It was natural that the energy of the Church in intellectually realizing and defining its doctrines in relation to one another, should first be directed towards the objective side of Christian truth. The chief controversies of the first four centuries and the resulting definitions of doctrine, concerned the nature of God and the Person of Christ. It was not until these Theological and Christological questions were well upon their way to final settlement, that the Church could turn its attention to the more subjective side of truth. Meanwhile she bore in her bosom a full recognition, side by side, of the freedom of the will, the evil consequences of the fall, and the necessity of divine grace for salvation. Individual writers, or even entire sections of the Church, might exhibit a special tendency to emphasize one or another of the elements that made up this deposit of faith that was the common inheritance of all. The East, for instance, laid especial stress on free will. The West dwelt more pointedly on the ruin of the human race and the absolute need of God’s grace for salvation. But the Eastern theologians did not forget the universal sinfulness and need of redemption, or the necessity, for the realization of that redemption, of God’s gracious influences. Nor did those of the West deny the self-determination or accountability of men. All the elements of the composite doctrine of man were everywhere confessed. But they were variously emphasized, according to the temper of the writers or the controversial demands of the times. Such a state of affairs, however, was an invitation to heresy, and a prophecy of controversy; just as the simultaneous confession of the Unity of God and the Deity of Christ, or of the Deity and the Humanity of Christ, inevitably carried in its train a series of heresies and controversies, until the definitions of the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Person of Christ were complete. In like manner, it was inevitable that sooner or later some one should arise who would throw so one-sided a stress upon one element or the other of the Church’s teaching as to salvation, as to betray himself into heresy, and drive the Church, through controversy with him, into a more precise definition of the doctrines of free will and grace in their mutual relations.
This new heresiarch came, at the opening of the fifth century, in the person of the British monk, Pelagius. The novelty of the doctrine which he taught is repeatedly asserted by Augustine,1 and is evident to the historian. But it consisted less in the emphasis that he laid on free will, than in the fact that, in order to emphasize free will, he denied the ruin of the race and the necessity of grace. This was not only new in Christianity; it was even anti-Christian. Jerome, as well as Augustine, saw this at the time, and spoke of Pelagianism as the “heresy of Pythagoras and Zeno.”2 Modern writers of various schools have more or less fully recognized it. Thus Dean Milman thinks that “the greater part” of Pelagius’ letter to Demetrias “might have been written by an ancient academic.”3 Dr. De Pressensé identifies the Pelagian idea of liberty with that of Paganism.4 And Bishop Hefele openly declares that the fundamental doctrine of Pelagianism, “that man is virtuous entirely of his own merit, not of the gift of grace,” seems to him “to be a rehabilitation of the general heathen view of the world,” and compares with it Cicero’s words,5 “For gold, lands, and all the blessings of life, we have to return thanks to the Gods; but no one ever returned thanks to the Gods for virtues.”6 The struggle with Pelagianism was thus in reality a struggle for the very foundations of Christianity. Quite as dangerously as in the previous Theological and Christological controversies, here the practical substance of Christianity was in jeopardy. The real question at issue was whether there was any need for Christianity at all; whether by his own power man might not attain eternal felicity; whether the function of Christianity was to save, or only to render an eternity of happiness more easily attainable by man.7