RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Selnecker Semipelagianism
1781-1800; H. L. J. Heppe, Geschichte des deutschen Protestantismus, vols, iii.-iv., 4 vols., Marburg, 1853-59; K. F. Goschel, Die Konkordienformel nach ihrer Geschichte, Leipsic, 1858; G. Frank, Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie, vol. i., ib. 1862; R. Calinich, Kampf wnd Untergang des Melanehthonismus in Kursachsen, ib. 1866; Julian, Hymnology, pp. 1038-41.
SELWYN, sel'win, GEORGE AUGUSTUS : Church of England; b. at Church Row, Hampstead, London, Apr. 5, 1809; d. at Lichfield (15 m. n.n.e. of Birmingham) Apr. 11, 1878. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge (B.A., 1831; M.A., 1834). While curate at Windsor in 1841, he was appointed first bishop of the Anglican Church in New Zealand. At his farewell sermon before leaving England there was present John Coleridge Patteson (q.v.), then a youth of fourteen, later bishop of Melanesia. Besides ministering to the spiritual wants of his colonial diocese, he extended his operations to the South Sea Islands, navigating his own vessel, the " Southern Cross," for this purpose. He brought youths from Melanesia to New Zealand, who, after receiving instruction, returned to enlighten their countrymen. In 1861 this branch of work was entrusted to Bishop Patteson, who had assisted him from 1855. In 1854, in England, he obtained permission to subdivide his diocese of New Zealand and establish a general synod of self-government. Accordingly, upon his return four bishops were consecrated and a legal constitution went into effect. In 1868 he became bishop of Lichfield. Bibliography: Mrs. E. A. Curteis, In Memoriam. A
Sketch of the Life of . G. A. Selwyn, Newcastle, 1878;
H. W. Tucker, Memoir of the Life and Episcopate of George
Augustus Selwyn . , 2 vols., London, 1879; G. H.
Curteis, Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand, and of Lichfield,
ib. 1889; E. A. Bulley, George Augustus Selwyn, First
Bishop of New Zealand, ib. 1909.
SELWYN, WILLIAM: Church of England; b. in London in 1806; d. at Cambridge Apr. 24, 1875. He was educated at St. Johns College, Cambridge (fellow, 1829; M.A., 1831; B.D., 1850; D.D., 1864), became deacon, 1829, and priest, 1831; rector of Branstone, 1831; canon of Ely, 1833; vicar of Melbourne, 1846; and Lady Margaret professor at Cambridge, 1855. Among his works are : Principles of Cathedral Reform (Cambridge, 1840); Horce Hebraicm (1848-60); Testimonia patrum in veteres interpretes (1859); and he edited Origines contra Celsum, books i.-iv (1877). Bibliography: A sketch of the life by J. S. Wood is in Sel-
wyn's Pastoral Colloquies on the South Downs, Cambridge,
1876, and another is in DNB, li. 233-234.
SEMI-ARIANS. See Abianism, I., 3, § 6.
SEMIPELAGIANISM: A synergistic view raised in opposition to Augustinian monergism. The origin and scope of the term in the history of dogma has not yet been clearly determined. From a passage in the Historia Pelagiana (Padua, Augustine 1673) of Enrico Noris it is regarded not Wholly as being created by the medieval Authorita- scholastic theologians, but more tive. probably Noris there traces back its origin to the post-Tridentine elaborators of the scholastic theology. Certainly it is not found in current usage as late as the sixteenth century. It appears isolated in the Lu-
theran Formula of Concord (Epitome, 581, 10) and by the year 1601 it is found in the records of the Congregatio de auxiliis in reference to an assailed thesis of Luis Molina (q.v.); and subsequently it became common. From this it appears probable that the term arose in the Molinist strife between the Dominican Thomists with the Jesuits. Its general acceptance may then have been occasioned by the public notice of the Molinist strife produced by the Jansenist controversy (see Jansen, Cornelius, Jansenism). Evidently the term was to represent that doctrine of sin and grace in which Prosper of Aquitaine (q.v.) opposed the Massilians, and was later represented by Faustus of Riez (q.v.), and in some points declared heretical by the Synod of Orange, 529. The Synod of Carthage (418) had adopted among the eight canons against the Pelagians (see Pelagitts, Pelagian Controversies) that (1) Adam became mortal only by the fall; (2) infants must be baptized on account of original sin; (3) divine grace involves, besides forgiveness, the power to avoid sin; (4) sinless perfection is impossible on earth. The entire Augustinian doctrine of grace was, however, not approved in this. Two years later Augustine, in formulating the Pelagian heresy, goes beyond the judgment of the council in stating that Pelagians assume that the grace by which men are justified was not given gratis but " upon merit." Not all who approved the condemnation of Pelagius were in accord throughout with Augustine. The question whether the " grace of creation, remission, and doctrine " were sufficient to attain salvation or whether a " grace of inspiration " was inwardly essential in addition and for every act — the real point at issue — could be answered, as shown in Augustine's own thinking before 396, in the anti- Pelagian sense even where the Augustinian mode of thinking was not wholly followed. Once Augustine experienced this in the objection of a certain Carthaginian Vitalis, to whom he replied (c. 420), emphasizing grace " prevenient to human will." Again, upon the agitation occasioned by his doctrine of grace before merit and of predestination, in apparent contradiction with the merit of good works, among the monks of Hadrumetum, he forwarded to them for further enlightenment the De gratia et libero arbitrio teaching that the work of grace does not make freedom and merit nugatory, but is their only basis; he followed this with the De correptione et gratia, containing the doctrines of freedom by grace only, of perseverance, and the fixed number of the elect.
The last-named work stirred lukewarm friends to hostility in the monastic circles about Marseilles and Lerins, southern Gaul, including such men as Johannes Cassianus and Hilary, later Objections bishop of Aries (qq.v.). The former in Southern held (Collationes patrum, xi.-xvii.) Gaul. that man possessed a rudiment of good will, which the grace of inspiration even if prevenient served to reenforce. Man must be saved by grace but conditioned on his consent, and " all who perish do so contrary to the will of God." Reports of the disaffection reached Augustine in two letters from Prosper and another from
Semipelagianism