Pelagius | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

PELAGIUS (d. 418) was a Christian monk whose name has become synonymous with doctrines of human cooperation in salvation at the expense of divine grace. The historical figure is more complex than the teachings associated with his name. Pelagius was born in Britain in the middle of the fourth century. Nothing is known of his background or upbringing, but he seems to have received an excellent education. He was highly regarded for his exemplary life, and even his great opponent, Augustine of Hippo, acknowledged that he was a "holy man who had made no small progress in the Christian life." He went to live in Rome sometime toward the end of the fourth century, perhaps as early as the 380s.

Pelagius was first and foremost a monk and an ascetic, a tutor to men and women seeking the life of perfection. His primary concern was moral and spiritual, not theological. He had been influenced by earlier Christian moral and ascetic literature, for example Sentences of Sextus, a collection of moral maxims from the second century, and the writings of Origen, the great third-century Christian teacher. From these works he learned the importance of freedom of the will, discipline, the quest for perfection, and righteousness through the doing of good deeds.

In the world of fifth-century Rome, however, moral rigorism, which had once marked the entire Christian community, was now practiced chiefly by the ascetics. Pelagius continued to believe that there should be no double standard and that the precepts of the gospel were applicable to all. For a time he was successful in urging these ideas in Rome, but as his writings became known outside of Rome, in Africa, where Augustine lived, and in Palestine, where Jerome lived, he came to be vigorously opposed.

Pelagius left Rome in 410 with his disciple Celestius to travel to Africa. Celestius was condemned by a council in Carthage in 412. In Palestine Pelagius was brought before councils in Jerusalem and Lydda in 415, but he ably defended himself and was acquitted. In the West, however, through the efforts of Augustine, he was condemned by a council in Carthage in 416 and again by Pope Innocent in 417. After being briefly vindicated by Zosimus, Innocent's successor, he was eventually condemned by a great council at Carthage in 418 and by the pope and was banished by the Roman emperors. He died in 418 or sometime thereafter.

He wrote widely, but few of his works are extant in their entirety. The most important is a commentary on the epistles of Paul, a close verse-by-verse exposition of the text of the letters with an eye to the Christian life. The influence of Origen, transmitted through Latin translations, is evident in the commentary. His major theological works, De natura and De libero arbitrio, written only after he had traveled to Palestine in 412 and come into contact with Jerome, are extant only in fragments in the writings of Augustine. Besides these works there are a number of shorter tractates and letters, some of which have only recently been shown to be genuine.

Pelagianism.

Ferguson, John. Pelagius. Cambridge, 1956.

Plinval, Georges de. Pelage: Ses écrits, sa vie et sa reforme. Lausanne, 1943.

This is the complete article, containing 528 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).