pelagius
& the pelagian controversy

Introduction | Pelagius: Background | The Pelagian Controversy | Footnotes

introduction

In his treatise entitled On the Gift of Perseverance, Augustine recalls an incident that occurred in the year 405,[1] during a public reading of his book Confessions, when the words "grant what thou dost command and command what thou wilt"[2] were read: "When these words of mine were quoted one day in Pelagius' presence by a fellow bishop and brother of mine, Pelagius was not able to bear them and, attacking them with considerable emotion, came close to fighting with him who had quoted them."[3] Whether or not this event actually happened is uncertain,[4] but it calls attention to one of the most impassioned debates to occur in the early Church, and it’s two of its key figures. The debate was over the nature of divine grace and the freedom of human will;[5] the key figures were Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa, and a rather shadowy character named Pelagius.[6] What is also significant about the incident is that it typifies the primary source of information we have about the character and personality of Pelagius: the recollections of his detractors.[7] This perhaps explains why, as one author has mentioned, Pelagius and the subsequent movement that bears his name have received such "poor press" historically.[8] To bring this enigmatic figure into sharper focus requires placing him the political, cultural, and religious milieu of the late Roman Empire.

The Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries was in a period of severe political and cultural decline. Threats to the peace and prosperity of Roman culture were both internal and external, and the modern historian might say that the "writing was appearing on the wall" for quite some time.[9] With the death of Constantine in 337, the emperor's attempt to reunify and strengthen the leadership of the Commonwealth after more than a century of chaos came to an end. The empire was divided between his three sons, Constantine II, Constantius, and Constans, and two nephews, Delmatius and Hannibalianus, among whom strife and betrayal were inevitable.[10]

Within two weeks of Constantine's death, the army in Constantinople claimed loyalty only to the emperor's children, murdering his brothers and their offspring, with the exception of Gallus and Julian. Infighting between the three sons of Constantine lasted until 350, when only Constantius was left, fighting with rivals Magnentius, Vetranio and Nepotianus for control of the throne. A costly victory at Mursa in 351 and two more years of fighting ended at Mons Seleuci with Constantius the lone victor. There followed a series of bloody successions, marked by a cruelty perhaps only briefly interrupted by the rule of Theodosius.[11]    

The Empire's internal problems led to a weakening of defenses and eventually to invasion. A threat from Persia began just six weeks before Constantine's death and would remain for a century. Among the many threats from the north, the Franks, Germans, and Alamanni would strike decisive blows. To the east a temporary threat from the Goths and Ostrogoths was assuaged only to be replaced by a more ominous one from the Huns. By the turn of the century the empire was badly battered. Among the territories lost to the invaders, Syria, Asia Minor, and Gaul had fallen. The Huns would reach as far as Spain, and Roman forces in Britain would be recalled, leaving the Isles vulnerable. The events would culminate in 410 with the forces of Alaric sacking Rome.[12]

This political chaos had its impact on the attitude and behavior of the individual Roman. Ferguson notes three characteristics of the Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries that affected the moral outlook of its citizenry. First, "there was no longer the dedication to service that had once been the peculiar glory of the Roman aristocracy."[13] This was due largely to the transfer of power from the senate to military generals, and the frequent and violent changes in leadership. Second, the constant warfare and examples of violence, particularly those of the emperors, have marked the late Roman Empire as "an age of extraordinary cruelty,"[14] no doubt desensitizing those who lived through the time to the value of human life. Finally, "it was an age of loose sexual morality,"[15] which, Ferguson notes, is not uncommon in times of military occupation.  It is worth noting that this last issue was not a problem limited to pagan practice; "clerical concubinage" and illicit relationships between masters and slaves in Christian households made sexual issues problematic for the Church as well.[16]

And sexual morality wasn't the Church's only problem. The shift from being a persecuted sect with its eyes on the end time to being the recognized religion of the state had brought with it certain privileges. Ferguson writes, "Times of adversity may breed fanaticism, but they ensure sincerity. Times of prosperity tend to produce the time-server and the nominal adherent."[17] For the Church, the early fifth century was clearly a time of prosperity. To put it simply, Church acceptance meant Church power, and with this increase in power, ecclesial leaders were often given secular authority as well. The prestige and benefits (particularly financial) that accompanied these positions often led to competition and infighting between clerics jockeying for prominent positions, such as the bishopric of Rome.[18] Certainly not all Church leaders were corrupted, but the issue was significant enough to cause great division.[19]

