2 122. CONTENDING THEORIES ON PREDESTINATION. 535
of Chiersy, held in presence of the Emperor, Charles the Bald, 853. It adopted four propositions:1
(1) God Almighty made man free from sin, endowed him with reason and the liberty of choice, and placed him in Para dise. Man, by the abuse of this liberty, sinned, and the whole race became a mass of perdition. Out of this maasa perditionis God elected those whom he by grace predestinated unto life eternal; others he left by a just judgment in the mass of perdition, foreknowing that they would perish, but not foreor daining them to perdition, though he foreordained eternal pun ishment for them.2 This is Augustinian, but weakened in the last clause.
(2) We lost the freedom of will through the fall of the first man, and regained it again through Christ. This chapter, how ever, is so vaguely worded that it may be understood in a Semi- Pelagian as well as in an Augustinian sense.3
(3) God Almighty would have all men without exception to be saved, although not all- are actually saved. Salvation is a free gift of grace; perdition is the desert of those who persist in sin.
(4) Jesus Christ died for all men past, present and future, though not all are redeemed by the mystery of his passion, owing to their unbelief.
The last two propositions are not Augustinian, but catholic, and are the connecting link between the catholic orthodoxy and the Semi-Pelagian heresy.
Hincmar defended these propositions against the objections of Remigius and the Synod of Valence, in two books on Predesti nation and Free Will (between 856 and 863). The first is lost,
1 Capitula IV. Carisiacensia, in Hinomnr, De Freed., c. 2 ; in Mansi, XIV. 920; Gieseler, II. 88; and PlefVle, IV. 187.
2 "perituros prcesnvit, sed non ut perirent prcedestinavit, pcenam autcm illis, quia Justus est, pnrdcstinavit ceternam"
3 " Libertatem arbifrii in primo homineperdidimua, quam per Christum Dominion nostrum rccepimus: et habemm Uberum arbitrium ad bonum, prceventum et adjutum gratia: et habemux Uberum arbitrium ad maJum, desertum gratia. Liberum autem habemus arbitrium, quid gratia libcratum, et gratia de corrupto sanatum."
536 FOURTH PEKIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
the second is preserved. It is very prolix and repetitious, and marks no real progress. He made several historical blunders, and quoted freely from the pseudo-Augustiniau Hypomnesticon, which he thought presented Augustin's later and better views.
The two parties came to a sort of agreement at the National Synod of France held at Toucy, near Toul, in October, 860, in presence of the Emperor, Charles the Bald, King Lothaire II., and Charles of Provence, and the bishops of fourteen ecclesiasti cal provinces.1 Hincmar was the leading man, and composed the synodical letter. He still maintained his four propositions, but cleared himself of the suspicion of Semi-Pel agiauism. The first part of the synodical letter, addressed to all the faithful, gives a summary of Christian doctrine, and asserts that nothing can happen in heaven and earth without the will or permission of God ; that he would have all men to be saved and none lost ; that he did not deprive man after the fall of free will, but heals and supports it by grace ; that Christ died on the cross for all men ; that in the end all the predestinated who are now scat tered in the massa perditionis, will be gathered into the fulness of the eternal church in heaven.
Here ended the controversy. It was a defeat of predestinarianism in its rigorous form and a substantial victory of Semi- Augustinianism, which is almost identical with Semi-Pelagianism, except that it gives greater prominence to divine grace.
Practically, even this difference disappeared. The mediaeval church needed the doctrine of free will and of universal call, as a basis for maintaining the moral responsibility, the guilt and merit of man, and as a support to the sacerdotal and sacramental mediation of salvation ; while the strict predestinarian system, which unalterably determines the eternal fate of every soul by a pre-temporal or ante-mundane decree, seemed in its logical consequences to neutralize the appeal to the conscience of the sinner, to cut off the powerful inducement of merit and reward,
* Mansi, XV. 563; Hefele, IV. 215 sqq.