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The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of
Religious Knowledge, Philip Schaff Vol. VIII
(abridged and edited for
clarity) |
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PELAGIUS
(C. 354–AFTER 418)
Monk who
founded a school of thought that rejected the doctrines of original sin and
predestination and that believed in man’s free will and inherent capacity
for good
The author of the teachings
which racked the western Church in the fifth century was born probably in
Britain in the fourth century; and died, as may be assumed, in Palestine at the
age of about seventy. Together with his friend Celestius, he is mentioned by
Augustine in a letter of 418 as the author or
promoter of a heresy which sought to undermine the ancient faith by assailing
the doctrine of divine grace. Until 411, however, Pelagius had been regarded as
perfectly orthodox, nor did he gain his evil fame until he came within the
domain of the dogmatic influence of Augustine. It was from Africa that the
condemnation of Pelagianism proceeded, and in
the East it was only after the Pelagian controversy had been complicated by
Nestorianism that Pelagius was deemed a heretic,
which was not till after 428. Pelagius had lived long in Rome, when, about 411,
he made the fateful journey to Africa which was to brand him as leader of a
heretical sect. It is not improbable that he was an old man by 410, and after
418 his name vanished. Of his life little is definitely known, and even his
birth place is uncertain. Augustine, Prosper, Marius Mercator, and Orosius
refer to him as a Briton. Jerome, on the other
hand, states that he was from Albion or Scotia (i.e., Ireland). It seems
probable, however, that Pelagius was of British birth. He was a monk, though
whether in his native land or not is unknown. It is not improbable that he had
visited the East before settling at Rome, especially as he was well acquainted
with Greek (though this is by no means a conclusive argument). He can scarcely
be identified with the monk of the same name mentioned by
Chrysostom in 405, for in this year he was
living in Rome; or with a monastic glutton to whom Isidore of Pelusium refers.
If Pelagius visited the East before 400, he might there have become a monk; but
in Rome he was neither connected with any monastery nor did he hold any
ecclesiastical position. Nevertheless, even without school or position, an
educated and upright ascetic, such as Pelagius was acknowledged to have been,
readily found in public places, and his fame became wide-spread. By 405 he was
in correspondence with Paulinus of Nola and enjoyed an honorable reputation
with Augustine. Jerome and Orosius describe him as a man with broad shoulders
and a strong neck, and corpulent in person.
According to Gennadius, Pelagius had
written two works of value before he became known as a heretic: De fide
Trinitatis libri tres and Eclogarum ex divinis scripturis liber
unus. The former has entirely disappeared; the latter is plainly identical
with the Testimoniorum liber and Capitulorum liber to which
Augustine and Jerome refer, from the latter of which the synod of Diospolis
cites several propositions. The fragments of this work, however, which
consisted principally of citations from the Scriptures with only the chapter
headings written by Pelagius, are of little value for a knowledge of his
system. The greater importance attaches to the In apostolum Paulum
commentarii, mentioned by Marius Mercator. This work was known by
Augustine by 412; and Marius Mercator is doubtless right in dating it before
410. This commentary may be regarded as preserved by the fortunate discovery of
H. Zimmer in a manuscript of St. Gall. Frorn this it has become evident that
the edited version of the commentary of Pelagius which has become incorporated
with the writings of Jerome can no longer be termed "pseudo-Jeromian"; for,
although two Pelagian statements in the commentary on Romans preserved by
Augustine and Marius Mercator and contained in the St. Gall codex are lacking
in the "pseudo-Jerome," and the discovery of other differences between the
original by Pelagius and our texts may be the result of researches still in
progress, nevertheless the "pseudo-Jerome" may be considered as containing
nothing not derived from Pelagius. From the data thus gained it becomes
possible to see the views of Pelagius at a time when he was still deemed
orthodox, which would he impossible from the polemics of Augustine.
