SEMIPELAGIANISM. – This is the generic name given since the seventeenth century to the entire theological movement that arose in Gallo-Roman circles in the fifth century, more or less as a reaction against the doctrine of Grace formulated by St. Augustine. Its initiators were Cassian, Vincenzo di Lerino, and Fausto di Riez; its principal opponents were Prospero di Aquitania, St. Fulgenzio di Ruspe, and St. Cesario di Arles. Semipelagianism was not, strictly speaking, a heresy; it involved opinions that were debated but freely held, whose incompatibility with Catholic doctrine became manifest only after the Council of Orange (529).
I. FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM
In opposition to the radical Pelagianism of Celestius and Giuliano d'Eclano, who did not admit the necessity of an exceptional divine assistance, the representatives of the “School of Marseille” acknowledged the existence of a supernatural Grace, proceeding from God and founded solely on the merits of Christ, indispensable for sanctifying human acts and enhancing the value of their merits. Favorable to the condemnation of Pelagius, they accepted the definitions of the Council of Carthage (418) and of Pope Zosimus concerning original sin, the necessity of Baptism, etc. But under the influence, on the one hand, of the spirit of Pelagianism and, on the other, of Greek theology (s. Giovanni Crisostomo), they sought to safeguard human free will to the greatest possible extent and showed concern about the moral consequences of certain Augustinian theses (De correptione et Gratia; De proedestinatione Sanctorum), which seemed to them inclined toward fatalism. The controversy developed along two principal lines: the initiative of Grace, and the predestination of the elect and of the reprobate. In his XIII collatio, Cassiano di Marsiglia had posed the question whether it is our good will that attracts the mercy of God, or the mercy of God that arouses our good will. There emerged in him a desire to acknowledge a real efficacy in the efforts that can be made with a view to the good and not to minimize them. A similar tendency was observed among his contemporaries, Vincenzo di Lerino and Fausto di Riez, to return to the Pelagian thesis of the “proportionality of Grace” according to each person’s present or future merits (secundum merita). Moreover, certain expressions of s. Agostino in his final books, which reserve solely to the mysterious will of God the supreme gift of final perseverance, the condition of eternal salvation, seemed to sanction the total nullity, as regards supernatural merit, of man’s attitude in his preceding acts, even when charitable and virtuous. Salvation or damnation would depend on an a priori choice of the justice of God, who is accountable to no one. Augustinian thought insisted on the “number of the elect,” determined from all eternity; on the “small number” of those who have been saved; and on the “mass of perdition” (massa dannata), justly destined for hell as a consequence of original sin.Against this pessimistic conception, appeal was made to the universality of the divine call and to the mercy of God, who “wills that all men be saved.” It was in particular this generous thesis that was taken up not only in Provence but also at Rome, in the De vocatione omnium gentium (PL 51, 647-722). These, admirably summarized by Prospero in his letter to Rufino (PL 51, 78-79), were the objections raised against the doctrine of s. Agostino between 425 and 435 by s. Ilario d'Arles and Vincenzo di Lerino, and they represented, in general, the viewpoint of the Gallic episcopate; they echoed the harsher recriminations formulated in Africa by the monks of Adrumeto. At the root of the controversy lay a considerable degree of misunderstanding: disoriented by the insinuations of the Pelagians, champions of integral free will, and by the covert propaganda of certain sects that had arisen from the trunk of Priscillianism and professed a kind of mystical fatalism, the Gallic writers, being little familiar with Augustinian metaphysics, did not understand a doctrine of Grace that formed part of a system encompassing the universal economy of the world and of the Redemption. Remaining on the level of practical life and the exercise of concrete virtues, they feared that an excessive exaltation of divine Grace would ultimately annul every merit of man; they were unable to rise to the supreme laws by which free will is mysteriously integrated with the plans of God, and according to which our destiny is realized and unfolds only in the end assigned to it by God from all eternity. Predestination is merely the application, to each individual case, of the great principle of providence (s. Agostino, De praedestinatione Sanctorum, II, 35). It is beyond doubt, on the other hand, that in his final books s. Agostino’s conception of human destiny appears more severe and more pessimistic.
