Prosper and Hilary, after the death of St. Augustine, continued the struggle against the Semi-Pelagians. They appealed to Rome (A. D. 431), and obtained from Pope Celestine a document addressed to all the bishops of Gaul, warning them to beware of the innovators, and to cease the agitation of curious questions (quaestiones indisciplinatae).1 Prosper was not wholly satisfied with this result, and continued the controversy himself with great skill and ability." The work of some unknown author, bearing the title, "On the Calling of the Gentiles," frequently attributed to Pope Leo the Great when still a deacon, pursues the same line of argument, and considerably modifies some of the more harsh expressions of St. Augustine. Still later, Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe, in Africa, confuted Semi-Pelagianism during his exile in Sardinia, and again when he returned to his diocese.

These errors were condemned at the Council of Arausio (Orange), A. D. 529, at the instance of Caesarius, Archbishop of Arles; and again, A. D. 530, at the Council of Valentia (Valence), in the province of Vienne. The four short canons. passed by the first of these councils, and confirmed by the second, asserted:

1. That by the sin of Adam free-will has been so perverted and weakened, that none have since then been able to love God, or believe in Him, or to do good actions for His sake, unless divine grace has prevented them.

2. After grace has been received by baptism, all baptized persons are able, by the divine assistance and coöperation, to do all things that belong to the soul's salvation, if they are willing to work with faith.

Inter gratiam et praedestinationem hoc tantum interest, quod praedestinatio est gratiae praeparatio, gratia vera ipsa donatio. And soon thereafter: Praedestinatio Dei gratiae est praeparatio, gratia vero ipsius praedestinationis effectus.

1 Cf. Mansi, T. I., p. 454 sq.

2 Cf., especially, Prosperi lib. de gratia Dei et libero arbitrio contra collationem XIII. Cassiani (opp. ed. Bassani, T. I., p. 168-198). This edition of the works of Prosper contains, T. II., p. 152-278, varia scripta et monumenta, quorum lectio operibus S. Prosperi ac historiae Semipelagianae lucem affert.

De vocatione gentium (opp. Prosperi ed Bass., T. I., p. 457-495; opp. Leonis M., ed. Ballerinor., and in Migne's ser. lat., T. 54-56.

3. We not only do not believe that some persons have been predestined to evil by divine power, but we pronounce anathema against all who incline to hold such an opinion.

4. We also profess and believe that in every good work it is not we who begin, and who are afterward assisted by the mercy of God; but God Himself first inspires faith and love, without any previous good works on our part, so that we faithfully demand the Sacrament of baptism, and after baptism are able, with His assistance, to accomplish what is pleasing to Him. Whence it is most clearly to be believed that the marvelous faith of the thief whom our Lord summoned to Paradise; of the centurion Cornelius, to whom an angel was sent, and of Zachaeus, who was found worthy to entertain our Lord, was not natural, but the gift of God.

2

These canons were ratified by Pope Boniface II. A. D. 530.1 The doctrine of the Predestinarians was directly opposed to the errors of Pelagius. It was first clearly drawn out by the author of "Praedestinatus," and still further developed by Lucidus, a priest of Gaul. The Predestinarians held that God from eternity predestined the righteous to everlasting life, and the wicked to everlasting death (ad interitum). Lucidus denied free-will, and the coöperation of man with Divine grace in the work of justification and sanctification, and affirmed that these were exclusively the effects of Divine grace.3 The view which Lucidus took of man seems to be analogous to the view which the monophysite Eutyches took of Christ, in pretty much the same way as the doctrine of Pelagius, as explained above, harmonizes with that of Nestorius. The system

1Cf. Harduin, T. II., p. 1097 sq. Mansi, T. VIII., p. 712 sq. Hefele, Hist. of Councils, Vol. II., p. 704 sq.

2 Besides the protestations of St. Augustine, already quoted (p. 585, note 1), against this extreme view, we would also draw attention to the fact that this Doctor of the Church, in his disquisitions bearing on this subject, repeatedly emphasizes the words of Scripture: Christus pro omnibus mortuus est (2 Cor. v. 14); nolo mortem impii, sed ut convertatur impius (Ezech. xxxiii. 11; 2 Pet. iii. 9); Deus vult, omnes homines salvos fieri (1 Tim. ii. 4). Conf. Baltzer, St. Augustine's Doctrine on Predest. and Reprob., Vienna, 1871.

3 Fausti Rejens. ep. ad Lucid. and Lucidi errorem emendantis, libellus ad episc., in Mansi, T. VII., p. 1108 sq. Hefele, 1. c., p. 577 sq., and Fuchs, Library of Councils, Vol. IV., p. 595 sq.

of the Predestinarians-the very contrary of Pelagianism-was, after it had been not quite successfully refuted by Faustus, Bishop of Riez, condemned by the Synods of Arles and Lyons, held respectively A. D. 475 and 480.

It is difficult to say whether the Predestinarians were ever so numerous or important as to be properly called a sect.

OBSERVATION.-The Church has been content with the clear and express declarations of Pope Celestine on the nature of grace, and has allowed perfect freedom to all with regard to the manner of accounting for predestination and the propagation of original sin; and she has by no means committed herself to the opinions of St. Augustine on this subject; nor did St. Augustine himself claim any such authority for his view, but, on the contrary, positively refused to have any such weight attached to his name.1

HERESIES RELATIVE TO THE DOGMA OF THE INCARNATION.

§ 118. Summary of the New Controversies.

While the Western theologians went on discussing still further the question of Christian Anthropology, those of the East, faithful to their traditionary speculative habits of thought, pursued with ardor the controversies arising out of the nature and attributes of Christ. His Divine nature and His perfect human nature having already been defined-the former against the Arians, and the latter against the Docetae-the next question that arose concerned the active relations that existed between the divine and human elements in Christ, and their practical adjustment and harmony.

