Pelagia, Saint, Martyr

PELAGIA,
saint, martyr. -
She is commemorated
in the Roman Martyrology
and in the Greek Synaxaria
on 9 June, but the true
"dies natalis" is
8 Oct., as the Syriac
Martyrology attests.

She perished at Antioch
in the persecution of
Diocletian; on her Alexandria, where he probably died (ca. 427). Nothing
warrants believing that he returned to England.

A remarkable writer, a moralist generous and severe at the same
time, P. possessed neither a sense of tradition
nor an intuition of supernatural realities (Orosius,
Apol., 29). Without ever having had, perhaps, the idea of founding
a dissident sect, driven by the sole desire to raise
the common level of Christian morality, he found himself led
by the logic of overly elementary principles and by the stimulus
of an unenlightened zeal to construct and defend a heterodox
doctrine, which exercised an immense seduction.

The work of P. is vast; a treatise
in 3 books on the Trinity has been lost (C. Martini, Quatuor fragmenta
Pelagio restituendo, in Antonianum, 13 [1938], pp. 293-
334); the Book of Testimonies (scriptural
quotations); a treatise De natura; a treatise De libero arbitrio;
two letters on Grace to the bishops Constantius and Paulinus
of Nola; a commentary on the Song of Songs.

There remain (under the name of St. Jerome): an important
exegetical work: Expositiones epistolarum s. Pauli
(ed. A. Souter, in Texts and Studies, IX, Cambridge 1926);
a moral work notable for its unity and its literary coloring: Epistola ad Demetriadem (PL 30, 15-45); a
treatise De vita christiana, for a long time attributed to
St. Augustine or to Fastidius (PL 40, 1031-46); many letters
of exhortation, among which: Epistola ad Celanium (CSEL,
LVI, 329-56); a eulogy De virginitate (PL 30, 163-75);
a treatise De castitate (ed. C. P. Caspari, Christiania
1890, pp. 122-67) and various fragments of letters to Livania;
two polemical treatises: De divitiis et de malis doctoribus,
De operibus fidei (ed. C. P. Caspari, ibid. 1890, pp. 25-113).

PL. 33, 495-500) and St. Augustine (De natura et Gratia: CSEL,
XLII, 123-206). Exhortatory letters (PL 30) and ascetic
or polemical treatises, ed. C. P. Caspari, Briefc. Abhandlungen., aus dem
zwei letzten Jahrhunderten des Kirchlichen Altertums, Cristiania
1890. A text not yet shown to be authentic: De induzione
cordis Pharaonis, discovered by G. Morin, was published by
G. de Plinval, in Essai sur le style et la langue de Péloge (Collectanea Friburgensia), Friburgo 1947. Ancient documents on P.:
St. Augustine, De gestis Pelagii (CSEL, XLII: PL, 40, 340-60);
Paulus Orosius, Liber apologeticus (CSEL, V, 601-64); M. Mercator,
Communit. de Caelestio (PL 48, 63-106). The figure of P. has
been renewed by the studies of G. de Plinval, Péloge, ses écrits, sa
vie et sa réforme, Losanna 1943; id., Essai sur le style., cit., cf.
Resme d'hist. eccl., 44 (1949), pp. 5-21.

II. THE DOCTRINE

1. First manifestations

At the beginning, the teaching of P., motivated by concerns of a moral character, presented itself with an essentially practical aspect: a doctrine full of enthusiasm for an enthusiastic and intransigent asceticism, aimed above all at criticizing the use of wealth and at reducing the evangelical counsels of poverty and chastity into so many absolute precepts. The rigorism of P.