As early as his commentary on
Romans Pelagius denied the tenet of original sin inherited from Adam, not only
citing the similar views of others (possibly including Celestius) but himself
directly controverting it. Only the flesh. of man, not the immortal soul, comes
from Adam, and even the "substance of man's flesh" comes from God and is,
therefore, good; and he regards it as Manichean
to assert that sin is innate in the body. Man accordingly still possesses the
power not to sin, and is free to do either good or evil. He implies that
natural death is not due to Adam, nor does he regard the natural death (i.e.,
death without subsequent abiding in Hades) as a result of the fall or as coming
under the category of death. At the same time Pelagius held that sin had come
into the world through Adam, who had brought death upon himself and his
descendants. But although the flesh is good, its desires, so soon as they pass
beyond "the limits of nature," are contrary to reason. The applications of
these views bear a decidedly ascetic stamp: to sell all one's possessions, as
he himself had done; to refrain even from what was permitted; to be content,
like pilgrims, with bare necessities; and to live in celibacy-these were his
ideals. Nevertheless, Pelagius carefully refrained from upbraiding nature. He
did not oppose marriage; though the desires of the flesh, which are not without
justification when kept within the bounds of nature, stand in opposition to the
soul and may become intensified into passions. While reason may oppose these
"passions of irrational animals," Pelagius, betraying the influence of the
Stoics, was far from failing to recognize the power of sin in the world. Many
were made sinful by the example of Adam's disobedience; the very "habit of sin"
had attained such power over all the race, that Pelagius could speak of a
"necessity" rooted in this habit; though this was created by each man for
himself. Since all have sinned, so all die. Adam is the type of them that die,
as Christ is the type of them that rise again. Since man had forgotten the law
of nature, God had given the law of the letter, which might have been fulfilled
to be rewarded with eternal life, but no one had fulfilled it because of the
weakness of the flesh. This law knew no forgiveness of sin, though God had from
eternity purposed to save them that believed through his Son. When Christ came
the time had been fulfilled, since no one could keep the law because of his
habit of evil; and now salvation is solely by faith in him.
In answer to the
questions what Christ had done and given, Pelagius repeatedly replied in
twofold fashion; as when he said: "He giveth remission of sins to them that
believe and teacheth how the vices of the flesh ought to be avoided and pruned
by understanding." In this remission of sins Pelagius distinguished between
redemption and justification; the former is emphasized only where Paul speaks
of redemption, but the latter is continually emphasized by Pelagius. This
justification, given through baptism, is secured through faith alone; and
Pelagius was the most strenuous representative of solafiducianism previous to
Luther. At the same time he held that none should think that faith alone was
sufficient to salivation without sanctity of mind and body. If, moreover, the
Christian were to remain in a state of justification without the works of
faith, his faith would he dead. The faith which is thus associated by Pelagius
with justification, though given to each individual by God in so far as each
one is called by the divine will to believe, nevertheless life within the free
will of each man. Pelagius is thus no predestinarian, and he expressly holds
that "faith is the election of grace as works are the election of the law";
faith, moreover, is reliance on the promises of God, the "hope of the
recompense of good works," without which "none can accomplish virtues". While
he who is baptized is sanctified, he must hold fast to his sanctification. Sins
previous to baptism should distress no one; and every one overtaken by sin
should take refuge in penitence. Thus Pelagius leads to the second blessing of
Christ, the grace whereby the baptized may learn from Christ's doctrine and
example. This doctrine and example teach how to overcome the passions; for it
was the distinctive characteristic of the New Testament that Christ taught how
to put away not only sin, but even the occasions of offenses. Thus, in a word,
he teaches by inculcating asceticism: since, "by being born of a poor mother he
hath scorned riches; since while he learned not letters he refuteth worldly
wisdom; and since, when betrayed he resisted not, he forbiddeth to boast in
human bravery ".
The commentaries of Pelagius contain all the erroneous
doctrines later alleged against him, with a single exception. This, however,
was the one which was preeminently to lead to his condemnation--doubts
regarding the baptism of children for the remission of sins. He had no occasion
to mention pedobaptiam, for his high estimate of solafiducian justification
evidently concerned only those baptized as adults; but obviously, had he needed
to allude to it, he would have condemned it. From this a double conclusion
follows: first that Pelagius' doctrines can not have been offensive of
themselves to wide circles of the Church of his period; second, infant baptism
was to prove fatal to him so soon as it was recognized by the Church for the
remission of sins. According to Augustine. the three chief errors of the
Pelagians were: their denial of original sin; their view that justifying grace
is not given freely, but according to merit; and that they regarded sinless
perfection as possible after baptism. The first and third charges were well
founded. While recognizing that sin was general almost without exception,
Pelagius acknowledged no inherited taint; and the possibility of post-baptismal
sinlessness, though rarely realized, followed from his premise that Christians
am called to perfection. Yet in neither of these positions was Pelagius without
predecessors. The doctrine of original sin was unknown in the Eastern Church,
and Pelagius could even claim some degree of support in Lactantius. Universal
sin was for the Origenistic theology a presupposition of this temporal period.
In the Old Testament, Abraham, Noah, Enoch, and Abel were declared "acceptable
to God "; and Athanasius accepted this in the sense of active integrity and
regarded also Jeremiah as sinless. The ancient view was widespread that it was
the duty of the Christian to live sinlessly after baptism, a view expressed by
Athanasius and. Justin and regarded as entirely possible of realization.
Nevertheless, it would be
incorrect to say that the views of Pelagius represented nothing but what was
already current in the East. Augustine was wrong in charging that Pelagius held
justifying grace to be conditioned by human merit; for one of the cardinal
principles of Pelagius was that man is justified in baptism by faith alone, and
not by any merits of his former life. It was only assisting grace of another
kind that could be merited according to the system of Pelagius. The error of
Augustine is due to the fact that by justification he has in mind something
different from the sense of Pelagius. Elsewhere, however, he accurately
expressed what he failed to find in Pelagius; namely, the concept of that grace
without which, in Augustine's view, nothing good could happen, it being the
inward communication of supernatural strength for good, and the bestowal of a
share in the well-being of God, without which justification does not fulfil
itself. It is true that Pelagius speaks of a "strength through the Holy Ghost"
given by Christ to his followers, and of a "seal of the Spirit" received by the
Christian in baptism, and that he was also aware that the Spirit aids man's
infirmity; but he understood this aid of the Spirit to be either the baptismal
sealing of the earnest of future inheritance, or the strengthening of man's
weak powers by reviving the hope of recompense. It is true, not every mention
of "aid of the Spirit" is explained in this way by Pelagius, but his general
tendency was to stamp Biblical ideas with clear concepts in accordance with his
general purview. And this was opposed to every physical or hyperphysical basis
of morality, and had its source in the intellectualism of ancient ethics.
Augustine was influenced by the mysticism of the Neoplatonic school; Pelagius, by the older moral,
rational, popular philosophy, especially that of the Stoics. Consequently his
opinion of "natural and common death" has few parallels in the Eastern Church.
It is to be noted that his idea of the sinful state of man is more closely
analogous to that of collective sin and collective guilt in the modern Church
than the Augustinian, and that his doctrine of justification squares more
closely in many respects with that of Paul than does Augustine's. His concept
of faith, in like manner, is deeper, though he is prevented from perfectly
understanding the religious by his intellectualistic moralism, just as
Augustine is prevented by his mystical bias. But, again like Augustine,
Pelagius meant more than his teaching expressed. To him the hope of recompense
is founded on the remission of sins, and remission rests upon the cross. For
this reason he frequently emphasizes gratitude; and such words as "he proveth
that he hath God in mind who, having God ever before him, dareth not sin "
conclusively proved that Pelagius knew of a personal relation to God and Christ
which his moralistic formulas could no more describe than could Augustine's
physical and hyperphysical concepts do justice to the depths of his personal
piety.
It is
clear, nevertheless, that the main interests of Pelagius were not centered
where his thoughts most closely approximated those of Paul. This is shown by
his letter to the virgin Demetrias, written in 413 or 414 and preserved among
the works of Jerome. While maintaining that God forgives in baptism all the
sins of the Christian, the letter lays special stress on the admonition that
the baptized "must so be mindful of their heavenly birth that, living among the
wicked, they may conquer every evil." The power of good and evil is a
fundamental presupposition, and the glory of the rational soul; even many
philosophers, although strangers to God, had been able to please him in virtue
of the "good of nature." The letter also alludes to the "grace of the remission
of sins," laying more stress, however, on the "grace of doctrine," with mention
of the "graces of assistance " (by the Holy Ghost) ; though the latter graces
are but obscurely developed in this epistle. Even meditation on the Bible is
here urged by Pelagius only in the interest of moral instruction and stimulus.
It is thus evident that the religious concept of Pelagius retired into the
background when he spoke on morality or holiness of living; and he lived,
despite his thorough acquaintance with the writings of Paul, in an atmosphere
of ascetic morality more akin to the views of Seneca than to those of the great
Apostle. More energetically than Pelagius, and at an earlier date, his pupil
Celestius, a lawyer of noble birth, emphasized the negative side of the views
which he and his teacher held in common. According to the testimony of the
Liber prædestinatus, Pelagius derived from Celestius the theses set up
against original sin; but this does not say that these were citations from a
book by Celestius entitled "Against Original Sin." The citations of Jerome from
a work by Celcetius, probably entitled "Syllogisms," as well as a series of
sentences by which Celestius was challenged at Carthage in 411, may be derived
from the same book from which Pelagius drew. It is not impossible, on the other
hand, that the author of the Liber prædestinatus and Vincent may have had
in mind several works of Celestius when they termed him the first opponent of
the doctrine of original sin. At all events, the literary activity of
Celestius, so far as is known, no more caused a controversy at Rome than the
commentaries of Pelagius. |
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