§ 146. CHARAOTEK Oh' THE FELAGiAIs COJ!<TR0VEKSY. 7S5
Milman: History of Latin Christlanitj. K'ew York, 1860, vol; i. ch. ii. pp. 164r-194. Jul. Mullee: Die cliristliche Lehre von der Siinde. Bresl. 1838, 5th ed. 1866, 2 vols. (An English translation by Urwick, Edinburgh.) TfiE same : Der Pelagianismns. Berlin, 1854. (A brief, but admirable essay.) Hefele: Conciliengeschichte. Bd. ii: 1856 p. 91 tf. W. Cunningham : Historical Theology. Edinburgh, 1863, vol. i. pp. 321-358. Fii. WOrtek (R. C.) : Der Pelagiauismus nach seiiiem Ursprung und seiner Lehre. Freiburg, 1866. Nouekisson: La philoiophie de S. Augustin. Par. 1866, 2 vols. (vol. i. .452 ff.; ii. 852 ff.). Comp. also the literature in § 178, and the relevant chapters in the Doctrine-Histories of Munsohee, Baumgaeten-OrusiuSj Hagenbach, ISTeandee, Baue, Beck, Shedd.
§ 146. C/iaracter of the Pelagian Controversy.
While the Oriental Church was exhaustina; her enero-jes in llie Christoh)gical controversies, and, with the help of the West, was developing the ecumenical doctrine of the person of Christ, the Latin church was occupied with the great antiiropological and soteriological questions of sin and grace, and was biinging to light great treasures of truth, without either help from the Eastern church or influence upon her. The third ecumenical council, it is true, condemned Pelagianism, hut without careiul investigation, and merely on account of its casual connection with Nestorianism. The Greek historians, Soerates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius, although tliej treat of that period, take not the sliglitest notice of the Pelagian controversies. In this fact we see the predominantly practical character of the West, in contradistinction to the contemplative and speculative East. Tet the Christological and anthropologico-soteriological controversies are vitally connected, since Christ became man for the redemption of man. The person and the work of the Redeemer presuppose on the one hand man's capability of redemption, and on the other hia need of redemption. Manich^eism denies the former, Pelagianism the latter. In opposition to these two fundamental anthropoh)gical heresies, the church was called to develope the whole t;uth.
Before Augustine the anthropology of the church was exceedingly crude and indefinite. There was a general agree-
786 -mTED PEuio-» A..P. 311-590.
nient as to the apostasy and tlie moral accountability of man, the terrible curse of sin, and the necessity of redeeming grace ; but not as to the extent of native corruption, and the relation of Lunian fretdom to divine grace in the vrork of regeneration and conversion. The Greek, and particularly the Alexandrian fathers, in opposition to the dualism and fatalism of the Gnostic systems, which made evil a necessity of nature, laid great stress upon human freedom, and upon the indispensable cooperation of this freedom with divine grace ; Avhile the Latin fathers, especially Tertullian and Cyprian, Hilary and Ambrose, guided rather by their practical experience than by speculative principles, emphasized the hereditary sin and hereditary guilt of man, and the sovereignty of God's grace, without, however, denying freedom and individual accountability.' The Greek church adhered to her undeveloped synergism^ which coordinates the human will and divine grace as factors in the work of conversion ; the Latin cliurch, under the influence of Augustine, advanced to the system of a divine •monergism^ which gives God all the glory, and makes freedom itself a result of grace ; while Pclagianism, on tlie contrary, represented the principle of a human monergism^ which ascribes the chief merit of conversion to man, and reduces grace to a mere external auxiliary. After Augustine's death, however, the intermediate system of Serni-Pelagianistn^ akin to the Greek synergism, became prevalent in the West.
Pclagius and Augustine, in whom these opposite forms of monergism were embodied, are representative men, evf:n more strictly than Ai'ius and Athanasius before them, or Nestorins and Cyril after them. The one, a Briton, more than once convulsed the world by his errors; the other, an African, more than once by his truths. They represented principles and
' On the anthropology of tlic ante-Nicene and Nicene fathers, comp. the relevant Beetioiis in the larger works on Doctrine History, and Witrgcrs, 1. c. vol. i. p. 407 ff.
' From civ and tpyov. There are, it may be remarked, different forms of syu crgism. The synergism of Melanchthon subordinates the human activity to the divine, and assigns to grace the ir. tiative in the work of conversion.
' From ix6i'o> and ii-vov.