Perhaps the more significant and more visible divisions were theological: "whereas once the pagan world had stood in amazement with the cry 'See! How these Christians love one another!' now they turned aside in scorn from the spectacle of dissension and mutual hatred."[20] Two debates were of particular importance: First, the Arian controversy focused on the relationship of Christ to the Father.[21] Second was "the loss of any effective belief in the Holy Spirit," the primary source of tension between the Montanists and orthodoxy.[22] It is from this matrix of political and religious tension that the figure of Pelagius emerges.

Pelagius: Background
Pelagius the man is a bit of a puzzle. Few details of his life have been conclusively determined, and of his youth we know almost nothing for certain. Much of what we know comes from the descriptions of him penned by his detractors.[23] Ferguson has noted that Jerome once likened him to "a great mountain-dog, through whom the devil barks."[24] He must have been a physically large man, broad-shouldered and probably obese:[25] "he displays his fat even upon his forehead."[26] It seems certain that he was born in the British Isles,[27] and at various times in history different regions of the area have claimed him as their own.[28] One such claim has even led to a theory deriving Pelagianism from the Goidelic religion, druidism.[29] Similar obscurity surrounds the year of his birth, although the scholarly consensus seems to place it "not long after 350."[30] A legend claiming Pelagius and Augustine to be born in the same year has been described by Ferguson as "a patent and typical fiction."[31]

As regards both Pelagius' family and upbringing, we may only speculate further. His lack of a hereditary surname has been taken to suggest that his family was not of the aristocracy,[32] but his thorough classical education suggests otherwise.[33] Analysis of Pelagius' writings[34] reveals an "exhaustive knowledge of the Bible," as well as classical and Christian authors.[35] His thought is clearly indebted to Hellenistic philosophy, revealing a commanding knowledge both of Plato's theory of Forms and Aristotle's doctrine of Substance.[36]

Even the traditional description of Pelagius as a monk has been a source of controversy. It seems clear that he was never a member of any particular monastic community, despite a tradition identifying him as the monk named Pelagius mentioned in a letter written by John Chrysostom.[37] Nor was he ever ordained.[38] Though his contemporaries often described him as a "monk," this was most likely due to his ascetic lifestyle, and Rees considers the label "honorary."[39] 

Pelagius' reason for leaving Britain is also unknown. It has been suggested that he left because of a quarrel with his father to continue his education perhaps in Gaul or Rome, or possibly to further his career.[40] In any case, it seems clear that he was in Rome in the early eighties of the fourth century.[41] He would leave Rome by 410, fleeing Alaric's invasion.[42] He and a companion named Celestius arrived later that same year in Carthage, where two years later Celestius would be condemned as a heretic.[43] Pelagius himself would successfully withstand two heresy trials in 415, one at the Synod of Jerusalem and another at the Council of Diospolis.[44] In 416, two African Councils, one at Carthage and the other at Milevum, would condemn the teachings of both Pelagius and Celestius as heretical.[45] For roughly a year the decision in Africa was rejected by Rome: Pope Zosimus found Pelagius innocent of heresy and not only declared him orthodox, but excommunicated two of his accusers as well.[46] In 418, however, the same pope would condemn Pelagius in the Epistolia Tractoria, feeling pressure after both an Imperial condemnation and a second Council at Carthage affirmed its earlier condemnation.[47] In April 418 Pelagius was banned from Rome.[48] With his flight, the details of his life again become murky. It is known that he traveled first to Palestine[49] and possibly then to Egypt where he had not yet been condemned,[50] but this is mostly speculation, and by 420, Pelagius disappears.[51] In 431 at the Council of Ephesus, the teachings of Celestius were condemned, and no mention of Pelagius is made whatsoever.[52]

