and was succeeded by Sixtus III. Hefele, Conc. Gesch. ed. 2, pp. 164 ff.
Coelestius occupies a unique position among the Hibernian Scots, as he taught not the faith, but heresy. The general belief is that he was a native of Ireland, of noble birth, and, in early years, of singular piety. About A.D. 405 he is found attached to Pelagius at Rome, and the names of these two figure largely in the history of the church, till they are finally condemned in the Ephesine council, A.D. 431. Coelestius had for some time studied law, and then become a monk, when his speculations upon the conditions of grace and nature attracted attention, as he affirmed the leading points of what were afterwards known as the Pelagian heresy upon the fall of man and the need of supernatural assistance, in effect denying both. These errors he had partly learned, as he said, from a holy presbyter, Rufinus, of whom nothing else is known. From Rome, on the approach of the Goths, he passed to Sicily, and thence to Carthage; by a council at Carthage, under Aurelius the bishop, his teaching was condemned, A.D. 412, though St. Augustine of Hippo had not yet taken up the controversy against him. He soon after retired to Ephesus, where he obtained the priesthood which he had sought in vain at Carthage. On an appeal to pope Zosimus, A.D. 417, he presented his teaching in such a light as to procure acquittal before the pope, who, however, in the following year saw good reason to condemn him. At Carthage he always met with a determined opposition, and at Constantinople and Rome both the imperial and the ecclesiastical powers were finally arrayed against him. After the condemnation of the doctrines of Pelagius by the oecumenical council at Ephesus, Coelestius passed from sight. His chief opponents were St. Augustine and St. Jerome Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. i. cent. v. c. 23 seq.; Gennadius, de Script. Eccl. c. 44; Robertson, Ch. Hist. i. B. ii. c. 8; O'Conor, Rer. Hib. Scrip. iv. 97 n.; Gieseler, i. 2; Dupin, Hist. Ch. cent. v. c. 2. [ Pelagius; Zosimus.]
Coelicolae. The death of Julian (A.D. 363) was followed by a reaction in favour of the Christians and against the Jews. The fierce bitterness of the edicts of Constantine and Constantius was never perhaps renewed, but the decrees of Theodosius the Great (379‒395) and his son Honorius (395‒423) were sufficiently strong and cruel to make it evident how the Roman emperors were influenced, both theologically and politically. The Christians convinced themselves that a stand must be made more earnestly than ever against any heresy which would seduce their members in the direction of either Judaism or paganism. The possible confusion of Christianity with either was by all means to be avoided. Most especially should this be the case as regarded Judaism. The scandal at Antioch which roused the holy indignation of St. Chrysostom—Christian ladies frequenting the synagogues and observing the Jewish festivals, Christian men bringing their lawsuits by preference before the judges of Israel (Grätz, Gesch. d. Juden, iv. 315)—found its reflection in many of the chief centres of the Eastern and Western empires. Hence the effort became more and more strenuous to suppress not only such open approximation of the two religious bodies, but also such sects as indicated, by their forms and doctrines, the intention of presenting a compromise with the truth. St. Augustine (Op. ii. Ep. xliv. cap. vi. § 13, ed. Migne) wrote to the "Elder" of one of these sects, the Coelicolae, inviting him to a conference. Edicts of Theodosius and Honorius denounced the "new doctrine" of the sect, which was said to be marked by "new and unwonted audacity," and to be nothing else than a "new crime of superstition" (Cod. Theod. xvi. t. v. viii. x. Cod. Justin. i. tit. ix.). Happily there is reason to believe that kinder counsels moderated the severity of such intolerance (Grätz, p. 386 seq.; Levysohn, Diss. Inauguralis de Jud. sub Caesar Conditione, pp. 4 seq.).
It is difficult to ascertain precisely the views of the Coelicolae. In one edict they are classed with the Jews and the Samaritans, in a second with the Jews only. But it would be a mistake to consider them simply Jews. The Romans, it is well known, called the Jews worshippers of idols through a mistaken notion that the Jewish use of the word "Heaven" for "God" (Buxtorf, Lex. Rabb. s.v. t) שׁמים, p. 2440; Jost, Gesch. d. Judenthums, i. 303) indicated the worship of some created embodiment of heaven (Vitringa, de Synag. i. 229). The Coelicolae proper would therefore be easily included by the Romans under the one general title "Jews." From St. Augustine's letter it would seem that the Coelicolae used a baptism which he counted sacrilege—i.e. they probably combined a Christian form of baptism with the Jewish rite of circumcision. Such a compromise would appear most objectionable and dangerous to St. Augustine. If, moreover, as their name may indicate, the Coelicolae openly professed their adhesion to the Jewish worship of the One God and rejected the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, this would be an error for which their abhorrence of pagan forms of idolatry would not compensate.
More than this it seems impossible to ascertain. The Coelicolae of Africa, like their congeners the Θεοσεβεῖς of Phoenicia and Palestine, and the Hypsistarii of Cappadocia, were soon stamped or died out. J. A. Schmid, Hist. Coelicolarum; C. G. F. Walch, Hist. Patriarcharum Jud. pp. 5‒8; Bingham, Orig. Eccles. vii. 271; Niedner, K. G. p. 321 n. (1866); Hase, K. G. p. 121; Hasse-Köhler, K. G. i. 103; Herzog, R. E. s.v. "Himmelsanbeter."
Colluthus (2), presbyter and founder of a sect at Alexandria early in the 4th cent. He claimed (on what grounds it is unknown) to exercise episcopal functions; but the council of Alexandria under Hosius (A.D. 324) decided that he was only a presbyter, from which it was held to follow necessarily that Ischyras and others ordained by him were only laymen (Ath. Apol. cont. Arian. 12, 75‒77, 80, pp. 106, 152). The passages cited mention also a sect of Colluthians. Bp. Alexander, in a letter preserved by Theodoret (Ecc. Hist. i. 4), seems to imply that Colluthus commenced his schismatical proceedings before Arius had separated from the church. A phrase used by Alexander (Χριστεμπορεία) has been understood by Valesius to charge Colluthus with taking money for conferring orders. Valesius also infers that the cause of Colluthus's separation was
