Augustine and Pelagius Dispute over Grace

Pelagius was a monk from Britain who lived at Rome, where, Augustine says, he was spoken of with great praise (Prosper, Chronicle 1252 (AD 413)) (Augustine, On the Proceedings of Pelagius 44, 62) (Augustine, On the Proceedings of Pelagius 46). In his letter to the noblewoman Demetrias he says that he always begins by showing what human nature can do: God made it good and gave it the power to choose either good or evil (Pelagius, Letter to Demetrias 2–3). What makes goodness hard is the long habit of sinning (Pelagius, Letter to Demetrias 8). Those who plead that the commandments are too hard for mere human beings accuse God of not knowing what he made, and a just God has commanded nothing impossible (Pelagius, Letter to Demetrias 16). In another work, as Augustine quotes it, he distinguished three things: the ability to do good, which is from God, and the will and the deed, which are our own (Augustine, On the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin 1.5). Augustine of Hippo reports that Pelagius was angered at Rome by a prayer in the Confessions: “Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt” (Augustine, Confessions 10.29.40) (Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance 20.53).

Pelagius passed through Africa and sailed on (Augustine, On the Proceedings of Pelagius 46). His disciple Caelestius was tried at Carthage before bishop Aurelius of Carthage. Accused of teaching that Adam’s sin harmed Adam alone and that infants are born as Adam was before he sinned, he would not condemn those statements, and the bishops condemned him (Augustine, On the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin 2.2–4) (Augustine, On the Proceedings of Pelagius 23).

Augustine then wrote against the teaching, at first without naming Pelagius. Human nature, he argued, was created sound, but as it is now born from Adam it “wants the Physician, because it is not sound”; the grace of Christ that heals it is not a reward for merit but is given freely (Augustine, On Nature and Grace 3–4).

A few years later a synod of fourteen bishops in Palestine heard Pelagius and, on his answers, declared him to be in the communion of the church (Augustine, On the Proceedings of Pelagius 44, 62). The African bishops wrote to Innocent of Rome, who replied that Pelagius had evaded the charges (Augustine, On the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin 2.10). Innocent’s successor Zosimus at first gave Caelestius a hearing and time to clear himself (Augustine, On the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin 2.7–8). On 1 May 418 a council at Carthage under Aurelius issued canons against anyone who says that Adam would have died even without sin, that infants have no original sin to be remitted in baptism, that grace only forgives past sins or only teaches what is commanded, or that the commandments could be kept without grace, though less easily (Council of Carthage (418) canons 109–113). Zosimus accepted the decrees, the emperor Honorius legislated against the Pelagians, and Prosper could write that the heresy was condemned throughout the world (Prosper, Chronicle 1266 (AD 418)) (Possidius, Life of Augustine 18).

In 431 the Council of Ephesus named the teaching of Caelestius beside that of Nestorius (Council of Ephesus (431) canon 4). The argument did not end there: in his last years Augustine was still writing on predestination for Christians who accepted original sin and the need of grace but could not follow him further (Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance companion book, On the Predestination of the Saints 1–2).