Semi-Pelagianism

“ The Semi-Pelagian Controversy, A.D. 427-529.―Bald Pelagianism was overthrown, but the excessive crudeness of the predestination theory, as set forth by Augustine, called forth new forms of opposition. The monks of the monastery of Adrumetum in North Africa, by severely carrying out the predestination theory to its last consequences, had fallen, some into sore distress of soul and despair, others into security and carelessness, while others again thought that to avoid such consequences, one must ascribe to human activity in the work of salvation a certain degree of meritoriousness. ”

“ Rationalism is simply the form in which Pelagianism becomes theoretically complete. The high opinion which the Pelagian holds of the natural will is transferred with equal right by the Rationalist to the natural reason. The one does without grace, as the other does without revelation. Pelagian divinity is rationalistic. ”

“ Pelagianism was the heresy of the monk Pelagius, who flourished in the fourth century. He contested the doctrine of original sin, as imputed to all mankind from the fall of Adam, and taught that the grace of God is accorded to us in proportion to our merits. ”

“ In Pelagianism, then, we see a disjointed and unconnected theory,—a creed which stands apart from practical life, and is not allowed to shape man’s conduct,—a system, in short, which falls to pieces for want of the coherence of the true “analogy of the faith” which worketh by love. ”

“ The Pelagians, ascribing all to man's will and nature, denied man to have any seed of sin conveyed to him from Adam. And the Semi-Pelagians, making grace as a gift following upon man's merit, or right improving of his nature, according to the known principle, Facienti quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam. ”

“ Such heresies are never antiquated, because they forever assume new forms. For instance, the insistence upon good works and "service" which is preached from many quarters, or the simple faith that any one who lives a good and useful life need have no "morbid" anxieties about salvation, is a form of Pelagianism. ”

“ While some do so far exalt the light of nature, or the faculty of the natural man, as capable of himself, by virtue of the inward will, faculty, light, and power, that pertains to his nature, to follow that which is good, and make real progress towards heaven: And of these are the Pelagians, and Semi-Pelagians of old ”

“ Before leaving college, and at the urgency of his guardian, he had carried through with dogged distaste a course in dogmatic theology. It was then that he fell into the way of writing theses from opposite sides of a subject, and when handing in a treatise upon "Historical Evidences of Christianity," or "The Pelagian Heresy," it was invariably accompanied by the remark: "I wish you'd look over that 'Lack of Historical Evidences,' or 'Defence of Pelagianism,' at the same time. You know, I always do the other side." ”

“ Pelagius did not deny that justification and adoptive sonship, considered in their ideal relation to the “kingdom of Heaven,” as distinguished from “eternal life,”258 are not identical in adults with the grace of creation, but he denied their gratuity by asserting that the free will is able to merit all these graces by its own power.259
Whatever may have been the variations of Pelagianism, it is patent from the writings of St. ”

“ Pelagianism, on the contrary, is man's declaration of independence. Harnack, Hist. Dogma, 5:200—“The essence of Pelagianism, the key to its whole mode of thought, lies in this proposition of Julian: ‘Homo libero arbitrio emancipatus a Deo’—man, created free, is in his whole being independent of God. He has no longer to do with God, but with himself alone. God reënters man's life only at the end, at the judgment,—a doctrine of the orphanage of humanity.” ”

“ We are taught that salvation is by education. But education is only a way of presenting truth. It still remains needful that the soul should accept the truth. Pelagianism ignores or denies the presence in every child of a congenital selfishness which hinders acceptance of the truth, and which, without the working of the divine Spirit, will absolutely counteract the influence of the truth. Augustine was taught his guilt and helplessness by transgression, while Pelagius remained ignorant of the evil of his own heart. ”

“ The Pelagians deny grace, and attribute all the merit of good works to liberty. The Fourierists, who teach that man’s nature and passions are good, are reversed Pelagians; they give all to grace, and nothing to liberty. ”

“ In others this good of their original creation is naked and unarmed. They shall be Judged and condemned because, though possessed of free will, by which they might come to the faith and merit the grace of God, they niake an ill use of their freedom; while Christians shall be rewarded because, by using their free will aright, they merit the grace of the Lord and keep His commandments ” (ibid chs. 33, 34) Pelagius allowed to grace everything but the initial determining inovement towards salvation. He ascribed to the unassisted human will power to accept and use the proffered salvation of Christ. ”

“ There the fact remains, that Pelagianism did appeal very strongly to the temperament of those who then dwelt in our land. And coupled with this is the fact, that, however orthodox the clergy and bishops might be, and however well versed in the great controversy in which in the previous century they had played their part, the subtleties of this new controversy, initiated as it was by one of their own or kindred race, springing up from their own nature and appealing to the nature of their people, were too much for them—as indeed they had been for Pope Zosimus. ”

“ It was understood to include those who allowed no other knowledge of religion except the natural, which man could shape out of his own strength, and consequently excluded all supernatural revelation. As to [Pg 13] the different forms of Naturalism, theologians say there are three; the first, which they call Pelagianism, and which considers human dispositions and notions as perfectly pure and clear by themselves, and the religious knowledge derived from them as sufficiently explicit. A grosser kind denies all particular revelation; and the grossest of all considers the world as God. ”

“ Pelagius might have said with Wordsworth, Prelude, 534—“I had approached, like other youths, the shield Of human nature from the golden side; And would have fought, even unto the death, to attest The quality of the metal which I saw.”
Schaff, on the Pelagian controversy, in Bib. Sac., 5:205-243—The controversy “resolves itself into the question whether redemption and sanctification are the work of man or of God. Pelagianism in its whole mode of thinking starts from man and seeks to work itself upward gradually, by means of an imaginary good-will, to holiness and communion with God. ”

