\ 122. CONTENDING THEORIES ON PREDESTINATION. 533
pcror Lothairc in 855, endorsed, in opposition to Hincmar and the four chapters of the Synod of Chiersy, the main positions of the Augustinian system as understood by Ilemigius, who pre sided.1 It affirms a two-fold predestination ("prcedestinationem dcctorum ad vitam et prcedestinationem impiorum ad mortem"), but with such qualifications and distinctions as seemed to be necessary to save the holiness of God and the moral responsi bility of man. The Synod of Langres in the province of Lyons, convened by Charles the Bald in 859, repeated the doctrinal canons of Valence, but omitted the censure of the four chapters of Chiersy, which Charles the Bald had subscribed, and thus prepared the way for a compromise.
We may briefly state the system of the Augustinian school in the following propositions :
(1) All men are sinners, and justly condemned in consequence of Adam's fall.
(2) Man in the natural state has no freedom of choice, but is a slave of sin. (This, however, was qualified by Remigius and the Synod of Valence in the direction of Semi-Pelagianism.)
(3) God out of free grace elected from eternity and unaltera bly a part of mankind to holiness and salvation, and is the author of all their good deeds ; while he leaves the rest in his inscrutable counsel to their merited damnation.
(4) God has unalterably predestinated the impenitent and persistent sinner to everlasting punishment, but not to sin, which is the guilt of man and condemned by God.
(5) Christ died only for the elect.
Gottschalk is also charged by his opponents with slighting the church and the sacraments, and confining the effect of bap tism and the cucharist to the elect. This would be consistent with his theory. He is said to have agreed with his friend Rat ram n us in rejecting the doctrine of transubstantiation. Augustin certainly did not teach transubstantiatiou, but lie checked
1 See the canons of this Synod in Mansi, XV. 1 sqq., and Hefele, IV. 193-195.
534 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
the logical tendency of Predestinarianism by the Catholic doc trine of baptismal regeneration, and of the visible historical church as the mediatrix of salvation.1
II. The doctrine of a CONDITIONAL and SINGLE PREDESTI NATION.
Rabanus and Hincmar, who agreed in theology as well as in unchristian conduct towards Gottschalk, claimed to be Augustinians, but were at heart Semi-Pelagians, and struck a middle course, retaining the Augustinian premises, but avoid ing the logical consequences. Foreknowledge (prcescientia) is a necessary attribute of the omniscient mind of God, and differs from foreordination or predestination (prcedestinatio), which is an attribute of his omnipotent will. The former may exist without the latter, but not the latter without the former. Fore knowledge is absolute, and embraces all things and all men, good and bad ; foreordination is conditioned! by foreknowledge, and refers only to what is good. God foreknew sin from eter nity, but did not predestinate it ; and so he foreknew the sin ners, but did not predestinate them to sin or death ; they are simply prcesciti, not prcedestinati. There is therefore no double predestination, but only one predestination which coincides with election to eternal life. The fall of Adam with its conse quences falls under the idea of divine permission. God sincerely intends to save all men without distinction, and Christ shed his blood for all ; if any are lost, they have to blame them selves.
Hincmar secured the confirmation of his views by the Synod
1 Dr. Bach, a learned Roman Catholic historian, states this point thus (/. c., I. 230): " Der historische Christus und die Kirche, der sichtbare Leib Christi ver~ fliichtigt sich schon bei Gottschalk zu einem leeren Abstraktum, sobald der concrete Boden der Erwdhlung nicht mehr die Kirche und ihre Sakramente, sondern ein lediglich fingirtes vorzeitliches Decret Gottes ist. Es taucht clann immer ein Surrogat der Phantasie, die s. g. unsichtbare Kirche auf, und diejenigen, welche die grossartige realistische Lehre des hi. Augustin von der Kirche und den Sakramenten zerstoren, nennen sich vorziiglieh August inianer, indem sie nicht wissen, dass die Lehre Augustins von der Predestination auf dem concreten Boden der Christologie und Anthropologie steht und ohne diese zur gefdhrlichsten Hdresie wird."