PELAGIUS and PELAGIANISM. -
I. Life
Born in England (not in Ireland) around 354, and died perhaps in the region of Alexandria around 427. After settling in Rome, where he may have arrived around 384 and resided for a long time, he exerted a profound influence throughout the West. As an orator, controversialist, and writer, Pelagius acquired extraordinary prestige among religious circles—not as a priest or monk in the modern sense of the term, but as an independent "lay teacher." Although his system arose from the logical development of certain observations, Pelagius was intellectually connected to the milieu of Ambrosiaster and to certain tendencies in the Antiochene school (Rufinus of Syria), in reaction against Neoplatonic spiritualist tendencies and the then-prevalent current of popular and mystical piety.His influence extended to Campania, Sicily, Africa, Gaul, and England. He reached as far as Ephesus in 413 and Rhodes. Initially, Caelestius and Julian of Eclanum, later Anianus, Turbantius, and Agricola worked intensively to spread his ideas. In 410, when Alaric invaded Italy, Pelagius left; after a brief stay in Africa, he settled in Jerusalem, welcomed by Bishop John, but was soon regarded with suspicion by St. Jerome. Condemned in 418 by the Council of Carthage and already compromised by certain tumultuous incidents in Bethlehem at the end of 417, Pelagius, without renouncing his principles, left his disciples the task of continuing the struggle. Traces of him are believed to have been found in various parts of the East: in Antioch, where he is said to have been condemned again (c. 425), and in the region of Alexandria, where he probably died (c. 427). There is no evidence to suggest he returned to England.
A remarkable writer, Pelagius was both generous and severe as a moralist, yet he lacked a sense of tradition and an intuition for supernatural realities (Orosius, *Apol.*, 29). Though he may never have intended to found a dissenting sect, driven solely by a desire to elevate the general level of Christian morality, he was led by the logic of overly simplistic principles and the impulse of unenlightened zeal to construct and defend a heterodox doctrine that exerted immense seduction.
Pelagius’s output was vast; among his lost works are a three-book treatise on the Trinity (*C. Martini, Quatuor fragmenta Pelagio restituenda*, in *Antoniarum*, 13 [1938], pp. 293-334); the *Book of Testimonies* (scriptural citations); a treatise *On Nature*; a treatise *On Free Will*; two letters on grace to Bishops Constantius and Paulinus of Nola; and a commentary on the *Song of Songs*.
Works remaining under the name of St. Jerome include: a significant exegetical work, *Expositiones epistolarum s. Pauli* (ed. A. Souter, in *Texts and Studies*, IX, Cambridge 1926); a morally notable work for its unity and literary style, *Epistola ad Demetriadem* (PL 30, 15-45); a treatise *De vita christiana*, long attributed to St. Augustine or Fastidius (PL 40, 1031-46); many letters of exhortation, including *Epistola ad Celantiam* (CSEL, LVII, 329-56); a short work *De virginitate* (PL 30, 163-75); a treatise *De castitate* (ed. C. P. Caspar, Christiania 1890, pp. 122-67); and various fragments of letters to Livania. There are also two polemical treatises: *De divitiis et de malis doctoribus* and *De operibus fidei* (ed. C. P. Caspar, ibid. 1890, pp. 25-113).
II. The Doctrine
1. Early Manifestations
At the outset, Pelagius’s teaching, motivated by moral concerns, presented itself in a fundamentally practical aspect: a doctrine rich in enthusiastic and uncompromising asceticism, aimed above all at criticizing the use of wealth and reducing the evangelical counsels of poverty and chastity to absolute precepts. His rigorism sought to impose on all the faithful the full observance of divine precepts and counsels. This exaggerated doctrine, though fervent with generosity, emphasized the idea of eternal sanctions: reward in heaven or punishment in hell. In reality, it constituted a reaction against certain overly lenient tendencies that reduced religious life to mere external adherence to Christian Revelation (a doctrine of faith without works) or to the mere reception of Baptism, deemed sufficient (as Jovinianus held) to ensure definitive sanctification. By insisting on the fulfillment of concrete duties (*Vita christiana*, *Laus virginitatis*), Pelagius ultimately developed the doctrine of impeccability. Man can and must strive to observe, without hesitation or compromise, the divine commandments; through the complete fulfillment of the divine law, man approaches "Justice," and his life becomes an uninterrupted and acceptable sacrifice of praise to God. This ideal might have included the necessity of grace, but Pelagius deliberately constructed it solely upon the foundation of man’s personal dispositions, upon 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 had been enriched by God with many benefits: a) the grace of creation, by which God gave us reason and freedom; b) the grace of the remission of sins: Baptism and Penance restore us to a state of innocence; c) the grace of instruction, which includes the various precepts of the Law, the teachings of Scripture, and the salutary example of Jesus Christ, which all Christians must imitate. Yet he held such a high view of the autonomy and rectitude of human reason and the full exercise of freedom that he would not admit that it could be subject to any influence other than that arising from the blindness induced by sin or habit; no atavistic form, no external supernatural intervention (neither the influence of the devil nor the action of grace within the conscience) could weigh upon our judgments, favor or force our choice, or prevail over the will. Our responsibility is unlimited. Grace, that is, access to the benefits of divine nature (promised by salvation), granted equally to all, or at least to all Christians, consists chiefly in a revelation of the Mysteries, in the presentation of the precepts and examples of the Old Testament and the Gospel, and perhaps even in an aid always proportionate to merits and conditioned by antecedent and subsequent works; it is not, in truth, a “motion” or a mysterious attraction or a certain privilege dependent on the free bestowal of God: “God is no respecter of persons” (*De natura, De libero arbitrio*).3. Theory of man’s original state and the value of Baptism
