PELAGIUS
c.355 - c.435
British Theologian
Pelagius was a monk from Britain. He went to Rome where he was
distressed by the moral decay of many Roman Christians. He blamed
Rome's moral laxity on the doctrine of divine grace promulgated
by Augustine. Pelagius reasoned that if a man were not himself
responsible for his good or evil deeds, there was nothing to restrain him
from indulgence in sin. Pelagius held that the human will is free to do
good or evil, and that divine grace only facilitates what the will can do itself.
After the fall of Rome to the Visigoths Pelagius went first to Africa, and then
to Palestine. After attacks from Augustine and Jerome, Pelagius was
condemmed as a heretic.
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