“ Those controversies vexed and shook, but never undermined, the faith they strove to purify, and the miraculous presence, errorless precept, and loving promises of their Lord were alike undoubted, alike rejoiced in, by every nation that heard the word of Apostles. The Pelagian's assertion that immortality could be won by man's will, and the Arian's that Christ possessed no more than man's nature, never for an instant—or in any country—hindered the advance of the moral law and intellectual hope of Christianity. ”

“ And yet, look more closely at the historical ideas of Saint Simon,and you will find that we are not wrong in calling him a Utopian. The future is deducible from the past, the historical evolution of humanity is a process governed by law. But what is the impetus, the motive power that sets in motion the human species, that makes it pass from one phase of its evolution to another? Of what does this impetus consist? Where are we to seek it? It is here that Saint Simon comes back to the point of view of all the Utopians, to the point of view of human nature. ”

“ Those whom we more especially oppose in this head of argument, are the Pelagians, and others; who, though in some things they seem to recede from them, yet cannot support their cause without giving into their scheme, when treating on the subjects of free-will, nature and grace: these all allow that there is a change made in conversion or effectual calling ”

“ But there is no doubt that Pelagius repudiated the assertion of Coelestius, that “the divine grace and help is not granted to individual acts, but consists in free will, and in the giving of the law and instruction.” At the same time he affirmed that a man is able, if he likes, to live without sin and keep the commandments of God, inasmuch as God gives him this ability. The synod was satisfied with these statements, and pronounced Pelagius to be in agreement with Catholic teaching. ”

“ Pelagianism is a survival of paganism, in its majestic egoism and self-complacency. “Cicero, in his Natura Deorum, says that men thank the gods for external advantages, but no man ever thanks the gods for his virtues—that he is honest or pure or merciful. Pelagius was first roused to opposition by hearing a bishop in the public services of the church quote Augustine's prayer: ‘Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis’—‘Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.’ From this he was led to formulate the gospel according to St. ”

“ Pelagius's doctrines dealt with six chief points, as his opponents sometimes divided them: original sin, infant baptism, the effect of the fall of Adam, freewill in man, divine grace, and predestination; but the gist of them all is contained in the single point on which the ninth article of the English church condemns his followers as ‘talking vainly,’ viz. whether or not ‘the condition of man after the fall is such that he ... has no power to do good works without the grace of God.’ He annulled that grace, said Augustine, by representing it as the payment of what was strictly due. ”

“ It is my object to impress on all that well-known but too often forgotten truth, namely, that both religion and philosophy require calmness of judgment combined with energy of will, and that without such a union, there can be no real justice, no dignity of character, and no sound principles of human action. ”

“ With Pelagius, however, a fresh class of subjects was forced on men’s attention: in his peculiar system of doctrine he deals with what is subjective in man, and reviews the whole of his relation to God. His heresy turns mainly upon two points—the assumed incorruptness of human nature, and the denial of all supernatural influence upon the human will. ”

“ The Pelagian takes human nature in its present condition as his type. The advocates of the other two systems take an ideal human nature, which has become essentially {152} corrupted by the fall, as their type. Therefore, the Pelagian says that human nature, as it now is, has in itself the principle of perfectibility by the explication and development of its essence. ”

“ By science we mean accurate knowledge, which stands the test of the widest induction of facts. Now, it has been frequently remarked that Pelagius is scientifically defective in the very centre of his doctrine,—on the freedom of the will. His theory, especially in the hands of his vigorous followers, Cœlestius and Julianus, [7] ignored the influence of habit on human volition, and the development of habits from action, isolating human acts, making man’s power of choice (his liberum arbitrium) a mere natural faculty, of physical, not moral operation. ”

“ And if,—whereas the Semitic genius placed its highest spiritual life in the religious sentiment, and made that the basis of its poetry,—the Indo-European genius places its highest spiritual life in the imaginative reason, and makes that the basis of its poetry, we are none the better for wanting the perception to discern a natural law, which is, after all, like every natural law, irresistible; we are none the better for trying to make ourselves Semitic, when Nature has made us Indo-European, and to shift the basis of our poetry. ”

“ In every man there is a natural conscience; he has an ideal of life; he forms right resolves; he recognizes the claims of law; he accuses himself when he sins,—all these things Pelagius regards as indications of a certain holiness in all men, and misinterpretation of these facts gives rise to his system; he ought to have seen in them evidences of a divine influence opposing man's bent to evil and leading him to repentance. [pg 598] Grace, on the Pelagian theory, is simply the grace of creation—God's originally endowing man with his high powers of reason and will. ”

“ They assume that their good intention arises out of themselves, whereas it is a gift of God, and desire to prepare themselves for the infusion of grace. [463] “Pelagian notions are at the bottom of all this. No one acknowledges himself now to be a Pelagian, but many are so unconsciously, with their principle that free will must set to work to obtain grace.” [464]
Such is the perilous position he reaches under the influence of his distaste for works, viz. a violent antagonism to free will. Man is unable to do the least thing to satisfy this Holy God. ”

“ How few things are demonstrated? Proofs only convince the mind. Custom is the source of our strongest and most believed proofs. It bends the automaton, which persuades the mind without its thinking about the matter. Who has demonstrated that there will be a to-morrow, and that we shall die? And what is more believed? It is, then, custom which persuades us of it; it is [Pg 74] custom that makes so many men Christians; custom that makes them Turks, heathens, artisans, soldiers, etc. (Faith in baptism is more received among Christians than among Turks.) ”