At bottom, however, whatever the controversy concerning the initiative of Grace or predestination, the central problem always remained the condition of man: the question was, in fact, whether man had preserved or lost his integrity after the fall of Adam; whether original sin had completely corrupted our will, whether it had left our freedom intact or had merely weakened it; and, if it had weakened it, to what extent.
II. DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONTROVERSY
The semi-Pelagian objections are known, although indirectly; they appear rather timidly in Cassian’s Collationes and then in the harsher complaints attributed to Vincenzo di Lerino. They were at times very serious, since they provoked a letter of reprimand from Pope Celestine (Ep., 21: PL 30, 530), which forbade criticizing the memory of s. Agostino in any way. But it is above all the writings of s. Prospero di Aquitania that provide precise information on the attitude of his opponents: the letter to Rufino; Poëma de ingratis (on those without grace) and Liber contra Collatorem (PL 51). In his terse and ingenious, but often cutting, criticism, Prospero defended the Augustinian theses; with a subtle vein of partiality, he emphasized the concordance that, in his view, existed between the theories of Cassian and Vincenzo and the essential principles of Pelagianism. To Prospero’s polemical writings must be added a dogmatic treatise of Roman origin, Hypomasticon (written around 435), and a semi-official collection: Sedis Apostolicae Episcoporum auctoritates, the Capitularies of Celestine (PL 51, 205-12), which contain the broad outlines of Catholic theology concerning Grace (cf. a letter to Demetriade: Cum splendidissimae [PL 55, 162-80], which in all probability belongs to s. Leone Magno).Despite this constant affirmation of Roman doctrine, the great religious centre of Provence, the abbey of Lérins, the seedbed that produced the finest flower of the Gallic bishops, remained throughout the fifth century impervious to Augustinian influence; in 473-75 Fausto, bishop of Riez, not content merely to reject the fatalistic theses of the heretic Lucido, denied the existence of the Gratia specialis, that is, an actual Grace suited to our particular needs, exalted the effects of free will, and drew very close to Pelagius’s initial positions (De gratia Dei, I, II).
Around the year 519, an unexpected reaction arose from the Scoti monks, Eastern theologians led by Giovanni Massenzio, and especially from the exiled African bishops, headed by s. Fulgenzio di Ruspe (v.), a follower of the strictest Augustinianism. The discussion broadened and the episcopate of Gaul was once again divided: a council of bishops from the Rhône region, assembled at Valence, seemed rather to have supported Fausto’s principles. It was then that s. Cesario, bishop of Arles, in agreement with Rome, decided to proceed to a solemn declaration.
III. THE COUNCIL OF ORANGE (529)
On the occasion of the consecration of the basilica of Orange, in the presence of the patrician Libero and thirteen bishops, s. Cesario proclaimed the Catholic doctrine of Grace. After reporting some of the most probative texts of s. Agostino and Prospero, s. Cesario drew the following conclusions:1) free will, disoriented and weakened by Adam’s sin, is no longer sufficient for man to rise to the love and service of God, unless Grace and mercy impel him; 2) the just men of the Old Testament owe their merits to nothing other than the Grace of God, and not to « Natural Good »; 3) the Grace of Baptism enables all Christians, with the help and cooperation of Christ, to fulfil the duties necessary for salvation, if they sincerely desire to attain it; 4) in every good action the first impulse comes from God: it is this impulse that prompts one to ask for Baptism and, always with God’s support, to fulfil one’s duties. The Council explicitly rejected the idea of a « predestination » to evil.
The declarations of Orange, laboriously drafted as a new version and correction of an earlier project, whose text has been discovered (Mansi, VIII, 722), constitute a theological document of high value, ratified by the Pontiff (Bonifacio II). With them, theories of Pelagian inspiration, founded on the inviolable autonomy of free will and on the substantial merit of our personal actions, were definitively rejected; they proclaimed the priority and supremacy of divine Grace in the work of salvation, but at the same time affirmed the efficacy of Baptism for the restoration of free will; moreover, they inculcated the responsibility and personal obligations of each individual in observing the divine laws. Finally, they opposed both the mystical or despairing fatalism of the predestinarians and Pelagian or semi-Pelagian naturalism. It is a genuine abuse committed by certain theologians of the seventeenth century to base themselves on the preliminary considerations of the Council of Orange in order to make them almost the Magna Charta of Jansenism.