SEMIPELAGIANISM
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SEMIPELAGIANISM
together with other utterances, has given occasion
to the most violent controversies concerning the
efficacy of grace and predestination. All advocates
of heretical predestinarianism, from Lucidus and
Gottschalk to Calvin, have appealed to Augustine
as their crown-witness, while Catholic theologians
see in Augustine's teaching at most only a predesti-
nation to glory, with which the later "negative repro-
bation" to hell is parallel. Augustine is entirely
free from Calvin's idea that God positively predes-
tined the damned to hell or to sin. Many historians
of dogma (Harnack, Loofs, Rottmanner, etc.) have
passed a somewhat different censure on the work,
maintaining that the Doctor of Hippo, his rigorism
increasing with his age, has here expressed most
clearlv the notion of "irresistible grace" {gratia
irre^istibilis), on which Jansenism later erected, as
is known, its entire heretical system of grace. As the
clearest and strongest proof of this contention, the
following passage (De correptione et gratia, xxxviii)
is cited: "Subventum est igitur infirmitati volunta-
tis humane, ut divina gratia indeclinabiliter et in-
superabihter ageretur et ideo, quamvis infirma, non
tamen deficeret neque adversitate aliqua vinceretur. "
Is this not clearly the "inevitable and unconquerable
grace" of Jansenism? The mere analysis of the
text informs us better. The antithesis and the posi-
tion of the words do not allow us to refer the terms
"inevitably and unconquerably" to the grace as such,
they must' be referred to the "human will" which,
in spite of its infirmity, is, by grace, made " unyield-
ing and unconquerable" against the temptation to
sin. Again the very easily misunderstood term
ageretur is not to be explained as " coercion against
one's will" but as "infallible guidance", which does
not exclude the continuation of freedom of will (cf.
Mausbach, "Die Ethik des hi. Augustins", II, Frei-
burg, 1909, p. 35).
The monks of Southern Gaul, who dweh m peace at Marseilles and on the neighbouring island of Lerinum (Lerins), read the above-cited and other passages of Augustine with other and more critical eyes than the monks at Hadrumetum. Abbot John Cassian of the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles, a celebrated and holy man, was, together with his fellow-monks, especially repelled by the arguments of St. Augustine. The Ma.ssilians, as they were called, were known throughout the Christian world as holy and virtuous men, conspicuous for their learning and asceticism. They had heartily ac- quiesced in the condemnation of Pelagianism by the Synod of Carthage (418) and the "Tractoria" of Pope Zosimus (418), and also in the doctrines of original sin and grace. They were, however, convinced that Augustine in his teaching concerning the necessity and gratuity especially of prevenient grace {gratia jmcceflens seu prceveniens) far over.shot the mark. Cassian had a little earlier expressed his views con- cerning the relation of grace and freedom in his "Con- ferences" (Collatio xxiv in P. L., XLIX, 477 sqq.). As a man of Eastern training and a trusted disciple of St. John Chrysostom, he had taught that the free will was to be accorded somewhat more initiative than he was accustomed to find in the writings of Augustine. With unmistakable reference to Hippo, he had endeavoured in his thirteenth conference to demonstrate from Biblical examples that God fre- quently awaits the good impulses of the natural will before corning to its tt-ssistance with His supernatural grace; while the grace often preceded the will, as in the ca.se of Matthew and Peter, on the other hand the will frequently preceded the grace, as in the case of Zacchajus and the Good Thief on the cross. This view was no longer Augustinian; it was really "half PHagianism". To such a man and his adherents, among whom the monk Hilarius (alreafly appointed Biahop of Aries in 428) was conspicuous, the last
writings from Africa must have appeared a masked
reproof and a downright contradiction.
Thus, from being half friendly, the Massihans developed into determined opponents of Augustine. Testimony as to this change of feeling is supphed by two non-partisan laymen. Prosper of Aquitaine and a certain Hilarius, both of whom in their enthusiasm for the newly-blossoming monastic life voluntarily shared in the daily duties of the monks. In two dis- tinct writings (St. Augustine, Epp. ccxxv-xxvi in P. L., XXXIII, 1002-12) they gave Augustine a strictly matter-of-fact report of the theological views of the Massilians. They sketched in the main the following picture, which we complete from other sources: (1) In distinguishing between the beginning of faith {iiiitinm fidei) and the increase of faith {augwcntum fidci), one may refer the former to the power of the free will, while the faith itself and its increase is absolutely dependent upon God; (2) the gratuity of grace is to be maintained against Pelagius in so far as every strictly natural merit is excluded; this, however, does not prevent nature and its works from having a certain claim to grace; (3) as regards final perseverance in particular, it must not be re- garded as a special gift of grace, since the justified man may of his own strength persevere to the end; (4) the granting or withholding of baptismal grace in the case of children depends on the Divine pre- science of their future conditioned merits or misdeeds. This fourth statement, which is of a highly absurd nature, has never been condemned as heresy; the three other propositions contain the whole essence of Semipelagianism.
The aged Augustine gathered all his remaining strength to prevent the revival of Pelagianism which had then been hardly overcome. He addressed (428 or 429) to Prosper and Hilarius the two works "De prajdestinatione sanctorum" (P. L., XLIV, 959 sqq.) and "De dono perseverantiic " (P. L., XLIV, 993 sqq.). In refuting their errors, Augustine treats his opponents as erring friends, not as heretics, and humbly adds that, before his episcopal consecration (about 396), he himself had been caught in a "simi- lar error", until a passage in the writings of St. Paul (I Cor., iv, 7) had opened his eyes, "thinking that the faith, by which we believe in God, is not the gift of God, but is in us of ourselves, and that through it we obtain the gifts whereby we may live temperately, justly, and piously in this world" (De praidest. sanct., iii, 7). The Massilians, however, remained un- appeased, the last writings of Augustine making no impression upon them. Offended at this obstinacy, Prosper believed the time had arrived for public polemics. He first described the new state of the question in a letter to a certain Rufinus (Prosper Aquit., "Ep. ad Rufinum de gratia et libero arbitrio", in P. L., XLI, 77 sciq.), lashed in a poem of some thousand hexameters (Hepi d-xapl^Tiav, "hoc est de ingratis", in P. L., LI, 91 sqq.) the ingratitude of the "enemies of grace", and directed against an unnamed assailant — perhaps Cassian himself — his "Epigrammata in obtrectatorem Augustini" (P. L., XLI, 149 sqq.), written in elegiacs. At the time of the composition of this poem (429-30), Augustine was still alive.
II. The Culmination of Semipelagianism (430- 519).— On 29 Aug., 430, while the Vandals were besieging his episcopal city, St. Augustine died. As his sole champions, he left his disciples. Prosper and Hilarius, on the scene of conflict in Southern Gaul. Prosi)cr, rightly known as his "best di.sciple", alone engaged in writing, and, immersed as he was in the rich and almost inexhaustilJc; mind of the greatest of all the Doctors of the Church, he subse- quently devoted the utmost pains to soften down with noble tact the roughness and abruptness of many of his master's propositions. Filled with the con-
