being infected with Manichaean errors, such as the admitting a radical corruption of human nature, prohibiting matrimony, and, under the specious name of grace, teaching fatalistic doctrines.

Julian having in vain appealed, in behalf of himself and his companions in exile, from the decree of Zosimus to the decision of a General Council, went into Cilicia, to Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia, where he was condemned by a Provincial Council. After the death of Honorius, the Pelagians ventured to return to Italy, for the purpose of having their cause examined by Pope Celestine. Baffled in this attempt, they journeyed to Constantinople, but were again compelled by the patriarch Atticus to withdraw from that city. But Nestorius, the successor to Atticus, who had been a disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and was, therefore, more or less infected with Pelagian errors,1 received them more favorably. Theodosius II., having received letters from the Pope and a memorial from Marius Mercator, the friend of St. Augustine, protesting against the presence of the Pelagians at Constantinople, issued (A. D. 429) an imperial edict, obliging them all to withdraw from the city. Pelagianism was completely defeated in the East by the action of the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus (A. D. 431), which confirmed the Papal decrees condemning it.2

2

Pelagius was lost sight of after the year 418, and Caelestius was heard of no more after the year 425, when he appealed to Pope Celestine for another hearing.

Pelagianism did not, like Arianism, become immediately popular. It was a controversy which belonged essentially to

1 This affinity was soon found out. Conf. Joannis Cassiani, libb. VII., de incarnatione Christi adv. Nestor., especially lib. V., c. 1. Haeresin illam Pelagianae haereseos discipulam atque imitatricem, and c. 2, turning to Nestorius: Ergo vides Pelagianum te virus vomere, Pelagiano te spiritu sibilare. Just so Prosperi epitaph. Nestorian. et Pelagian. haeresis:

2 The acts of the

T. IV., p. 567 sq.

Nestoriana lues successi Pelagianae,

Quae tamen est utero progenerata meo.
Infelix miserae genitrix et filia natae,
Prodivi ex ipso germine, quod peperi, etc.

Council of Ephesus, in Harduin, T. I., p. 1271 sq.; Mansi,
Hefele, Hist. of Councils, Vol. II., p. 193 sq.

men of learning and trained intellects, and Julian deceived himself when he said, "I am not fighting the Church, but private opinion."

§ 117. The Semi-Pelagians-Predestination.

Joan. Cassiani collat. Patr. (opp. ed. Gazaeus, Atrebati, 1628, in Migne's ser. lat., T. 49–50); thereto Tillemont, T. XIV., p. 157–188. Fausti Rej. opp. (Galland. bibl. T. X., bibl. max. PP. T. VIII.) Prosperi Aquitani epp., Paris, 1711; Bassani, 1782, 2 T., 4to. Fulgentii opp., Paris, 1634. Praedestinatus seu praedestinator. haer. et libri S. Augustino temere adscripti confutatio. Max. bibl. PP. T. XXVII. Wiggers, Hist of Semi-Pelagianism, Hambg. 1835.

St. Augustine, while more fully drawing out his doctrine on supernatural grace, said in a letter, addressed to Sixtus, a Roman priest: "Sin must necessarily, of its very nature, work the ruin of all mankind; but God has, nevertheless, in the abundance of His mercy, chosen some out of this multitude destined to destruction-a few elect-on whom He has bestowed His grace, and granted the gift of perseverance. These are called, and are in fact, the children of God; and if they for a time stray from the way of righteousness, they will, by a law of necessity, again return to it, and die in grace (praedestinati). They are chosen, not indeed because God foresees that they will, by the unconstrained act of their free-will, correspond with the action of grace-not because they have, of themselves, any merit--but because God has, of His own gracious pleasure (пpódeσ15 zať' èzλorýv, praedestinatio ad vitam), seen fit to set them apart, and predestine them to eternal life. Again: there are others, abandoned of God, whom He visits with His justice. These are necessarily lost, not because they could not work out their salvation if they would, but because they place their happiness and joy in evil-doing. It is only left to man to adore the inscrutable designs of God (arcanum mysterium), whether in the gracious exercise of His mercy toward the former, or in the visitations of His justice upon the latter."1