(Int. Enc. CML.)
PEIRESC, NICOLAS-CLAUDE FABRI de. - Autograph letter of P. to G. Aleandro
(Dec. 18, 1620) - Vatican Library, cod. Barb. lat. 2154, f. 109 v.

tended to impose on all the faithful the integral observance of the divine precepts and counsels. This exaggerated doctrine, quivering nonetheless with generosity, placed the accent above all on the idea of eternal sanctions: reward in heaven or punishment in hell. In reality it constituted a reaction against certain tendencies, which were then manifesting themselves, that were too conciliatory and that reduced the religious life to a simple external adherence to Christian Revelation (the doctrine of faith without works), or to the mere reception of Baptism, sufficient (so Jovinian held) to ensure definitive sanctification. In insisting on the application of concrete duties (Vita christiana, Laus virginitatis), P. ended by elaborating the doctrine of impeccantia. Man can and must devote all his care to observing, without exclusions or hesitations of any kind, the divine commandments; with the integral fulfillment of the divine law, man draws near to "Justice"; his life thus becomes an uninterrupted and acceptable sacrifice of praise to God. This ideal could have included the requirement of Grace, but P. deliberately constructed it on the sole foundation of man's personal dispositions, on a conscious and constant effort of the human will (Letter to Demetrias); his morality is fundamentally voluntarist.

2. The question of Grace

P. acknowledged that human nature has been enriched by God with many benefits: a) the Grace of creation, through which God has given us reason and freedom; b) the Grace of the remission of sins: Baptism and Penance restore us to the state of innocence; c) the Grace of teaching, which entails the various precepts of the Law, the doctrines of Scripture, the salutary example of Jesus Christ, which all Christians must imitate. But he had so high an idea of the autonomy and rectitude of human reason and of the full exercise of freedom, as not to admit that it can undergo any other influence besides that which comes from the blindness induced by sins or by habit; no atavistic form, no external supernatural intervention (not the influence of the devil, not the action of Grace in the depths of conscience) can make its weight felt on our judgments, favor or force our choice, prevail over the will. Our responsibility is unlimited. Grace, that is, the drawing near to the benefits of a divine nature (promised by salvation), granted equally to all, at least to all Christians, consists predominantly in a revelation of the Mysteries, in the presentation of the precepts and examples of the Old Testament and of the Gospel, perhaps also in a help always proportioned to merits and conditioned by antecedent and subsequent works; it is truly not a "motion" or a mysterious attraction or a certain privilege that depends on the free bestowal of God: "God shows no partiality" (De natura, De libero arbitrio).

3. Theory of the original state of man and value of Baptism

Starting from such principles, P. was induced to combat implicitly the doctrine of original sin. The soul, which does not come from human generation, ex traduce, but is created immediately by God, cannot, coming into the world, bear the weight of a sin anterior to birth, completely foreign to the conscience and will of the individual (Exp. in Rom., V, 12; ed. Souter, pp. 46-47); considered thus in itself it is morally neutral, but nonetheless capable, through the faculties with which it is endowed, of raising itself by its own powers, to a certain extent, to virtue, to what Pelagius calls "natural holiness" (Ep. ad Demetriadem, 2-3; De libero arbitrio). Such a conception of original integrity induced Pelagius to depreciate the Sacrament of Baptism. Since Adam's personal sin had only physical consequences (mortality, illnesses) and, morally, has no other value than that of a bad "example," without bringing any diminution to man's supernatural dispositions, Baptism, if it is indispensable to pagans for their salvation and to adults for the remission of their personal sins, loses any meaning when it is administered to children (parculi) who are innocent by definition. It may be administered to children for convenience and to guarantee them entry into the "kingdom of heaven," but it is a genuine abuse to say that it is conferred on children in remissionem peccatorum.

4. Freedom and predestination

For fear of having to sustain compromising controversies, P. did not express his precise thought on the question of Baptism; he instead placed free will as the axis of his system (Testimon. lib.). The gift of freedom is an incomparable privilege that God has given to man; it is a faculty through which, while He distinguished him from the other species, God raised man to the dignity of "voluntary executor" of His own designs. This power entails as a corollary the possibility of refusing to accomplish the will of God: consequently, the permission to sin. Man can choose between good and evil; to leave him all the merit, God does not intervene in his decision (Ep. ad Demetr., 2-3). According to an expression of Julian of Eclanum, which must be interpreted in the juridical value of the words: "Man through free will has found himself emancipated from God" (St. Augustine, Op. imperf., 1, 78).

