and with many tears desired baptism, which, after some delay, was granted, the chief deaconess of Antioch, Romana, acting as sponsor for her. She finally left Antioch for a cell on the Mount of Olives, where she lived as a monk in male attire, and died some three years afterwards from excessive austerities. Jacobus the deacon, recounting a visit he paid to her there, gives a very interesting description of an anchorite's cell, such as can still be seen in many places in Ireland. She was living as an enclosed anchorite, in a cell with a window as the only communication with the external world. Her whole history is full of interesting touches, describing the ancient ritual of baptism and other ecclesiastical usages.
[G.T.S.]
Pelagianism and Pelagius (2). The details of the early career of Pelagius, whose name is identified with the prominent subject of theological controversy of Latin Christendom in the 5th cent., are very imperfectly known from contemporary history. He is said by Augustine, Prosper, Gennadius, Orosius, and Mercator to have been a Briton. Jerome's words ("habet progeniem Scoticae gentis de Britannorum vicinia," Pref. lib. 3 in Hieron.) may imply that he was an Irishman, the Scoti being then settled in Ireland. His name undoubtedly looks like a Grecized version of some earlier name; but the tradition that the original name of the heresiarch was Morgan (Marigena, Πελάγιος and that he came from Bangor in N. Wales, rests on late and untrustworthy authority. His birth probably occurred c. 370. Both Orosius and pope Zosimus speak of him as a layman. He came to Rome very early in the 5th cent. If Mercator's statement is accepted, that he imbibed his opinions from Rufinus the Syrian in the episcopate of Anastasius, we must fix his arrival in Rome not later than 401. His personal character at this period is spoken of with the utmost respect by his contemporaries. His great opponent St. Augustine describes him as being generally held to be a good and holy man, and of no mean proficiency as a Christian (de Pecc. Mer. iii. 1). Paulinus, bp. of Nola, who was much attached to him, esteemed him a special servant of God. Pelagius was actuated at Rome by a strong moral purpose, enforcing the necessity of a strict Christian morality as against a laxity of life content with external religious observances. To this period must be assigned his earliest 3 works: the first, in 3 books, on the Trinity; the second a collection of passages from Scripture, all bearing on Christian practice, called by Gennadius Eulogiarum Liber, by Augustine and Orosius Testimoniorum Liber; the third an exposition of the Epp. of St. Paul.
At Rome Pelagius became acquainted with Coelestius, whose name was so intimately associated with his in the subsequent controversy. Coelestius, originally an advocate, was led by Pelagius to a strict religious life, and very soon became an ardent disciple and a propagandist of his master's views. Despite the imputations of later opponents, it is evident that during his long residence at Rome Pelagius was animated by a sincere desire to be a moral reformer. The consciousness of the need of a pure and self-denying morality as an element in religion led him to lay exaggerated stress upon the native capacity of the free will of man, to form a wrong estimate of the actual moral condition of human nature, and to overlook or fatally undervalue the necessity of divine aid in effecting the restoration of man to righteousness. The first signs of his antagonism to the Augustinian theories, which were then developing and obtaining general acceptance in the Western church, are exhibited in an anecdote related by St. Augustine himself (de Dono Persev. c. 53). Pelagius was violently indignant on hearing a bishop quote with approbation the famous passage in the Confessions of St. Augustine, where he prays, "Give what Thou dost command, and command what Thou wilt." This language appeared to Pelagius to make man a mere puppet in the hands of his Creator. About the same time, apparently (a.d. 405), Pelagius wrote to Paulinus (Aug. de Grat. Christi, 38). The letter is not extant, but St. Augustine, who had read it, declared that it dwelt almost entirely upon the power and capacity of nature, only referring most cursorily to divine grace, and leaving it doubtful whether by grace Pelagius meant only the forgiveness of sins and the teaching and example of Christ, or that influence of the Spirit of God which corresponds to grace proper and is an inward inspiration. Pelagius remained at Rome till c. 409, when, as Alaric's invasion threatened the city, he withdrew with Coelestius to Sicily, and shortly after to Africa. He visited Hippo Regius, from which Augustine was then absent, and seems to have remained quiet at Hippo, but shortly afterwards repaired to Carthage, where he saw Augustine once or twice. Augustine was then deeply involved in the Donatist controversy, but learned that Pelagius and his friends had begun to advocate the opinion that infants were not baptized for the remission of sins, but for the sake of obtaining a higher sanctification through union with Christ. This novel doctrine appeared to Augustine to deny the teaching of the church, as it virtually involved the denial of any guilt of original sin which needed forgiveness. Augustine, pre-occupied with the Donatist errors and not ascribing much weight to the chief upholders of the new heresy, did not then write in defence of the doctrine assailed. Pelagius, after a short interval, sailed for Palestine, leaving Coelestius at Carthage. In Palestine he was introduced to Jerome in his monastery at Bethlehem. Coelestius at Carthage openly disseminated Pelagius's views, and on seeking ordination as a presbyter was accused of heresy before bp. Aurelius. A council was summoned at Carthage in 412. Augustine not being present, the accusation was conducted by Paulinus the deacon and biographer of Ambrose. The charges against Coelestius were that he taught that: (1) Adam was created liable to death, and would have died, whether he had sinned or not. (2) The sin of Adam hurt himself only, and not the human race. (3) Infants at their birth are in the same state as Adam before the fall. (4) Neither by the death nor the fall of Adam does the whole race of man die, nor by the resurrection of
