§ 149. POSITION OF THE KOMAJif OHUfiCH. 70H
Jerome, even dm-ing the last years of his life, in several epistles indulges in occasional sallies of anger against Pelagiusj whom he calls a second Catiline.
§ 149. Position of the Roman Church. Co7idemnation of Pelagianism.
The question took another turn when it was brought before the Roman see. Two l!^orth African synods, in 416, one at Carthage and one at Mileve (now Mela), again condetnned the Pelagian error, and communicated their sentence to pope Innocent.' A third and more confidential letter was addressed to him by five North African bishops, of whom Augustine was one." Pelagius also sent him a letter and a confession of faith, which, however, were not received in due time.
Innocent understood both the controversy and the interesta of the Roman see. He commended the Africans for having addressed themselves to the church of St. Peter, before which it was seemly that all the affairs of Christendom should be brought ; he expressed his full agreement with the condemnation of Pelagius, Coslestius, and their adherents ; but he refrained from giving judgment respecting the sjmod of Diospolis."
But soon afterwards (in 417) Innocent died, and was succeeded by Zosimus, who was apparently of Oriental extraction (417-418).' At this juncture, a letter from Pelagius to Innocent was received, in which he complained of having suffered wrong, and gave assurance of his orthodoxy. Coelestius appeared personally in Rome, and succeeded by his written and oral explanations in satisfying Zosimus. He, like Pelagius, demonstrated with great fulness his orthodoxy on points not at all in question, represented the actually controverted points as
' See the proceedings of the Concilium Carthaginense in Mansl, iv. 321 sqq., and of the Concilium Milevitanum, ibid. f. 326 sqq.
" Mansi, iv. 337 sqq.
' The answers of Innocent are found in Mansi, torn. iii. f. 1071 sqq.
* The notices of his life, as well as the Epistolae and Decreta Zosimi papse, vti collected in Mansi, iv. 345 sqq.
798 TimiD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
nnimportant questions of tlie schools, and professed lilmself ready, if in error, to be corrected by the judgment of the Roman bishop.
Zosiimis, who evidently had no independent theological opinion whatever, now issued (-117) to the North African bishops an encyclical letter accompanied by the documentary evidence, censuring them for not having investigated the matter more thoroughly, and for having aspired, in foolish, overcurious controversies, to know more than the Holy Scriptures. At the same time he bore emphatic testimony to the orthodoxy of Pelagius and Coelestius, and described their chief opponents, Heros and Lazarus, as worthless characters, whom he had visited witli excommunication and deposition. They in Rome, he says, could hardly refrain from tears, that such men, wdio BO often mentioned the gratia Dei and the adjutorium divinu^n^ should have been condemned as heretics. Finally he entreated the bishops to submit themselves to the authority of the Roman see.'
This temporary favor of the bishop of Rome towards the Pelagian heresy is a significant presage of the indulgence of later popes for Pelagianizing tendencies, and of the papal condemnation of Jansenism.
The Africans were too sure of their cause, to yield submission to so w'eak a judgment, which, moreover, was in manifest conflict with that of Innocent. In a council at Carthage, in 417 or 418, they j^rotested, respectfully but decidedly, against the decision of Zosimus, and gave him to understand that he was allowing himself to be greatly deceived by the indefinite explanations of Coelestius. In a general African council hehl at Carthage in 418, the bishops, over two hundred in number, defined their opposition to the Pelagian errors, in eight (or nine) Canons, whicli are entirely confoi-mable to the Augustinian view." They are in the following tenor :
' Sec the two epistles of Zosimus ad Africanos episcopos, in Mansi, iv. 3f)0 and 853.
• It is the 16th Carthaginian synod. Mansi gives the canons in full, torn, ill 810-823 (comp. iv. Z11). So also Wiggers, i. 214 ff, Hefele, ii. pp. 102-106, give* only ex tracts of them.