RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Pelagius
to admit that infants should be baptized. After his condemnation he appealed to Rome, but soon went to Asia Minor and sought, apparently with success, to be ordained presbyter.
Henceforth, though the problems raised by these controversies continued to be mooted at Carthage, Pelagius and Celestius were both absent in Asia, and the former was meanwhile held in the highest esteem by Augustine. As the problems became more
and more widely discussed, Augustine,
2. Diffusion about the beginning of 412, wrote his
of Pelagi- two books De peccatorum meritis et re-
anism. missione and De baptismo parvulorum
followed by his letter to Marcellinus and his De spiritu et littera. The points in controversy, original sin and the necessity of infant baptism, as well as the possibility of being without sin through the aid of God, and the difference between the Old and the New Testaments, are here discussed without mentioning Celestius, and with only a courteous allusion to Pelagius. In 413, sermons preached on the baptism of infants by Augustine at Carthage stirred up a tumult and proved how widely diffused were Pelagian views; and in 414 Augustine was informed by a certain Hilarius that some Christians at Syracuse held the following views: (1) man may be without sin and may easily keep the commands of God if he will; (2) unbaptized children who die can not justly perish; "(3) a rich man retaining his riches can not enter into the kingdom of God unless he sells all that he has; (4) no oaths should be taken; and (5) the church without blemish is the visible one, which is able to be without sin. The first of these theses was derived directly from the Eclogae of Pelagius; and the fourth and fifth may also be derived from his writings. The second and third are attributed by Augustine to Celestius. Somewhat later Augustine received from Sicily the so-called Definitiones Cwlestii, while between 413 and 418 an anonymous Sicilian author wrote six Pelagian tractates which seem almost a commentary on the theses recorded by Hilarius. It is thus clear that Pelagianism was far more widely extended in 412-415 than the personal activity of Pelagius and Celestius could have spread, this being due partly to a natural tendency toward a Pelagian mode of thought, and partly to the bond between the culture of the period and the ancient quasi-Stoic popular philosophy. At the same time there is a marked avoidance of polemics by Augustine against either Pelagius or Celestius.
After 415, however, a more personal animus entered into Augustine's polemics. The exact cause of this change of attitude is unknown, but it is evident that when, in the spring of 415, Augustine
sent Orosius (q.v.) with certain prob- 3. Mission lems to Jerome in the East, he also of Orosius. sought to put Jerome on his guard
against Pelagius, and to arouse the Eastern Church to oppose the heresiarch. Not only was the attitude of the East, as in the ordination of Celestius, disturbing to Augustine, but he had also received through two of Pelagius' pupils, Timasius and Jacobus, the heresiarch 's book De natura, which had probably been written in 414. Though the doctrines of this book were no more heretical
than the views he had advanced in his Biblical commentary which had long been known to Augustine, nevertheless Augustine was deeply offended, probably because in this work Pelagius sought to quote earlier authorities in support of his doctrines. Augustine replied in his De natura et gratia, he still did not polemize against Pelagius by name. In July, 415, a few months after the arrival of Orosius, John of Jerusalem convened a synod of all or a part of his presbyters to consider the position of Pelagius. This body was apparently summoned at the instance of Orosius and because of his antipathy to Pelagius, who was publicly called to defend his position. The majority of those present clearly sided with Pelagius, but the latter subscribed to the formula of John and anathematized all who declared that man could attain to perfect virtue without divine aid. This he could honestly do, though under divine grace he did not include the inspiration requisite for each act, as in Augustine's view. Although, according to Orosius, John and Pelagius acquiesced in his requirements, Orosius was compelled to defend himself against charges of heresy, while the bishop's attitude toward Pelagius was so friendly that more than a year later Augustine in a letter to John felt himself obliged to refer to Pelagius as " our brother." It is thus evident that Orosius was unsuccessful in his attack on Pelagius at Jerusalem.
Equally futile was a second attack made by the Gallic bishops Heros of Aries and Lazarus of Aix. Both had been compelled, as partizans of the usurper Constantine, to resign their sees after his defeat in 4 1 1 . What called them to Palestine, 4. Synods of however, is unknown; but at all events Diospolis, they presented to Eulogius, bishop of Carthage, Ca^sarea, a brief against Pelagius. In and Mileve. Dec, 415, accordingly, a synod of fourteen bishops was convened at Diospolis, the ancient Lydda. The accusers were unable to be present, one of them being ill. The majority of the allegations against him Pelagius was able to refute by simple interpretation; the chief accusation, that he thought that man could be without sin if he would, he defended, as at Jerusalem, by making this power dependent on the assistance of God. The writ of accusation approximated the real points of the Pelagian controversy only in the theses taken from the writings of Celestius; in reply Pelagius pointed out that the theses, in so far as they were not already explained, were set forth by another, and he also condemned them. In consequence, the synod confirmed the orthodoxy of Pelagius. The East had at last answered the challenge which the Carthaginian Pelagians had made in 413. In 416 Orosius brought the news with a letter of Heros and Lazarus to Africa. Recognizing, however, that they must enforce their views by some episcopal authority, the Africans, even before seeing the acts of the Synod of Diospolis, convened two synods in the autumn of 416: the first at Carthage, with the bishops of the Carthaginian province; and the second at Mileve, with the Numidian bishops, including Augustine and Alypius. Neither of these synods pronounced a direct anathema on Pelagius or
Pelagius