1Augustin. de corrept., n. 13: Quicunque ergo ab illa originali damnatione ista divinae gratiae largitate discreti sunt, non est dubium, quod et procuratur eis audiendum Evangelium; et quum audiunt, credunt, et in fide, quae per dilectionem operatur, usque in finem perseverant; et si quando exorbitant, cor

St. Augustine goes on to speak of a second predestination (praedestinatio ad poenam), and to point out the specific difference between the one and the other, and the attitude of God toward those included under each class. He says that in the case of the latter, God does not act as a Father (auctor), but as a Just Avenger (justus ultor), and to express, as it were, the line of conduct which God pursues with regard to these, he employs, instead of Predestination (praedestinatio), Foreknowledge of God (praescientia Dei).

In his later writings against the Pelagians, he used startling words and expressions relative to the necessity man lies under of committing sin, and of the constraining power of grace (gratia irresistibilis), which can not very well be harmonized with the teachings and tradition of the Church. These are, however, considerably modified when viewed in the light of many passages of his writings, and interpreted in connection with the special doctrines of Pelagius, which they were intended to oppose and confute. But, even after all this has been done, and taken at their best, they can not be admitted as adequately and precisely expressing the teaching of the Universal Church on this point.

As early as A. D. 427, many persons, but particularly the monks of the monastery of Adrumetum, in Northern Africa, professed to discover in the writings of St. Augustine doctrines subversive of free-will. St. Augustine at once set to work to place himself in a proper light,' and for this purpose

repti emendantur, et quidam eorum, etsi ab hominibus non corripiantur, in viam, quam reliquerant, redeunt; et nonnulli accepta gratia in qualibet aetate periculis hujus vitae mortis celeritate subtrahunter. Haec enim omnia operatur in eis, qui vasa misericordiae operatus est eos, qui et elegit eos in filio suo ante constitutionem mundi per electionem gratiae. n. 23: Quicunque ergo in Dei providentissima dispositione praesciti, praedestinati, vocati, justificati, glorificati sunt, non dico etiam nondum renati, sed etiam nondum nati jam filii Dei sunt, et omnino perire non possunt, etc. (opp. in 4to, T. XIV., pp. 930 and 938).

1Augustin. de gratia et libero arbitrio and de correptione et gratia. Conf. retract. II. 66, 67; opp. T. I. 214-216. St. Augustine, amidst his various disquisitions, objects to himself: Liberum ergo arbitrium evacuamus per gratiam? And he answers: Absit, sed magis liberum arbitrium statuimus! Moreover, he makes this positive declaration: Qui fecit te sine te, non te justificat sine te.Fecit nescientem, justificat volentem (sermo XV. de verbo Apost., c. 11, nro. 13).

wrote two works, in which he emphatically declared that man is a free agent, who, if he will be justified, must coöperate with divine grace.

Shortly after, Prosper and Hilary, two zealous laymen from Gaul, informed St. Augustine that many monks of Southern Gaul, and particularly at Marseilles, under the lead of Cassian, an Eastern monk of Scythian extraction, and abbot of the monastery of St. Victor, in the above-named city, had taken exception to his doctrine on grace, as explained above; that these admitted indeed that the natural powers of man had been weakened by original sin, but also held that an act of the will should, by freely embracing the living faith, precede grace; that man should take the initiative in the work of his own justification and salvation, and that, having done so, God would come to his aid, and enable him to perform good works. (Ex nobis esse fidei coeptum et ex Deo esse fidei supplementum.) They adduced, as examples of this economy of grace, the case of Zachaeus and the penitent thief. They also asserted that the final perseverance necessary to secure salvation is not to be attributed to divine grace, but to free-will and to individual merit; that the gift of final perseverance is not a special grace of God, but follows as a consequence from the grace of justification, with this limitation, however, that whereas a Christian may obtain it by prayer, so also he may lose it by presumption. They maintained, finally, that God, in foreordaining some unto election, did so because of His foreknowledge of their merits (praevisis meritis).

