There were some, even opponents of Pelagianism, who held that such a view necessarily led to the con- clusion that the withholding of divine grace must be the cause of the eternal ruin of the non-elect, and that hence they are not responsible for their perdition. This led to the adoption of a middle course between Pelagi- anism and Augustinianism. Hence there sprang up a sect at first known by the name of Massiliensians, but afterwards stj-led by the schoolmen Semi-Pelagians. They adopted tlie Synergistic theory of regeneration. They said that the efficacy of grace depended on the manner in which it was received by man. This form of doctrine became dominant in tlie Church of Rome. Augustinianism had but few to defend it. It was as a system of doctrine almost forgotten, till at the time of the Reformation it once more rose to new life, and was embodied in the theology of Luther and Calvin. The Council of Trent gave full sanction in its canons to the doctrine of Pelagius on the subjects of sin and of regen- eration. This is evident from the expositions given to these canons by such divines as Bellarmine. The Tri- dentine theologians vigorously maintain the Synergistic theory of regeneration, and as vigorously condemn the Monergistic theory taught by Augustine, and entering as an essential part into the theology of the Reforma- tion.
IV. Anali/sis of Pelagianism. — Much importance at- taches to the forms which the Pelagian controversy as- sumed when it appeared for the first time on the field of Church history. What are called the " doctrines of divine grace," although always forming an essential part in the system of truth which pervaded and gave life to the Christian Church, had never been the subject of con- troversy, and, consequently, had never been stated with any delinitencss or precision of form till the time of Pe- lagius. The controversy, as at first conducted, while it cannot be said to have been exhausted, was carried on with so much skill, both on the one side and on the other, that scarcely anytliiug new in the form of argu- ment can be adduced. In the writings of Augustine, the great defender of the catholic truth of that age, there is found such a vast store of arguments, both phil- osophical and scriptural, in support of the cardinal doc- trines of divine grace, that modern controversialists find little else remaining for them than to gather and pre- sent them anew. Tiiey are as valid now as when first exhibited in opposition to the ingenious and plausible reasonings of Pelagius and his immediate followers, Ca'lestius and Julian of ICclanum.
The fathers before Augustine, in making reference to the doctrine involved in the controversy, certainly do not always use language which is sufficiently explicit, or which may not be interpreted as giving countenance to Pelagianism ; yet the manner in which they quote the Scripture, and the whole tone and tendency of their teachings, sufficiently deinoustrale tliat thoy lield sub stantially the same doctrines that Augustine afterwards
fully developed into a system. Augustine quotes the fathers that preceded him as agreeing with him in his doctrinal views. The principal discussions of the fa- thers of the earlier centuries were with Gnosticism in its various manifestations. This led them to magnify unduly the power of man's free will. At this point the divergence in the direction of what afterwards was known in history as Pelagianism first made its appear- ance. The roots of that system may indeed, in this respect, be found in the ambiguous and frequently in- consistent language of the earlier fathers when speaking of man's possessing a freedom of will — a power of will in the direction of that which is good. They said more than they were warranted, more than consistency with the other truths they maintained required, in affirming that man had a power to obey God. They failed to give due weight and importance to the influences of human depravity on the human will; and thus, while acknowledging that depravity, they attributed a power to the human will in the doing of good which it does not possess. They moreover confounded morality •with evangelical holiness. A power to perform outward du- ties which belong to the sjjhere of moralltv is not to be confounded with a power to perform the duties which belong to the sphere of evangelical holiness — the rela- tion we bear to God. Thus it was that, while in the main they held the doctrines of human depravity and of salvation by grace, they at the same time spoke of them with much indefiniteness, so that a Pelagian will not have much difficulty in persuading himself that the germs of his system are to be found in the writings of the fathers.
A scientific exhibition of the system of Pelagianism must rest on its primary or central principle, and must trace the connection of its several parts with that prin- ciple. Theologians are not at one as to what this fun- damental principle in reality is. Starting from the cir- cumstance that Augustine, in his first anti-Pelagian work, De peccuturum meriiis tt remissiune, combats the opinion that physical death is purely natural, and that the first man would have died even though he had not sinned, Jansen and Gamier have maintained that this doctrine is the root of the whole system of Pelagius, out of which all its parts have sprung. AViggers begins his development of the system with the doctrine of in- fant baptism, because tliat doctrine, though not the first, was one of the first about which the controversy arose. Another theologian of our own time, Julius Mliller, finds the ground-principle of the Pelagian her- esy in a superficial apprehension of sin — in the want of a true, heartfelt knowledge of sin. Such a defective knowledge must rest on a superficial knowledge of holi- ness which God demands of us, and which Christ, the living law, shows us in the mirror of his own life. The existence of sin, with its dominion in the soul, is the fundamental supposition of Christianity, and its sub- jective recognition is the condition of its pardon ; there- fore error as to the inner being and operation of sin must result in a false doctrine of the saving grace of Christ. But since the chief and most general contrast does not lie between sin and holiness, but between nat- ure and grace, it is plain, argues Wiirter, that we must look for the projier root and fountain-head of all Pela- gian doctrine elsewhere. To know properly the princi- ple on which Pelagianism rests, we must inquire thor- oughly into the history of its dogmas as they develop themselves in the 4th and in the early part of the 5th centuries. This will lead us to inquire into the relation of cosmology, or, rather, of anthro]i(il(igy, to sotcriology, or into the question of the transition from creation to salvation, as Cyril of Alexandria has already briefly but distinctly indicated wlicn, in expounding Isa. xliii, 18; 1 Cor. v, 17 ; and Hev. xxi, 5, he has advanced the jirob- lem whether the salvation in Christ is not to be consid- ered as a new creation of the not altogether iniscathed, but yet not altogether destroyed human nature, or as a restoration of man despoiled by the fall of his orig-