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Jerome and Orosius.

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betook himself immediately to Ephesus, where he became presbyter.

Augustine had no part personally in these transactions. As, however, the Pelagian doctrine found still many adherents even in Africa, he wrote as early as A. D. 412-415, several pieces against it, though as yet with respect and forbearance.

In the meantime, the controversy broke out also in Palestine, where Pelagius now resided. He found there much more favor; for the oriental church was not yet affected by the Augustinian mode of thinking, and held fast both the conceptions of freedom and grace, without entering into any very close account of their mutual relation. Nor did the opposition to Pelagius spring at all from the oriental church itself. But there happened to be at this time two Western theologians in Palestine. In the first place, Jerome of Bethlehem, a man of great learning indeed, but passionate, quarrelsome and inconstant. He had been an enthusiastic admirer of Origen, but joined himself afterwards, in the Origenistic controversies, to his bitter and intolerant opposers. It struck him now that he could derive the views of Pelagius concerning freewill, and the goodness of man's nature, from the influence of Origen. He felt himself personally affronted by Pelagius besides, as the latter had assailed some of his writings. He wrote against him accordingly, though at first without giving his name. With Jerome lived also at this time, engaged in completing his studies, a young Spanish ecclesiastic named Paulus Orosius, a most devoted follower of Augustine.

In an assembly of his clergy held by bishop John of Jerusalem, A. D. 415, this Orosius appeared against Pelagius, making it known that a council at Carthage had condemned Celestius, and that Augustine had written against his errors. Pelagius answered evasively and contemptuously: "What care I for Augustine!" Orosius was of the opinion, that one who could show such disrespect towards the bishop, to whom the whole North African church stood indebted for its restoration-referring probably to his settlement of the Donatist controversies-deserved to be excluded from the communion of the entire Christian church. But John took the accused into his protection. Though he was only a monk and a layman, he made him take a seat among his presbyters, and appeared openly as his friend. Even the assertion of Pelagius, that man may easily obey the commandments of God so as to become free from sin, he was content to let pass, on his allowing, in the most general terms, that the help of God was needed for the purpose. After much talk, backwards and forwards, it was resolved that the matter should be laid before the Roman bishop

Innocent, since indeed both the contending parties belonged to the Western church. In the meantime, they must forbear all further attacks on one another.

A synod held that same year, in December, at Diospolis in Palestine, under the presidency of Eulogius, bishop of Caesarea, turned out more favorably still for Pelagianism. The points of accusation were unskilfully presented. Pelagius was able to help himself by ambiguous expressions, and went so far as to condemn doctrines of Celestius, which were also his own, not indeed as heresy, but remarkably enough, as nonsense and folly. The synod did not go far into the subject, and without understanding it fully declared the accused free from heresy. Jerome was right, when he styled it synodus miserabilis; but Augustine spoke truly also, when he said: "It was not the heresy which was there acquitted, but only the man who denied the heresy."

The matter took a new turn, when it came before the Roman see. Two synods, one at Carthage and another at Mileve, (now Mela,) in the year 416, condemned anew the Pelagian error, and made a report of their action to pope Innocent. A third more confidential letter was addressed to him by a number of the African bishops, among whom was Augustine. Pelagius also forwarded to him a letter, with a confession of his faith, which however were received later. Innocent understood the controversy, and also his own advantage by its means. He commended the Africans for laying their cause before the church of St. Peter, to which all the affairs of Christendom of right should be referred, and declared at the same time his full approbation of the sentence they had passed against Pelagius, Celestius, and all their adherents.

Not long after this, however, A. D. 417, Innocent died, and was succeeded by Zosimus, probably of oriental origin. Celestius appeared personally at Rome, and was enabled, by his written and oral explanations, to satisfy Zosimus. He was diffuse, like Pelagius, in setting forth his orthodoxy on other points, represented the points which were really at issue to be mere scholastic questions of little or no weight, and stood ready, if he had erred, to be corrected by the judgment of the Roman bishop. Zosimus, who, as it would seem, had no theological judgment of his own in the case whatever, addressed now a strange letter to the African bishops, in which he blames them for not having considered the subject properly, and for pretending, in such questions of vain curiosity, to be wiser than the sacred Scriptures. He gave his decided testimony, at the same time, to the orthodoxy of Pelagius and Celestius. The letter of the first, it was

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said, had filled the hearers, when read, with great joy, moving some even to tears, in sympathy with his unmerited wrongs. There was no passage in it, that did not make mention of God's grace and aid. Finally, he begged the bishops to submit themselves to the authority of the Roman see.

