![]() For those in power, a doctrine that persuaded the mass of ordinary Christians that they were unworthy, powerless supplicants, both temporally and spiritually, was useful. In 418, after Emperor Honorius demanded action when people calling themselves Pelagians rioted in Rome, Pope Zosimus declared Pelagianism heretical. Augustine’s ally Saint Jerome abused Pelagius intemperately as a “huge, bloated Alpine dog, weighed down with Scottish oats”. As the controversy intensified, Pelagius was misrepresented and outmanoeuvred: his enemies alleged, inter alia, that he had said grace was not necessary for salvation at all. Pelagius stood for free will Augustine for original sin. Science and Technical Research and Development.Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities.Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives.Information and Communications Technology.HR, Training and Organisational Development.Health - Medical and Nursing Management.Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance.Thinkers such as William of Occam and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were accused of Pelagianism. It resurfaced repeatedly – in Renaissance Italy, in the Reformation, in 17th-century Holland, England and France. The Pelagian heresy was hard to kill, and the dispute continued to reverberate down the centuries. ![]() Because it was fundamental, the condemnation of his writings did not succeed. ![]() The prime reason for giving him attention is that Pelagius addressed a fundamental problem, not just a theological problem but a general and perennial one: free will. Is Pelagius of more than antiquarian interest? Should we pay any attention to this anniversary, when so many others have occupied us this year? There were many heresies and theological disputes in the early centuries of the Christian Church – many of them incomprehensible even to practising believers today. Sixteen centuries ago, in AD 418, after a long and complicated series of debates over several years, Pope Zosimus finally issued a letter condemning as heretical the writings of Pelagius, the earliest known British writer. ![]()
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