Starting from such principles, P. was led implicitly to oppose the doctrine of original sin. The soul, which does not proceed from human generation, *ex traduce*, but is created immediately by God, cannot, upon coming into the world, bear the burden of a sin anterior to birth, entirely foreign to the individual’s consciousness and will (*Exp. in Rom.*, V, 12; ed. Souter, pp. 46–47); considered in itself, it is morally neutral, yet nonetheless capable, by means of the faculties with which it is endowed, of elevating itself to a certain degree of virtue—what Pelagius calls “natural holiness” (*Ep. ad Demetriadem*, 2–3; *De libero arbitrio*). Such a conception of original integrity led Pelagius to depreciate the Sacrament of Baptism. Since the personal sin of Adam had only physical consequences (mortality, sickness) and, morally, no other value than that of a bad “example,” without diminishing in any way man’s supernatural dispositions, Baptism, while indispensable for pagans unto their salvation and for adults for the remission of their personal sins, loses all meaning when administered to children (*parvuli*), who are innocent by definition. It may be administered to children to enable or guarantee their entry into the “kingdom of heaven,” but it is an abuse to say that it is conferred upon them *in remissionem peccatorum*.
4. Freedom and predestination
To avoid entering into compromising controversies, P. did not express his precise thought on the question of Baptism; instead, he placed free will at the axis of his system (*Testimoni. lib.*). The gift of freedom is an incomparable privilege that God has given to man; it is a faculty by which, while distinguishing him from other species, God has elevated man to the dignity of a “voluntary executor” of His own thoughts. This power entails as a corollary the possibility of refusing to fulfill 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 sense of the words: “Man, by free will, has emancipated himself from God” (*s. Agostino, Op. imperf.*, I, 78).The first stage of morality, therefore, consists in becoming aware of this admirable freedom; generally, man does not have an exact measure of the powers at his disposal. He does not realize that he has the capacity to acquire virtue, justice, and sanctification by his own means (*Ep. ad Demetr.*, 8). Encouraged by example, he must strive to become a living example for others. Pelagian morality is a morality of honor (*Virginum laus*, 12 and 16). This autarchic conception of virtue led the Pelagians to undervalue or repudiate certain essential aspects of religious life: the sense of human frailty and temptation, the virtue of humility, faith in the efficacy of the Sacraments and priestly actions, the usefulness of prayers for others, the shareability or solidarity of merits and sufferings—in a word, the Communion of Saints. The Pelagian is an individualistic religion, shunning any consideration of a sentimental or mystical character and finding its chief expression in the performance of just acts (*De vita christiana*).
Such a conception contains grave psychological, metaphysical, and above all dogmatic errors. The Pelagian, steeped in the idea of his own freedom, fails to recognize the real conditions under which our activity unfolds, the uncertainties of the will, the possible or inevitable falls: “Man can, if he wills, avoid sin” (*Testim. lib.*). Such a mentality excludes the idea of aid from God, habitual or frequent, as well as the need to resort to a concrete Grace relative to each of our acts. The Pelagians especially reject the idea of a weakening of primitive freedom: the sin of Adam (or rather of Eve) has no influence whatsoever on our original condition. It cannot be the object of hereditary transmission; it has neither obscured nor corrupted human reason; it has in no way limited our autonomy nor impaired our dispositions toward virtue and justice. To Christians, however, the realm of Grace and the benefit of Baptism have restored all these gifts (*De natura*).
On the other hand, it is repugnant to the goodness of God, “the source of all equity and justice,” that He could have issued a general or a priori condemnation against His creatures. He, who respects the independence even of these, knows in His foreknowledge only the merit or demerit that creatures can acquire. There is, therefore, no “predestination”; there is only “vocation,” an appeal unencumbered by any violence. The Pelagians reacted with extreme energy against the fatalism diffused in certain popular or monastic circles and against a false interpretation of Augustine’s doctrine of Grace, when people persisted in discovering in it the denial of free will and the irrevocable subjection of our destiny to a tyrannical choice of God. The apology of free will constituted the guiding idea of Pelagianism and one of the most important factors in its success.
