Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism & Augustinianism

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Augustine received an account of this from two learned and pious lay friends, Prosper, and Hilarius, who begged that he himself would take the pen against it. This was the occasion of his two works, De praedestinatione sanctorum, and De dono perseverentiae, with which he worthily closed his labors as an author. He deals with these disputants more gently than with the Pelagians, and addresses them as brethren. After his death the discussion was continued principally in Gaul; for then North Africa was disquieted by the victorious invasion of the Vandals, which for several decades shut it out from the circle of theological and ecclesiastical activity.

At the head of the Semi-Pelagian party stood John Cassian, the founder and abbot of the monastery at Massilia, a man of thorough cultivation, rich experience, and unquestioned orthodoxy. He was a grateful disciple of Chrysostom, who ordained him deacon, and apparently also presbyter. His Greek training and his predilection for monasticism were a favorable soil for his Semi-Pelagian theory. He labored awhile in Rome with Pelagius, and afterwards in Southern France, in the cause of monastic piety, which he efficiently promoted by exhortation and example.

Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Semi-semi-Pelagianism

Monasticism sought in cloistered retreats a protection against the allurements of sin, the desolating incursions of the barbarians, and the wretchedness of an age of tumult and confusion. But the enthusiasm for the monastic life tended strongly to over-value external acts and ascetic discipline, and resisted the free evangelical bent of the Augustinian theology. Cassian wrote twelve books De coenobiorum institutis, in which be first describes the outward life of the monks, and then their inward conflicts and victories over the eight capital vices: In this work, especially in the thirteenth Colloquy, he rejects decidedly the errors of Pelagius, and affirms the universal sinfulness of men, the introduction of it by the fall of Adam, and the necessity, of divine grace to every individual act.

But, with evident reference to Augustine, though without naming him, he combats the doctrines of election and of the irresistible and particular operation of grace, which were in conflict with the church tradition, especially, with the Oriental theology, and with his own earnest ascetic legalism. In opposition to both systems he taught that the divine image and human freedom were not annihilated, but only weakened, by the fall; in other words, that man is sick, but not dead, that he cannot indeed help himself, but that he can desire the help of a physician, and either accept or refuse it when offered, and that he must cooperate with the grace of God in his salvation.

The question, which of the two factors has the initiative, he answers, altogether empirically, to this effect: Here, therefore, the gratia praeveniens is manifestly overlooked. These are essentially Semi-Pelagian principles, though capable of various modifications and applications.

The church, even the Roman church, has rightly emphasized the necessity of prevenient grace, but has not impeached Cassian, who is properly the father of the Semi-Pelagian theory. Leo the Great even commissioned him to write a work against Nestorianism, in which he found an excellent opportunity to establish his orthodoxy, and to clear himself of all connection with the kindred heresies of Pelagianism and Nestorianism, which were condemned together at Ephesus in He died after , at an advanced age, and though not formally canonized, is honored as a saint by some dioceses.

His works are very extensively read for practical edification.

Against the thirteenth Colloquy of Cassian, Prosper Aquitanus, an Augustinian divine and poet, who, probably on account of the desolations of the Vandals, had left his native Aquitania for the South of Gaul, and found comfort and repose in the doctrines of election amid the wars of his age, wrote a book upon grace and freedom, about , in which he criticises twelve propositions of Cassian, and declares them all heretical, except the first. But the Semi-Pelagian doctrine was the more popular, and made great progress in France.

Its principal advocates after Cassian are the following: The author of the Praedestinatus says, that a treatise had fallen into his hands, which fraudulently bore upon its face the name of the Orthodox teacher Augustine, in order to smuggle in, under a Catholic name, a blasphemous dogma, pernicious to the faith. On this account he had undertaken to transcribe and to refute this work. A counterpart to this treatise is found in the also anonymous work, De vocatione omnium gentium, which endeavors to commend Augustinianism by mitigation, in the same degree that the Praedestinatus endeavors to stultify it by exaggeration.

It has been ascribed to pope Leo I.

The author avoids even the term praedestinatio, and teaches expressly, that Christ died for all men and would have all to be saved; thus rejecting the Augustinian particularism. But, on the other hand, he also rejects the Semi-Pelagian principles, and asserts the utter inability of the natural man to do good. He unhesitatingly sets grace above the human will, and represents the whole life of faith, from beginning to end, as a work of unmerited grace. He develops the three thoughts, that God desires the salvation of all men; that no one is saved by his own merits, but by grace; and that the human understanding cannot fathom the depths of divine wisdom.