The first stage of morality therefore consists in becoming aware of this admirable freedom; in general, man does not have the exact measure of the forces that are in his power. He does not realize that he has the capacity to acquire by his own means virtue, justice, sanctification (Ep. ad Demetr., 8). Encouraged by example he must strive to become for others a living example. Pelagian morality is a morality of honor (Virginum laus, 12 and 16). This autarchic conception of virtue induced the Pelagians to undervalue or repudiate certain essential aspects of the religious life: the sense of human fragility and that of temptation, the virtue of humility, faith in the efficacy of the Sacraments and of priestly actions, the usefulness of prayers for others, the reversibility or solidarity of merits and sufferings: in a word, the Communion of Saints. Pelagianism is an individualist religion, which shuns any consideration of a sentimental or mystical character and which expresses itself principally in performing acts of justice (De vita christiana).

This conception contains grave psychological, metaphysical and above all dogmatic errors. The Pelagian, imbued with the idea of his own freedom, fails to recognize the real conditions in which our activity unfolds, the uncertainties of the will, the possible or inevitable falls: "Man can, if he wills, avoid falling into sin" (Testim. lib.). Such a mentality excludes the idea of help from God, habitual or frequent, as well as the need to have recourse to a concrete Grace, relating to each of our acts. The Pelagians above all reject the idea of an weakening of the primitive freedom: the sin of Adam (or rather of Eve) has not the slightest influence on our original condition. It cannot constitute the object of an hereditary transmission; it has neither obscured nor corrupted human reason; it has in no way limited our autonomy nor impaired our dispositions to virtue and justice. In any case, Christians have had all these gifts restored to them by the kingdom of Grace and the benefit of Baptism (De natura).

It is repugnant, on the other hand, to the goodness of God, "source of all equity and justice," to have been able to pronounce a general or a priori condemnation against his creatures. He, who respects their very independence, knows only in his foreknowledge the merit or demerit that creatures can acquire. There exists, therefore, no "predestination"; there is only "vocation," that is, a call freed from any violence. The Pelagians reacted with extreme energy against the fatalism widespread in certain popular or monastic circles and against a false interpretation of the Augustinian doctrine of Grace, when people persisted in discovering in them the denial of free will and the irrevocable subjection of our destiny to a tyrannical choice of God. The apology for free will constituted the guiding idea of Pelagianism and one of the most important factors of its successor.

5. Diffusion and collapse of Pelagianism

Pelagianism spread above all in Roman society and in the West as a broad movement of moral restoration, which required of all the faithful the integral observance of the law of God, thus aiming to spread an ideal of perfect justice and to establish in this world itself the "immaculate Church without wrinkle." Between 411 and 515 such a conception, practically underscored by the duty to abandon riches, met with the greatest favor in Italy, especially in Sicily (St. Augustine, Ep., 157).

But as early as 411-13, Celestius, making explicit one aspect of P.'s thought, began to combat the practice of infant Baptism, denied the existence of original sin and decisively upheld the absolute independence of free will (propaganda in Africa; treatise of the Definitions). Wherever he settled, he stirred up lively polemics: at Carthage, at Ephesus, at Constantinople. P., less combative, sought to soften the irritating aspects of his doctrine, bowed to formulas of conciliation on the necessary cooperation of Grace (Council of Diospolis, 415), but defended, not without talent, the natural rights of the human condition, the possibility of avoiding sin, the existence of a free, conscious and meritorious act (treatises De natura, De libero arbitrio; letters to Pope Innocent).