The Africans, however, were too sure of their cause to yield to so weak a decision, which stood besides in palpable contradiction to that of Innocent. On the contrary, at a synod held at Carthage, A. D. 117, they entered a respectful but decided protest against the judgment of Zosimus, and gave him to understand that he had allowed himself to be imposed upon by the indefinite expressions of Celestius. At a general synod held in the same city, the following year, the bishops, upwards of 200 in number, set forth their opposition to the Pelagian error, in nine canons, answerable in full to the Augustinian view. They succeeded also in obtaining a rescript against the Pelagians, from the emperor Honorius. All this had its effect on Zosimus. About the middle of the year 418 accordingly, he addressed a circular letter, (epistola tractoria,) to all the bishops of the East and West, in which he pronounced an anathema against Pelagius and Celestius, who in the meantime had withdrawn from Rome, and declared his agreement with the decrees of the council of Carthage, on the doctrines of the corruption of human nature, baptism and grace. This the Italian bishops were compelled to subscribe, and eighteen, for refusing to do so, were deprived of their places. Several of these subsequently changed their mind, and were again restored; but the most distinguished among them, Julian of Eclanum in Apulia, continued firm till his death, and in his banishment defended his principles, with the greatest determination, particularly against Augustine, to whom he attributed all the misfortune of his party. Bishop Julian stands before us the most acute and systematic among the Pelagians, and the most formidable of Augustine's adversaries; a man, who for his talents, his moral deportment, and his unflinching fidelity to his own convictions, is worthy of all respect; but who at the same time, it must be confessed, cannot be vindicated from the charge of violent passionateness and haughty presumption. We find him, A. D. 429, in Constantinople; by order of the emperor, however, he was required to leave the city. He is said to have died, A. D. 450.

Of the subsequent life and death of Pelagius and Celestius, we have no information, farther than that the latter was about the year 429 driven out of Constantinople.

Thus was Pelagianism, as early as about the year 420, externally crushed; although it continued still to have its scattered adherents in

Italy till near the middle of the century, so that the Roman bishop, Leo the Great, found it necessary to charge the bishops strongly, that they should not receive any Pelagian into the communion of the church, without express recantation. At the synod of Ephesus, in 431, Pelagius was placed in the same class with Nestorius; and it must be owned, that they are not without a certain kind of affinity.

In looking back now upon the whole controversy, we find it to be more than the offspring of mere passion and violence. It contrasts favorably with the oriental controversies, in this respect, that no unworthy intrigues prevail in it; the ardent and pure zeal of a great man for the most important truths of the gospel occupies the foreground, and wins the victory at last for its own' good cause.

The external discomfiture of Pelagianism, however, would have been of small account, if it had not been inwardly overcome, at the same time, by the weapons of the spirit, and the force of true science enlisted in the service of faith. This was accomplished through Augustine, who has thus secured to himself the highest merit, as regards theology and the church. To the consideration of this we now come.

III. INWARD HISTORY OF THE CONTROVERSY.

The sources for understanding the doctrine of Pelagius are his own writings, which have been accidentally preserved among the works of his adversary, Jerome. 1. His Commentary on Paul's Epistles, of the year 410; it has been somewhat changed indeed by Cassiodorus, but still betrays its author on every page. 2. An ascetic letter to the nun Demetrias, (Epistola ad Demetriadem,) on virginity. 3. His confession of faith, (Libellus fidei,) addressed, in 417, to the Roman bishop Innocent I. 4. To these must be added various extracts from other lost works, preserved in the counter-writings of St. Augustine. Of the writings of Celestius and Julian, nothing more has come down to us than some fragments in the same way. Augustine himself wrote a great many tracts against Pelagius and his adherents, between the years 412 and 428. The most important are, "Of the Spirit and the Letter," 412, "On nature and grace," 415, " Of the grace of Jesus Christ," 418," On Original Sin," 418, and in particular six books "Against Julian," 421.

The points of controversy were not handled indeed in systematic order, as in general seldom happens in such discussions. Still there is clearly at hand on both sides a system in fact, involving a close internal connection of the doctrines brought under debate, which our exposition here requires us to bring into view. The controversy em

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braces the three articles of man's primitive state, fall and redemption; his entire relation to God therefore in the three stages of his historical development, which are also repeated in the life of every individual. We have to consider accordingly, 1. The doctrine of freedom and the state of innocence. 2. The doctrine of the fall of Adam, and of sin, in particular, original sin and imputed guilt. 3. The doctrine of grace and redemption. We might add also the doctrine of predestination, which Augustine regarded as a necessary consequence in the end of his doctrine of sin and grace. But this point we shall pass over, as it is not, after all, essentially involved in the opposition to Pelagianism, and would require us, if thoroughly discussed, to go beyond the bounds of our present subject. We will present first the views of Pelagius, and then in opposition to them those of Augustine, interspersing suitable critical observations to make the whole more clear.

§ 1. The Doctrine of Freedom and the Primitive State.

PELAGIUS held the original state of man to have been substantially the same with his condition at the present time, so that what was true of Adam before the fall is to be regarded as still of force in the case also of his posterity. Here we have at once a grand fundamental error of the system. Adam, he taught, was created by God with reason and freedom. Freedom is the highest good of man, his honor and glory. It consists in the ability of doing good or evil, equally complete on both sides. It is always free to us, says Pelagius, to do either one or the other, since both are always in our power; we possess the power of free choice, equally enabling us to sin or not to sin. In virtue of this ability, man may produce either the flowers of virtue or the thorns of vice. Such was the freedom of the primitive state, and such also is our freedom still. "We say, that man has power always either to sin or not to sin, that we may allow to him always the possession of a free will." So much with regard to the spiritual constitution of the first man. In reference to his physical condition, Pelagius taught that death is a natural necessity, and that Adam therefore would have died without sin. Where the Scriptures seem to declare the contrary, he understood them to speak of moral corruption or eternal damnation.

We see from this, that Pelagius conceived of freedom only as the power of choice, liberum arbitrium, and never went beyond this its lowest stage. But this indeterminate middle point between good and evil is one that must necessarily be transcended. By the act of VOL. V. No. 18.

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