Pelagius and Pelagianism

PELAGIUS and PELAGIANISM. —

I. LIFE

Born in England (not in Ireland) around 354, he died perhaps in the region of Alexandria ca. 427. First in Rome, where he settled perhaps around the year 384 and remained for a long time, and then throughout the whole of the West, he exercised a profound influence. An orator, controversialist, and writer, P. acquired extraordinary prestige in religious circles, not as a priest or as a monk, in the modern sense of the term, but as an independent “lay teacher.” Although his system arose from the logical development of certain of his observations, P. was intellectually connected with the milieu of the Ambrosiaster and with certain influences of the school of Antioch (Rufinus of Syria), in reaction to neo-Platonic spiritualist tendencies and to the then widespread current of mystical and popular piety.

His influence extended into Campania, Sicily, Africa, Gaul, and England. It reached as far as Ephesus in 413 and Rhodes. At first Celestius and Julian of Eclanum, and later Anianus, Turbantius, and Agricola, worked intensively to spread his ideas. In 410, when Alaric invaded Italy, P. left the country; after a brief stay in Africa, he settled in Jerusalem, welcomed by Bishop John, but was immediately regarded with suspicion by St. Jerome. Condemned in 418 by the Council of Carthage, and already compromised by certain tumultuous incidents that had occurred at Bethlehem toward the end of 417, P., without having recanted his principles, left his disciples the task of continuing the struggle. His traces are thought to be found in various parts of the East: in Antioch, where he is said to have been condemned again (ca. 425), in the region of Alexan-

lenderbilder of the Chronographer from the year 354, in Yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin, 1 [1888]).

Enrico Josi