What was it that Pelagius and Celestius[53] were teaching that caused such a controversy in the early Church? Nothing less than the rejection of the doctrine of original sin, and the theology of infant baptism based upon it.[54] For Pelagius, the notion of "a human disposition toward sin"[55] resulting from the fall of Adam was unacceptable[56] because it led dangerously to an indifference towards religion and an acceptance of the inevitability of sin, which led to moral laxity, precisely the situation which Pelagius was experiencing in the Empire at this time.[57]  

The Pelagian Controversy
It would be Jerome who would first provoke Pelagius to open debate,[58] with each man accusing the other of following a doctrine based on the teachings of Origen, who by this time had been condemned.[59] The central issue was Pelagius' view that a baptized Christian could conceivably lead a sinless life and that the decision to do so was purely a matter of free will, and not of divine grace.[60]  In 413, Pelagius wrote To Demetrius, a letter to a young girl from an affluent family in Palestine who at age fourteen had decided[61] to enter a convent and remain a virgin. Jerome had also been asked to advise the girl, and the incident would provide the first opportunity for the two to completely express their views.[62] Pelagius would write:

It was because God wished to bestow on the rational creature the gift of doing good of his own free will and the capacity to exercise free choice, by implanting in man the possibility of choosing either alternative, that he made it his peculiar right to be what he wanted to be, so that with his capacity for good and evil he could do either quite naturally and then bend his will in the other direction too.[63]

For Pelagius, anyone who denied to humanity this freedom of will was "criticizing the Lord's work."[64] He and Jerome would also have heated words over the value of marriage as opposed to celibacy,[65] but this would be essentially a footnote to the greater debate over grace and free will, a debate that would come to fruition between Pelagius and Augustine, in what is known as the Pelagian Controversy.[66] 

This controversy focused on four key points:[67] First, the notion of free will. For Augustine, human free will existed, but had been corrupted original sin. To correct this, grace freely given to us by God through baptism was necessary. Pelagius, however, saw human will as totally free and uncompromised by any hereditary sin from Adam. For God to influence our decisions through grace or otherwise amounted to "compromising human integrity," and compromising the goodness of God.[68]    

The second key point of the controversy dealt with the concept of sin. For Augustine, sin was a sickness of the soul affecting all of humanity, corrupting our will and making us dependent on the benevolent intervention of God. For Pelagius, however, we were born sinless, and any sin we committed was exclusively our own responsibility. Pelagius could conceive of a sinless human, and even believed that many Old Testament figures were sinless.[69]

The third point centered on grace. Augustine saw grace as "God's generous and quite unmerited attention to humanity," and essential for our salvation. Pelagius had two understandings of grace. He saw it as both "the natural human faculties," which could guide us away from sinfulness, and as "external enlightenment" from God, meaning primarily scriptural revelation and the example of Christ.[70]

The final point dealt with salvation and justification. For Augustine, salvation was purely a matter of grace; it had nothing to do with individual merit but rather with the new covenant embodied in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. For Pelagius, salvation came through imitation of Christ, and was earned by fulfilling our obligation to live a sinless life.[71]   

Among the writings of Augustine responding to the claims of Pelagius, one of his most powerful contains a commentary on the Lord's Prayer that brings his views into sharper focus:

Now indeed when the saints say, "bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," what do they pray for except that they may persevere in sanctity? And certainly once that gift of God is granted to them (and that it is God's gift is sufficiently clearly shown by the fact that it is asked of him)- I say, once that gift of God is granted to them, that they may not be brought into temptation, then not one of the saints fails to hold on to perseverance in sanctity even to the end. [72]   

In the end, it would be Augustine's position that would win,[73] but the ideas of Pelagius would continue to persevere in revivals of "semi-Pelagianism" throughout Church history;[74] some of these would profess beliefs only vaguely reminiscent of their namesake.[75] As for Pelagius himself, we are left with a significant corpus of writings that bear his name, but, like the man himself and the movement that followed him, these are surrounded by debates of authenticity.[76] By the time of the condemnation of the Council of Ephesus in 431, Pelagius the man has disappeared into the obscurity from which he arose.                        

home | intro | contents | resources | appendices | assignments | glossary | sources | links

The Narrow Gate
2003-2004