2 122. CONTENDING THEORIES ON PREDESTINATION. 537
to limit the efficacy of the sacraments to the elect, and to weaken the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
But while churchly and sacerdotal Semi-Augustinianism or covert Semi-Pelagianism triumphed in France, where Hincmar had the last word in the controversy, it was not cecumenically sanctioned. Pope Nicolas, who was dissatisfied with Hiiicmar on hierarchical grounds, had some sympathy with Gottschalk, and is reported to have approved the Augustinian canons of the Synods of Valence and Langres in regard to a "two-fold predestination" and the limitation of the atonement.1
Thus the door was left open within the Catholic church itself for a revival of strict Augustinianism, and this took place on a grand scale in the sixteenth century.
NOTES.
The Gottschalk controversy was first made the subject of historical investigation and critical discussion in the seventeenth century, but was disturbed by the doctrinal antagonism between Jansenists (Jansen, Mauguin) and Jesuits (Sirinond, Cellot). The Calvinistic historians (Ussher, Hottinger) sided with Gottschalk and the Jansenists. The controversy has been more calmly and impartially considered by the Pro testant historians of the nineteenth century, but with a slight difference as to the limits and the result of the controversy; some representing it merely as a conflict between a stricter and a milder type of Augustin ianism (Neander, Kurtz), others as a conflict between Augustiuianism
1 The decree of the pope is lost; but the fact rests on the authority of the well-informed Priidcntius of Troyes in the Annaks Bertiniani ad ann. 859 (Pertz, Mon. Germ., I. 453 sq.): "Nicolas, pontifex Romanux, de gratia Dei ft libcro arbitrio, de veritate GEMINJE prcedestinatinnis ft sanguine Christ i, ut pro CREDENTTJUTS omnibiut fiisus sit, fiddlier confirmat ct catJiolice decernit." Ilincmar doubted such a decision, and charged Prudentius with partiality (Ep. 24 ad dressed to Egilo, Bishop of Sens). The Jesuits labored hard to set it aside against the Jansenists and Calvinists, but without pood reason. Wei/.siieker (p. 574), Hardwiek (p. lf)5), and Holler (in Herzog* V. 327) aceept the state ment of Prudentius, and Wei/slicker savs: " ITatle in Gallicn die Hqfthfologie des Konigs den Semipelagianismva (?) durchgebracht, so hat dnrh der Papst filr Auguxtin entschicden. . . . Die Kirchengeschichte darf ganz unbedenklich in ihre Platter diexe Entscheidung des romischen Stuhl-s geqen den Semipehgianismus des neunten Jahrhunderts aufnehmen, die, man seit Mauguin niemals hdtte bezweifeln Neander and Gieseler are silent on this point.
538 FOURTH PERIOD. A.D. 590-1049.
and a revived and triumphant Semi-Pelagianism (Baur, Weizsacker). The former view is more correct. Semi-Pelagianism was condemned by the Synod of Orange (Arausio), 529; again by the Synod of Valence in the same year, and by Pope Boniface II., 530, and has ever since figured in the Roman catalogue of heresies. The Catholic Church cannot sanc tion what she has once condemned.
Both parties in the contest of the ninth century (leaving the isolated Scotus Erigena out of view) appealed to Augustin as the highest patristic authority in the Latin church. Both agreed in the Augustinian anthro pology and soteriology, i. e. in the doctrine of a universal fall in Adam, and a partial redemption through Christ; both maintained that some men are saved by free grace, that others are lost by their own guilt; and both confined the possibility of salvation to the present life and to the limits of the visible church (which leads logically to the horrible and incredible conclusion that the overwhelming majority of the human race, including all unbaptized infants, are eternally lost). But the Au gustinian party went back to absolute predestination, as the ultima ratio of God's difference of dealing with the saved and the lost, or the elect and the reprobate; while the Semi-Augustinian party sought the differ ence rather in the merits or demerits of 'men, and maintained along-side with a conditional predestination the universal benevolence of God and the universal offer of saving grace (which, however, is merely assumed, and not at all apparent in this present life). The Augustinian scheme is more theological and logical, the Semi-Augustinian more churchly and practical. Absolute predestinarianism starts from the almighty power of God, but is checked by the moral sense and kept within the limits of infralapsarianism, which exempts the holy God from any agency in the fall of the race, and fastens the guilt of sin upon man. Relative predestinarianism emphasizes the responsibility and salvability of all men, but recognizes also their perfect dependence upon divine grace for actual salvation. The solution of the problem must be found in the central idea of the holy love of God, which is the key-note of all his attributes and works.
The practical difference between the catholic Semi-Augustinianism and the heterodox Semi-Pelagianism is, as already remarked, very small. They are twin-sisters; they virtually ignore predestination, and lay the main stress on the efficacy of the sacramental system of the historical church, as tho necessary agency for regeneration and salvation.
The Lutheran system, as developed in the Formula of Concord, is the evangelical counterpart of the Catholic Semi-Augustinianism. It re tains also its sacramental feature (baptismal regeneration and the eucharistic presence), but cuts the root of human merit by the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Calvinism is a revival of Augustinianism, but without its sacramental and sacerdotal checks.