In 417-18 his Roman supporters flatly denied the doctrine of original sin. Julian of Eclanum, who was the leader of the second Pelagian generation, refused to subscribe to the Tractoria (encyclical of Pope Zosimus) and openly rebelled against the authority of the Church, winning over to his schism 17 bishops of Italy. Rejecting the religious rigorism of P., Celestius inclined toward naturalism and rationalism, adducing proofs concerning the moral "neutrality" of the child and the freedom of indifference (Libri a Turbanzio, 421-22). Around 427-29 at Constantinople the discussion turned rather on the physical consequences of Adam's sin (concupiscence, the necessity of dying); the exiled Pelagians, driven out of the West, attempted approaches with Theodore of Mopsuestia and then with Nestorius. In Africa, in Aquitaine, in England, the Pelagian campaign spread, focusing above all on the question of free will and criticizing the theories of St. Augustine on Grace and Predestination. Against the censures of the Church of Rome and of the bishops of Africa, the Pelagians abusively invoked the authority of the Fathers of the Greek Church (St. John Chrysostom; translations of Anianus). Condemned unequivocally by the popes Zosimus (Tractoria, summer 418) and Celestine, by the Councils of Africa, of Antioch and of Ephesus (431), by the imperial Constitutions of Honorius (418) and of Valentinian III (425), the dissidents were forced to resort to clandestine action; they then concentrated their attacks against the doctrine of Predestination (cf. H. von Schubert, Der Sogenannte Praedestinatus etc., Leipzig 1903), continued their propaganda in England (mission of St. Germanus of Auxerre, 429) and in Ireland, multiplied intrigues in Campania and above all in Illyria (region of Aquileia), where they maintained their positions until the time of St. Leo the Great (ca. 440). The last vestiges of Pelagianism as a sect did not go beyond the pontificate of Gelasius (496).

6. Catholic doctrine in the face of Pelagianism

No trace remains of the first reactions against P.'s teaching concerning Grace, the illicit nature of riches, etc. But, as early as 411-12, on the initiative of the deacon Paulinus of Milan, a disciple of St. Ambrose, the clergy of Carthage and the bishop Aurelius condemned Celestius, who rejected the use of infant Baptism; in 415 St. Jerome refuted above all the doctrine of impeccantia and certain imperatives of Pelagian morality (Letter to Ctesiphon and Dialogues against the Pelagians). With a deeper theological sense, St. Augustine in the De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de Baptismo parvulorum (412-13) grasped the essential elements of the doctrine, confuting with a single argument both the theory of the innocence of children and the erroneous conception of a justice innate or acquired through the sole effort of the will. The letter to Hilary around the year 415 (St. Augustine, Ep., 157), the De Gratia Christi et de peccato originali in 418 ended by bringing to light the deficiencies of the Pelagian theory and fixed, at the same time, the doctrine of Grace, its necessity, its internal and gratuitous character. The methodical confutation of the theses of Julian of Eclanum, begun in the Contra II epistulas Pelagianorum (420) and in the Contra Iulianum (421), continued in the Opus imperfectum. To this anti-Pelagian summa of St. Augustine are to be added the Commonitoria of Marius Mercator, the opuscules of St. Prosper of Aquitaine and a great exposition of doctrinal synthesis (drawn up ca. 435), the Hypomnesticum.

Such intense literary and theological activity on the part of Catholic authors prepared the way for the dogmatic intervention of the Church's magisterium: condemnation of the errors of Celestius on Baptism and original sin pronounced at Carthage (411-12); solemn and cumulative condemnation of Celestius and P. at the Councils of Carthage and Milevis in 416; excommunication inflicted on P. in Jan. 417; the Constitutions of the great African Council held at Carthage on 1 May 418, in which the reality of original sin was defined and the classical theology of Grace was fixed (9 canons specify its supernatural character, its necessity and its efficacy; canon 3, which denies the existence of "limbo," was not included in the Roman collections); the Tractoria of Zosimus (summer 418), which confirmed the acts of the Council of Carthage and insisted on the hereditary character of original sin and on the physical, moral and supernatural consequences of Adam's fall; declarations of the Council of Ephesus (22 July 431); lastly, a collection of the official pronouncements of the Roman Church, gathered in the Capitularia Celestiniana (printed under the title Sedis Ap. Episcoporum auctoritates, in PL 51, 205-12).

From all these texts there emerges: 1) a clear condemnation of the Pelagian conception that denied to Grace the character of an intrinsic and gratuitous help, required in order to perform any virtuous act; 2) affirmation of original sin inherited from Adam, considered as real and inherent in each man; 3) the salvific character of Baptism, also for infants, who have not yet committed any actual sin. Much more complex to establish, the Catholic doctrine concerning free will in its relations with divine action and predestination could receive its clarification only after a long period of uncertainties and conflicting solutions, at the Council of Orange (529; v. SEMIPELAGIANISMO).

Giorgio de Plinval