1 Although Pope Celestine, in his letters to the Gallic bishops, says, on the one hand: Augustinum sanctae recordationis virum pro vita sua atque meritis in nostra communione semper habuimus, nec unquam hunc sinistrae suspicionis saltem rumor adspersit, quem tantae sententiae olim fuisse meminimus, ut inter magistros optimos etiam ante a meis decessoribus haberetur, he nevertheless declares, still further on: Profundiores vero difficilioresque partes incurrentium quaestionum, quas latius pertractarunt, qui haereticis restiterunt, sicut non audemus contemnere, ita non necesse habemus adstruere: quia ad confitendum gratiam Dei, cujus operi ac dignationi nihil penitus substrahendum est, satis sufficere credimus, quidquid secundum praedictas regulas apostolicae sedis nos scripta docuerunt, etc. (Mansi, T. IV., p. 455, n. 462.) Indeed, St. Augustine himself declared: Neminem velim sic amplecti omnia mea, ut me sequatur, nisi in iis, in quibus me non errasse perspexerit (de dono perseverant, c. 21).

Origen was the first to start the question. Still later on, the Catholic bishops, in refuting the Arian assertion, that the Logos was united only to the body of Jesus, declared that the Word must also be united to the human soul. Apollinaris the Younger revived the discussion. He maintained that Christ had not assumed a rational soul; but his adversaries replied that every portion of man had been freed from the bondage of sin, and that Christ, in order to accomplish this, was obliged to take upon Himself a complete and perfect human nature; otherwise, the most noble portion of man, his rational soul, would not have been redeemed.

The Alexandrians, as has already been said, when drawing out this dogma, insisted particularly on the intimate union of the divine and human natures in Christ; whereas, the Antiochians, on the contrary-as, for example, Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia-were scrupulously careful to keep the two natures distinct, and specially avoided transferring the attributes of the one to the other. These admitted that there was a moral, but not an organic, union of the two natures. Each party appealed to the words of Isaias liii. 8, "generationem ejus quis enarrabit?" in proof of its orthodoxy, and to show that the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery.

The controversies which followed, and which were sustained on both sides with energy and tenacity, were not, as has often been asserted, undertaken out of pure love of a quarrel, or from the desire to dispute; but because, in its further development, were involved consequences of vital importance to religion. For on the solution of the question as to how the two natures coëxisted and worked together in the one Person of Christ, essentially depends the condition of our Redemption, and the measure in which Christ became a pattern for redeemed mankind. For whether we adopt the theory of Eutyches, and assert that in Christ the Humanity was entirely absorbed in the Divinity, or hold, with Nestorius, that the Divine nature was not organically united, but strictly and absolutely distinct and separate from the Human, in either case the work of Redemption, in default of that divine and human power necessary for this end, is, in any true and perfect sense utterly destroyed.

The Church, having carefully considered the arguments on which both these extreme opinions were based, defined, against Eutyches, that there existed a dual Nature in Christ; and, against Nestorius, that He possessed but one Person, and that there was a "communicatio idiomatum seu proprietatum."

§ 119. Heresy of Nestorius-Ecumenical Council of Ephesus.

The writings of Nestorius, in Garnier, opp. Marii Mercatoris II. 5; his letters in S. Cyrilli Alex. opp. ed. Aubert, Paris, 1638, VII. T., fol.; thereto Tillemont, T. XIV., p. 267–275. Theodoreti reprehensio XII. anathematismatum Cyrilli (opp. ed. Schulze, T. V.) Tillemont, T. XV., p. 207-340. Liberati (Archdeacon of Carthage, about A. D. 553), breviarium causae Nestorianorum et Eutychianorum, ed. Garnier, Paris, 1675. Leontius, Byzant. contr. Nestorium et Eutychen ( Canisii thesaur. monument., ed. Basnage, T. I., in Migne's ser. gr., T. 86, Pt. I. and II.) Socrat. h. e. VII. 29 sq. Euagr. I. 7 sq. Documents in Mansi, T. IV., V., VII.; in Harduin, T. I., p. 1271 sq. †Garnier, de haeresi et libris Nestorii, in his ed. opp. Marii Mercator., T. II. †Doucin, histoire du Nestorianisme, Paris, 1689. *Hefele, Hist. of Councils, Vol. II., p. 134-271. Walch, Hist. of Heretics, Pt. V., p. 289-936. †Gengler, The Condemnation of Nestorius (Tübg. Quart. 1835, p. 213–299). Katerkamp, Ch. H., Vol. III., p. 71-159. Rohrbacher, Ch. H., Germ. ed., Vol. VIII.

Nestorius, who was first a priest at Antioch, and in the year 428 became Patriarch of Constantinople, had been educated in the School of Antioch, and had had for his master Theodore of Mopsuestia. Here he formed the acquaintance of John, afterward Patriarch of Antioch, and of Theodoret of Cyrus, who was considerably younger than himself. He was clever and brilliant, gifted with a talent for eloquence, and possessed a stock of varied learning, but was superficial withal. He was, moreover, elated with spiritual pride, and frequently carried away with imprudent zeal. His supercilious temper and arrogant disposition became apparent on the occasion of his inauguration,' when he presumptuously addressed the emperor Theodosius in the following words: "O Emperor, drive

1 Vincent. Lerin. commonitor., c. 21, says on the subject: Propter quam personae unitatem indifferenter ei atque promiscue, et quae Dei sunt propric tribuuntur homini, et quae carnis propria tribuuntur Deo.

2 Cf. Socrat. hist. eccl. VII. 29.