text of pa.s.sage in Denziger. ed. 1911, n. 100).

September 23 of the same year, about the time when Pelagius and Clestius were at Rome with Zosimus seeking to rehabilitate themselves in the West, Augustine delivered a sermon in which he made the following statement. It is the basis of the famous phrase _Roma locuta, causa finita est_, a saying which is apocryphal, however, and not found in the works of Augustine.

What, therefore, is said concerning the Jews, that we see in them [_i.e._, the Pelagians]. They have the zeal for G.o.d; I bear witness, that they have a zeal for G.o.d, but not according to knowledge. Why is it not according to knowledge? Because, being ignorant of the justice of G.o.d and wis.h.i.+ng to establish their own, they are not subject to the righteousness of G.o.d [Rom. 10:2 _f._]. My brethren, have patience with me.

When you find such, do not conceal them, let there be not false mercy in you. Most certainly when you find such, do not conceal them. Refute those contradicting, and those resisting bring to me. For already two councils about this case have been sent to the Apostolic See, whence also rescripts have come. The case has been ended; would that the error might some time end! Therefore let us warn them that they pay attention; let us teach them that they may be instructed; let us pray that they may be changed.

(_h_) Zosimus, III _Ep. ad Episcopos Afric de causa Clestii_ A. D. 417.

(MSL, 45:1721.) _Cf._ Bruckner, _op. cit._, n. 28.

Fragments of his later _Epistula tractoria_ together with other letters may be found in Bruckner, _op. cit._

Likewise Pelagius sent letters also containing an extended justification of himself, to which he added a profession of his faith, what he condemned and what he followed, without any dissimulation, so that all subtilities of interpretation might be avoided. There was a public recitation of these. They contained all things like those which Clestius had previously presented and expressed in the same sense and drawn up in the same thoughts. Would that some of you, dearest brethren, could have been present at the reading of the letters. What was the joy of the holy men who were present; what was the admiration of each of them! Some of them could scarcely restrain themselves from tears and weeping, that such men of absolutely correct faith could have been suspected. Was there a single place in which the grace of G.o.d or his aid was omitted?

(_i_) Council of Carthage, A. D. 418, _Canons_. Bruns, I, 188.