In the year of our Lord 394,1 Arcadius, the son of Theodosius, the forty-third from Augustus, succeeding to the empire, with his brother Honorius, held it thirteen years. In his time, Pelagius,2 a Briton, spread far and near the infection of his perfidious doctrine, denying the assistance of the Divine grace, being seconded therein by his associate Julianus of Campania,3 who was impelled by an uncontrolled desire to recover his bishopric, of which he had been deprived. St. Augustine, and the other orthodox fathers, quoted many thousand catholic authorities against them, but failed to amend their folly; nay, more, their madness being rebuked was rather increased by contradiction than suffered by them to be purified through adherence to the truth; which Prosper, the rhetorician,4 has beautifully expressed thus in heroic5 verse:—
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Footnotes
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The real date is 395. ↩
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Pelagius, the founder of the heresy known as Pelagianism, was probably born in 370 a.d., and is said to have been a Briton, but the tradition that his real name was Morgan (Marigena, Graecised Πελάγιος), and that he was a native of Bangor, rests on very doubtful authority. His great opponent, St. Augustine, speaks of him as a good and holy man; later slanders are to be attributed to Jerome’s abusive language. The cardinal point in his doctrine is his denial of original sin, involving a too great reliance on the human will in achieving holiness, and a limitation of the action of the grace of God. ↩
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Julianus of Campania is regarded as the founder of semi-Pelagianism, i.e., an intermediate position between the orthodox view and the heresy of Pelagius. He was Bishop of Eclanum, near Beneventum, and was along with seventeen other Italian bishops deposed in 418 a.d. for refusing to sign the circular letter of Pope Zosimus condemning the heresy. ↩
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A native of Aquitaine, born probably about 403 a.d., a strong opponent of the Pelagians. It is uncertain whether he was in Holy Orders or not. He wrote in prose and verse; his longest poem is called “De Ingratis” (i.e., opponents of the grace of God). His best known work is a Chronicle, not to be confused with the shorter chronicle of Prosper Tiro. ↩
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Bede includes elegiacs under this term, cf. V, 8. ↩