5. Diffusion and collapse of Pelagianism
Pelagianism spread especially within Roman society and in the West as a broad moral restoration movement, which demanded of all the faithful the full observance of God’s law, thus aiming to spread an ideal of perfect justice and to constitute in this very world an “immaculate Church without wrinkle.” Between 411 and 515 such a conception, practically underscored by the duty to abandon wealth, met with very great favor in Italy, especially in Sicily (St. Augustine, Ep., 157).But as early as 411–13, Caelestius, making explicit one aspect of P.’s thought, began to attack the practice of infant baptism, denied the existence of original sin, and firmly upheld the absolute independence of free will (propaganda in Africa; treatise of the Definitions). Wherever it took root, it provoked lively controversy: in Carthage, in Ephesus, in Constantinople. P., less combative, sought to soften the irritating aspects of his doctrine, yielded to conciliatory formulas on the couple and the necessity 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 conscious and meritorious free act (treatises De natura, De libero arbitrio; letters to Pope Innocent).
In 417–18 his Roman supporters denied the doctrine of original sin. Julian of Eclanum, who was the leading figure of the second generation of Pelagians, 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 in Italy. Rejecting P.’s religious rigorism, Caelestius inclined toward naturalism and rationalism, adducing proofs for the “moral neutrality” of the child and for freedom of indifference (Libri ad Turbantium, 421–22). Around 427–29 in Constantinople the debate turned rather to the physical consequences of Adam’s sin (concupiscence, necessity of death); the exiled Pelagians, driven from the West, made approaches to Theodore of Mopsuestia and then to Nestorius. In Africa, Aquitaine, and England, the Pelagian campaign spread, focusing especially on the question of free will and criticizing St. Augustine’s theories on grace and predestination. Against the censures of the Church of Rome and the bishops of Africa, the Pelagians abusively invoked the authority of the Greek Fathers (St. John Chrysostom; translations by Anianus). Condemned unequivocally by Popes Zosimus (Tractoria, 421–22) and Celestine, by the Councils of Africa, Antioch, and Ephesus (431), and by the imperial constitutions of Honorius (418) and Valentinian III (425), the dissenters were forced to resort to clandestine activity; they then concentrated their attacks on 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 their intrigues in Campania and especially in Illyricum (region of Aquileia), where they maintained their positions until the time of St. Leo the Great (c. 440). The last vestiges of Pelagianism as a sect did not disappear before the pontificate of Gelasius (496).
6. Catholic doctrine in the face of Pelagianism
No trace remains of the earliest reactions against P.’s teaching on grace, the illicitness of wealth, etc. But as early as 411–12, at the initiative of the deacon Paulinus of Milan, a disciple of St. Ambrose, the clergy of Carthage and Bishop Aurelius condemned Caelestius for rejecting the practice of infant baptism; in 415 St. Jerome replied especially to the doctrine of impeccability and certain imperatives of Pelagian morality (Letter to Ctesiphon and Dialogues against the Pelagians). With a deeper theological sense, St. Augustine in De peccatorum meritis et remissione et de Baptismo parvulorum (412–13) grasped the essential elements of the doctrine, refuting in a single argument the theory of the innocence of children and the erroneous conception of an innate justice or one acquired by the mere effort of the will. The letter to Hilary c. 415 (St. Augustine, Ep., 157), and De Gratia Christi et de peccato originali in 418 finally brought to light the deficiencies of the Pelagian theory and at the same time fixed the doctrine of grace, its necessity, its internal and gratuitous character. The methodical refutation of the theses of Julian of Eclanum, begun in Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum (420) and in Contra Iulianum (421), continued in the Opus imperfectum. To this anti-Pelagian corpus of St. Augustine must be added the Commonitoria of Marius Mercator, the pamphlets of St. Prosper of Aquitaine, and a major doctrinal synthesis (composed c. 435), the Hypomnesticon.Such literary and theological activity among Catholic authors prepared the dogmatic intervention of the Church’s magisterium: condemnation of Caelestius’ errors on baptism and original sin pronounced at Carthage (411–12); solemn and cumulative condemnation of Caelestius and P. at the Councils of Carthage and Milevis in 416; excommunication of P. in January 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 established (9 canons specifying its supernatural character, its necessity, and its efficacy; the 3rd canon, which denies the existence of “limbo,” is not included in 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); and finally, the collection of official sentences of the Roman Church, gathered in the Capitularies (printed under the title Sedis Ap. Episcoporum auctoritates, in PL 51, 205–12).
From all these texts it emerges: 1) a clear condemnation of the Pelagian conception that denied grace the character of an intrinsic and gratuitous aid required to perform any virtuous act; 2) affirmation of original sin inherited from Adam, regarded as real and inherent in each person; 3) the salvific character of baptism, even for infants who have not yet committed any actual sin. Far more complex to establish was the Catholic doctrine concerning free will in its relation to divine action and predestination; it could receive its clarification only after a long period of uncertainties and conflicting solutions, at the Council of Orange (529; V. SEMI-PELAGIANISM).