by Pelagius to renounce the world and adopt the monastic life and had adopted many of the peculiar opinions of their master. They had, however, been powerfully impressed by the arguments of Augustine on the nature of Christian grace, and forwarded him a book of Pelagius, to which they requested a detailed answer. This Augustine gave in his treatise de Naturâ et Gratiâ. The book of Pelagius, if we may rely upon the fairness of Augustine's quotations, which there is no reason to distrust, advocated in the interests of morality the adequacy of human nature for good action. It affirmed it possible to live without sin by the grace or help of God. But the grace thus recognized was the natural endowment of free will, itself the gift of God, though sometimes the conception of it was enlarged so as to include the knowledge of right conveyed by the Law. Sin was pronounced avoidable if men were to be truly accounted responsible moral agents, and sin being rather a negation than a positive entity could not vitiate human nature. When man has actually sinned, he needs forgiveness. Nature was magnified, as if the admission of a subsequent corruption was derogatory to the goodness of the original creation. All the O.T. worthies who are described as having lived righteously were quoted as proofs of the possibility of living without sin. The continuance of controversy was obviously leading Pelagius to a more formal and systematic development of his theory.
The same tendency to systematization is seen in a document of definitions or arguments attributed to Coelestius, which was communicated to Augustine by two bishops, Eutropius and Paul, as having been circulated in the Sicilian church. A series of 16, or as some condense them 14, questions is designed to point out the difficulties of the Augustinian theory and to establish the contrary theory by one ever-recurring dilemma, that either man can live entirely free from sin, or the freedom of the human will and its consequent moral responsibility must be denied. Augustine replied to this early in 415, in his treatise de Perfectione Justitiae Hominis, addressed to Eutropius and Paul.
The scene of the controversy now changed from Africa to Palestine, where Pelagius had been resident for some years. In the beginning of 415 Paulus OROSIUS, a presbyter from Tarragona in Spain, came to Africa to consult Augustine as to certain questions, connected with Origenism and Priscillianism, which were rife in his native land. He had conceived an intense admiration for Augustine and became one of his most devoted disciples. Augustine describes him as quick in understanding, fluent in speech, and fervent in zeal. After giving him the instruction he required, he sent him to Jerome at Bethlehem, ostensibly to obtain further instruction, but really to watch the proceedings of Pelagius, and announce to the church in Palestine the steps taken in the African church to suppress the rising heresy. Orosius reached Palestine in June and spent a few weeks with Jerome, who was then writing his Dialogue against the Pelagians. He was invited to a synod at Jerusalem on July 28, and was asked what he could tell as to Pelagius and Coelestius. He gave an account of the formal condemnation of Coelestius by the council of Carthage in 412, and mentioned that Augustine was writing a treatise in answer to a work of Pelagius, and read a copy of the letter from Augustine to Hilary. Thereupon bp. John desired Pelagius himself to be sent for to have an opportunity of defending himself from any charges of unsound doctrine alleged. Pelagius was asked by the presbyters whether he had really taught the doctrines against which Augustine protested. He bluntly replied, "And who is Augustine to me?" This bold and contemptuous rejection of the name and authority of the great bishop whose influence was paramount in the West owing to his signal services in the Donatist controversy, roused the indignation of the presbyters, but, to the amazement of Orosius, the presiding bishop admitted Pelagius, layman and alleged heretic as he was, to a seat among the presbyters, and exclaimed, "I am Augustine here." He proceeded to hear charges against Pelagius. Orosius said that Pelagius, according to his own confession, had taught that man can be without sin and can easily keep the commandments of God, if he will. Pelagius acknowledged that he had used such language. Orosius claimed that such doctrine should be at once denounced as untenable on the authority of the recent council at Carthage, and of the writings of Augustine, and the judgment of their own venerated neighbour Jerome recently expressed in a letter to Ctesiphon. The bishop quoted the scriptural instances of Abraham, who was bidden "to walk before God and be perfect," and of Zacharias and Elizabeth, who were described as "walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the law blameless," as affording a primâ facie justification of Pelagius, and argued, If Pelagius said that man could fulfil the commands of God without the aid of God, his doctrine would be wicked and worthy of condemnation, but as he maintained that man could be free from sin not without the aid of God, to deny this position would be to deny the efficacy of divine grace. Orosius proceeded to anathematize the notion of such a denial of grace, and, seeing that John was unwilling to admit a charge of heresy against Pelagius, appealed to another tribunal. Declaring the heresy to be of Latin origin and most formidable in the Latin churches, he demanded that the whole question should be referred to pope Innocent, as the chief bishop of Latin Christianity. This compromise was accepted. The whole account of the proceedings of this synod at Jerusalem is derived from the Apology of Orosius, and must be received with some deductions, having regard to the fiery and intemperate invective which the impassioned Spaniard lavishes upon Pelagius and all his followers.
A renewed effort to quell Pelagianism, the result, Pelagius says, of the influence of Jerome and a small knot of ardent sympathizers at Bethlehem, was made towards the end of 415, when two deposed Western bishops, Heros of Arles and Lazarus of Aix, laid a formal accusation against Pelagius before a synod at Diospolis (the ancient Lydda), at which Eulogius, bp. of Caesarea and metropolitan, presided.
