§ 14:7. EXTEKN^AL HISTORY OF THE PELAGIAX CO^'TROVEKSY. 795
thage, and who ehortJy afterwards at the request of Aiignstina wrote the life of Amhrose, warned the bishop Aurelius agams* Coelestius, and at a council held by Aurelius at Carthage ic 4:12,' appeared as his accuser. Six or seven errors, he asserted he had found in the writings of Ca3lestius :
1. Adam was created mortal, and would have died, even if he had not sinned.
2. Adam's fall injured himself alone, not the human race.
3. Children come into the world in the same condition in which Adam was before the fall.
4. The human race neither dies in consequence of Adam's fall, nor rises again in consequence of Christ's resurrection,
5. Unbaptized children, as well as others, are saved.''
6. The law, as well as the gospel, leads to the kingdom of heaven.
7. Even before Christ there were sinless men.
The principal propositions were the second and third, which are intimately connected, and which afterwards became the especial subject of controversy.
Coelestius returned evasive answers. He declared the propositions^to be speculative questions of the schools, which did not concern the substance of the faith, and respecting which different opinions existed in the church. He refused to recant the errors charged upon him, and the synod excluded him from the communion of the church. He immediately went to Ephesus, and was there ordained presbjter.
Augustine had taken no part personally in these transactions. But as the Pelagian doctrines found many adherents even in Africa and in Sicily, he wrote several treatises in refu-
* According to Mansi and the common view. The brothers Ballerini and Hefele (ii. 91) decide in favor of the year 411. The incomplete Acta of the council are found in Mansi, torn. iv. fol. 289 sqq., and in the Commonitorium Marii Mercatoris ibidem, f. 293.
" Marius Mercator, it is true, does not cite this proposition among the others, f. 292, but lie brings it up subsequently, f. 296 : " In ipsa autem accusatione capitulorum, quae eidem Pelagio turn objecta sunt, etiam haec continentur, cum aliia execrandis, quae Coelestius ejus discipulus sentiebat, id est, infantes etiamsi non haptizeniur, habere vital n ester nam.''''
794 THIRD PKRIOD. A.D. 311-590.
ration of tlicm so early as 412 and 415, expressing himdelt however, with respect and forbearance.'
§ 148. The Pelagian Controversy in Palestine.
Meanwhile, in 414, the controversy broke out hi Palestine, where Pclagius was residing, and where he had aroused attention by a letter to the nun Demetrias. His opinions gained much wider currency there, especially among the Origenists for tiie Oriental church had not been at all affected by the Augustinian views, and accepted the two ideas of freedom and grace, without attempting to define their precise relation to each other. But just then there happened to be in Palestine two Western theologians, Jerome and Orosius ; and they instituted opposition to Pelagius.
Jerome, who lived a monk at Bethlehem, was at first decidedly favorable to the synergistic theory of the Greek fathers, but at the same time agreed with Ambrose and Augustine in the doctrine of the absolutely universal corruption of sin.* But from an enthusiastic admirer of Origen he had been changed to a bitter enemy. Tlie doctrine of Pelagius concerning free will and the moral ability of human nature he attributed to the influence of Origen and Rutinus ; and he took as a personal insult an attack of Pelagius on some of hig writings.' He therefore wrote against him, though from wounded pride and contempt he did not even mention his name ; first in a letter answering inquiries of a certain Ctesiphon at Rome (415) ;* then more at length in a dialogue of
' De peccatorum mentis et reraissione; De spiritu et litera; De naturaet gratia. De perfectione juslit iae lioniinis.
' Compare, respecting his relation to Pelagianisni, 0. Zockler: Hieronymnl (1865), p. 310 ff. and p. 420 ff.
' Comp. Jerome: Praefat. lihri i. in Jfreniiam (Opera, rd. Vallarsi, torn. iv. 834 i(\.), where he speaks very contemptuously of Pelagius: "Nuper indoctus calumniator erupit, qui co;nmcntarios meos in epistolam Paul! ad Ephcsios reprchcndendoa putat." Soon afterwards he designates Grunnius, i. c., Rufinus, as his prsccursnr, and thus connects him with the Origenistic heresies. Pclagius had also expressed him •elf unfavorably respecting his translation of the Old Testament frora tlie Ilebrew.
* Epist 133 ad Ctesiphont. adv. Pelag. (Opera, L 1025-1042).