They were called Massilians, from the name of the city in which they were most numerous, and Semi-Pelagians,1 because But St. Augustine most peremptorily insists on man's free will, in his works contra Manichaeos!

1St. Augustine, in his work de Praedestinatione Sanctor., n. 38, contrasting the two systems of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, shows their points of difference in the following exposition: Ipsi (Pelagiani) enim putant acceptis praeceptis jam per nos ipsos fieri liberae voluntatis arbitrio sanctos et immaculatos, in conspectu ejus in caritate: quod futurum Deus quoniam praescivit, inquiunt, ideo nos ante mundi constitutionem elegit et praedestinavit in Christo. Nos autem dicimus, inquiunt (Semipelagiani), nostram Deum non praescisse nisi fidem, qua credere incipimus, et ideo nos elegisse ante mundi constitutionem, ac praedestinasse, ut etiam sancti et immaculati gratia atque opere ejus essemus (opp. T. XIV., pp. 1011, 1012.

their system was a compromise between the extreme views of Augustine on predestination and the extravagant claims asserted for free-will by Pelagius.

Their error evidently grew out of an attempt to avoid these two extremes, and was defended principally by John Cassian, the abbot above named, who had been a disciple of St. John Chrysostom.

Cassian, in his book of Conferences, twenty-four in number, repeats the discourses which he had given to the Eastern anchorites; and in his thirteenth1 Conference teaches, that a good will is not always to be ascribed to the effects of grace, but is frequently the gift of nature. Faustus, Bishop of Riez; Gennadius of Marseilles (de fide), and many monks, and even the celebrated Vincent of Lerins († c. A. D. 450), are credited with the authorship of the Conferences.2

The news of this state of affairs reached St. Augustine just long enough before his death to enable him to write a full reply to the charges of the Semi-Pelagians. Genseric landed in Africa A. D. 429, and the next year the Bishop of Hippo died in the third month of the siege. He closed his useful and laborious life August 28, a. d. 430.

1

1 Cf, especially, Cassiani collat. XIII. de protect. Dei, also printed in Prosperi Aquitani opp. ed. Bassani, 1782, T. I., p. 136-165. We quote therefrom, c. 12: Cavendum est nobis, ne ita ad Dominum omnia sanctorum merita referamus, ut nihil nisi id quod malum atque perversum est humanae adscribamus naturae (aimed against St. Augustine). C. 11: Sin vero gratia Dei semper inspirari bonae voluntatis principia dixerimus, quid de Zachaei fide, quid de illius in cruce latronis pietate dicemus, qui desiderio suo vim quandam regnis coelestibus inferentes, specialia vocationis monita praevenerunt? Consummationem vero virtutum et exsecutionem mandatorum Dei, si nostro deputaverimus arbitrio, quomodo oramus: confirma Deus, quod operatus es in nobis? (against Pelagius).

2 Norisius, Natalis Alex. and others thought that they saw, at the conclusion of c. 37 of the commonitor. (see p. 509, note 5), traces of Semi-Pelagianism. Cf., against that, Bolland. acta SS. mens. Maji., T. V., p. 284 sq., and hist. littéraire de la France, T. II., p. 309.

3

* Augustin. de praedestinat. Sanctorum and de dono perseverantiae, and, immediately before his death, opus imperf. contr. Julian, libb. VI. In the work de dono persever., n. 35, predestination is thus defined: Praedestinatio sanctorum est praescientia et praeparatio beneficiorum Dei, quibus certissime liberentur, quicunque liberantur. Caeteri autem ubi, nisi in massa perditionis justo divino judicio relinquuntur? And in two other places St. Augustine says: