Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/844

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at the suggestion of Orontius, one of the deposed bishops, translated the homilies of John Chrysostom on St. Matthew in the interest, he alleged, of a high morality. He claimed Chrysostom as a powerful upholder of evangelical perfection, of the integrity of human nature against any Manichean notions of its essentially evil character, and of the free will which it was the glory of Christianity to recognize in opposition to pagan ideas of fate and necessity; and as giving co-ordinate prominence to grace and free will.

Pelagianism was not wholly extinguished even in Italy by the forcible measures adopted against it both by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, for pope Leo, writing c. 444, desired the bp. of Aquileia not to receive into communion any in his province suspected of the heresy before they subscribed a formal renunciation. The letters of pope Gelasius also refer to occasional outbreaks of the heresy in Dalmatia and elsewhere towards the end of the 5th cent.

Pelagianism came under the formal condemnation of the Eastern church in an incidental way. Several deposed Pelagian bishops repaired to Constantinople, where they found Coelestius. Atticus, the patriarch, had refused to receive them, but his successor Nestorius gave them a patient hearing. He wrote to Coelestinus, bp. of Rome, for information about the reasons of their condemnation and the nature of their peculiar doctrines, but received no answer. When Nestorius himself fell into disgrace because of his own heresy about the person of Christ, he was disposed to sympathize with Coelestius and his followers as the objects of persecution by a dominant party. The East had apparently not specially discussed the Pelagian controversy; its leading rulers and writers recognized the co-operation of grace and free will without narrowly determining their limits. But the general council at Ephesus in 431 joined, under the influence of Cyril, in one condemnation the tenets of Nestorius and Coelestius, while refraining from specifying them. It pronounced sentence of deposition upon any metropolitan or cleric who had held or should hereafter hold their views.

The personal history of Pelagius after the condemnation of his views by Zosimus is obscure. He is said to have died in some small town in Palestine, being upwards of 70 years old. Coelestius similarly disappears after the council of Ephesus; the time and place of his death are unknown. Julian is said to have died c. 454 in an obscure town of Sicily, where he maintained himself by teaching. There is a story that in a time of famine he relieved the poor by parting with all he had. There is a tradition that in the 9th cent. the inscription was still visible on his tomb: "Here rests in peace Julian, a Catholic bishop."

A modified form of Pelagianism, called by later scholastic writers semi-Pelagianism, arose in the closing years of Augustine's life. Its advocates were spoken of at the time of its introduction as Massilienses, as they were connected with the church of Marseilles. Its originator was John CASSIAN, commonly called a Scythian but probably a native of Gaul. He had been brought up in a monastery at Bethlehem, and after living some time with the monks of Egypt, went to Marseilles, where he founded two monasteries, one for men and one for women. He differed widely from Pelagius, for he acknowledged that the whole human race was involved in the sin of Adam and could not be delivered but by the righteousness of the second Adam; that the wills of men are prevented by the grace of God, and that no man is sufficient of himself to begin or to complete any good work. But though he admitted that the first call to salvation sometimes comes to the unwilling and is the direct result of preventing grace, yet he held that ordinarily grace depends on the working of man's own will. Augustine, at the suggestion of two lay-friends, Prosper and Hilary, in two treatises, one on the predestination of the saints, the other on the gift of perseverance, defended the doctrines of an arbitrary election and of a will determined wholly by grace, but failed to satisfy the objections felt by the church of Marseilles, and the Gallic theologians continued after the death of Augustine to regard his predestinarian views as essentially fatalistic and injurious to moral progress. The monastery of Lerins was a principal centre of opposition to ultra-Augustinian views. At length the controversy was closed in the time of CAESARIUS, bp. of Arles, an ardent admirer of St. Augustine, at a council at Arausio (Orange) in July 529. Of its 25 canons the first two, in opposition to Pelagian doctrine, declare that by the sin of Adam not only his own soul but those of his descendants were injured. The next six expound the functions of grace, affirming that the initial act of faith is not from man but from God's grace, and that we cannot without grace think or choose any good thing pertaining to salvation. Others develop the doctrine on similar lines, but not one touches the disputed question of predestination. An address appended by the prelates to the canons repudiates indignantly the belief that any are predestined to evil and asserts that without any preceding merits God inspires men with faith and love, leads them to baptism, and after baptism helps them by the same grace to fulfil His will. Pope Boniface II., who had succeeded Felix, confirmed the decrees of this Gallican council in a letter written to Caesarius. The moderation and good sense of the fathers of Orange, and their earnest desire to avoid the extravagance either of extreme predestinarianism, which would annihilate the human will, or an arrogant self-trust, which would claim to be independent of divine grace, had their reward. Their decrees met with general acquiescence, and both Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism ceased to be dominant forces in Western Christendom.

Semi-Pelagianism held man in his original state to have had certain physical, intellectual, and moral advantages which he no longer enjoys. In the beginning his body was not subject to death, he had extraordinary knowledge of external nature and apprehension of the moral law, and was sinless. The sin of the first man entailed physical death and a moral corruption which was propagated to his posterity. Freedom of will to do good was not lost, but greatly impaired. The im-