We must trust in the righteousness of God. Every one of the damned suffers only the righteous punishment of his sins; while no saint can boast himself in his merits, since it is only of pure grace that he is saved. But how is it with the great multitude of infants that die every year without baptism, and without opportunity of coming to the knowledge of salvation?

The author feels this difficulty, without, however, being able to solve it. He calls to his help the representative character of parents, and dilutes the Augustinian doctrine of original sin to the negative conception of a mere defect of good, which, of course, also reduces the idea of hereditary guilt and the damnation of unbaptized children. He distinguishes between a general grace which comes to man through the external revelation in nature, law, and gospel, and a special grace, which effects conversion and regeneration by an inward impartation of saving power, and which is only bestowed on those that are saved.

Semi-Pelagianism prevailed in Gaul for several decades. That provides a very lengthy explanation, but you will find that at other places Schaff simply uses Semi-Pelagian as a synonym for synergistic. In this context, a more historically accurate term is Massilianism , a reference to the city of Marseilles , with which some of its proponents were associated. Pelagianism is the teaching that people have the capacity to seek God in and of themselves apart from any movement of God or the Holy Spirit , and therefore that salvation is effected by their own efforts.

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The doctrine takes its name from Pelagius , a British monk who was accused of developing the doctrine he himself appears to have claimed in his letters that man does not do good apart from grace, claiming only that all men have free will by God's gift ; it was opposed especially by Augustine of Hippo and was declared a heresy by Pope Zosimus in Denying the existence of original sin , it teaches that man is in himself and by nature capable of choosing good. In semipelagian thought, man does not have such an unrestrained capacity, but man and God could cooperate to a certain degree in this salvation effort: The term "semipelagianism" was unknown in antiquity, appearing for the first time only in the last quarter of the 16th century.

It was used in connexion with Molina's doctrine of grace.

Opponents of this theologian believed they saw a close resemblance to the views advocated by monks of Southern Gaul at and around Marseille after After this confusion between the ideas of Molina and those of the monks of Marseille had been exposed as an error, the newly coined term "semipelagianism" was retained in learned circles as an apt designation for the views of those monks, which was said to have aimed at a compromise between the Pelagianism and Augustinism , and was condemned as heresy at the local Council of Orange after disputes extending over more than a hundred years.

The Epitome of the Lutheran Formula of Concord rejects "the false dogma of the Semi-Pelagians, who teach that man by his own powers can commence his conversion, but can not fully accomplish it without the grace of the Holy Spirit". Between and the term "semipelagianism" was applied to Luis de Molina 's doctrine of grace, which at that time was accused of similarity to the teaching of the Massilians. The Orthodox Church generally emphasizes the synergistic doctrine of theosis in its conception of salvation as a process of personal transformation to the likeness of God in Christ through the Spirit.

Theosis closely links the ideas of justification and sanctification ; salvation is acquired through the divinization of man. This doctrine is sometimes dismissed as semipelagian by theologians of the classical Protestant traditions on the grounds that it suggests that man contributes to his own salvation.

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John Cassian , known particularly for his teachings on theosis , is considered to be a Saint in the Eastern Churches as well as in Roman Catholicism. He is generally considered to have been an early proponent of semi-Pelagianism. It is fully divine. In more recent times, the word has been used in the Reformed Protestant camp to designate anyone who deviates from what they see as the Augustinian doctrines of sovereignty, original sin and grace: Although Calvinist and Lutheran theologies of salvation differ significantly on issues such as the nature of predestination and the salvific role of the sacraments see means of grace , both branches of historic Protestantism claim the theology of Augustine as a principal influence.

Many Arminians have disagreed with this generalization, believing it is libelous to Jacobus Arminius from whose name Arminianism derives and the Remonstrants who maintained his "Arminian" views after his death.

John Wesley an Anglican defender of Arminianism and founder of Methodism and other prominent classical and Wesleyan Arminians maintained the doctrines of original sin and the total depravity of the human race. Likewise, ever since the Council of Orange , the Roman Catholic Church has condemned semipelagianism and has not accepted the Calvinist interpretation of Augustine.

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