Of all the disputes in which Augustine was engaged, that with the
Pelagians was the most famous. The leader of these people, Pelagius, was
a Briton. His name would mean, either in Latin or in Greek, a _man of
the sea_; and it is said that his British name was Morgan--meaning the
same as the Greek or Latin name. Pelagius was the first native of our
own island who gained fame as a writer or as a divine; but his fame was
not of a desirable kind, as it arose from the errors which he ran into.
He was a man of learning, and of strict life; and at Rome, where he
spent many years, he was much respected, until in his old age he began
to set forth opinions which brought him into the repute of a heretic. At
Rome he became acquainted with a man named Celestius, who is said by
some to have been an Italian, while others suppose him an Irishman. It
is not known whether Celestius learnt his opinions from Pelagius, or
whether each of them had come to think in the same way before they knew
one another. But, however this may be, they became great friends, and
joined in teaching the same errors.
Augustine, as we have seen, had passed through such trials of the spirit
that he thoroughly felt the need of God's gracious help in order to do,
or even to will, any good thing. Pelagius, on the contrary, seems to
have always gone on steadily in the way of his religion. Now this was
really a reason why he should have thanked that grace and mercy of God
which had spared him the dangers and the terrible sufferings which
others have to bear in the course of their spiritual life. But unhappily
Pelagius overlooked the help of grace. He owned, indeed, that all is
from God; but, instead of understanding that the power of doing any
good, or of avoiding any sin, is the especial gift of the Holy Spirit,
he fancied that the power of living without sin was given to us by God
as a part of our _nature_. He saw that some people made a wrong use of
the doctrine of our natural corruption. He saw that, instead of throwing
the blame of their sins on their own neglect of the grace which is
offered to us through Christ, they spoke of the weakness and corruption
of their nature as if these were an excuse for their sins. This was,
indeed, a grievous error, and one which Pelagius would have done well to
warn people against. But, in condemning it, he went far wrong in an
opposite way: he said that man's nature is _not_ corrupt; that it is
nothing the worse for the fall of our first parents; that man can be
good by his own natural power, without needing any higher help; that men
might live without sin, and that many _had_ so lived. These notions of
his are mentioned and are condemned in the ninth Article of our own
Church, where it is said that "Original sin standeth not in the
following of Adam, as the Pelagians do vainly talk" [that is to say,
original sin is not merely the actual imitation of Adam's sin]; "but it
is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is
engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from
original righteousness" [that is, he is very far gone from that
righteousness which Adam had at the first]. And then it is said in the
next Article--"The condition of man, after the fall of Adam, is such
that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and
good works to faith and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to
do good works, pleasing and acceptable to God, without the grace of God
by Christ preventing us [or _going before_ us], that we may have a good
will, and working with us when we have that good will." Thus at every
step there is a need of grace from above to help us on the way of
salvation.
After Rome had been taken by the Goths, in the year 410,[38] Pelagius
and Celestius passed over into Africa, from which Pelagius, after a
short stay, went into the Holy Land. Celestius tried to get himself
ordained by the African church; but objections were made to him, and a
council was held which condemned and excommunicated him. Augustine was
too busy with the Donatists to attend this council; but he was very much
alarmed by the errors of the new teachers, and soon took the lead in
writing against them, and in opposing them by other means.
[38] Page 93.
Pelagius was examined by some councils in the Holy Land, and contrived
to persuade them that there was nothing wrong in his doctrines. He and
Celestius even got a bishop of Rome, Zosimus, to own them as sound in
the faith, and to reprove the African bishops for condemning them. The
secret of this was, that Pelagius used words in a crafty way, which
neither the synods in the Holy Land nor the bishop of Rome suspected.
When he was charged with denying the need of grace, he said that he
owned it to be necessary; but, instead of using the word _grace_ in its
right meaning, to signify the working of the Holy Spirit on the heart,
he used it as a name for other means by which God helps us; such as the
power which Pelagius supposed to be bestowed on us as a part of our
nature; the forgiveness of our sins in baptism; the offer of salvation;
the knowledge and instruction given to us through Holy Scripture, or in
other ways. By such tricks the Pelagians imposed on the bishop of Rome
and others; but the Africans, with Augustine at their head, stood firm.
They steadily maintained that Pelagius and Celestius were unsound in
their opinions; they told Zosimus that he had no right to meddle with
Africa, and that he had been altogether deceived by the heretics. So,
after a while, the bishop of Rome took quite the opposite line, and
condemned Pelagius with his followers; and they were also condemned in
several councils, of which the most famous was the General Council of
Ephesus, held in the year 431. Augustine did great service in opposing
these dangerous doctrines; but in doing so, he said some things as to
God's choosing of his elect, and predestinating them (or _marking them
out beforehand_) to salvation, which are rather startling, and might
lead to serious error. But as to this deep and difficult subject, I
shall content myself with quoting a few words from our Church's
seventeenth Article--"We must receive God's promises in such wise as
they be generally set forth to us in Holy Scripture; and in our doings,
that will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared to
us in the word of God."