ment as to the apostasy and the moral accountability of man, the terrible curse of sin, and the necessity of redeeming grace; but not as to the extent of native corruption, and the relation of human freedom to divine grace in the work of regeneration and conversion. The Greek, and particularly the Alexandrian fathers, in opposition to the dualism and fatalism of the Gnostic systems, which made evil a necessity of nature, laid great stress upon human freedom, and upon the indispensable coöperation of this freedom with divine grace; while the Latin fathers, especially Tertullian and Cyprian, Hilary and Ambrose, guided rather by their practical experience than by speculative principles, emphasized the hereditary sin and hereditary guilt of man, and the sovereignty of God's grace, without, however, denying freedom and individual accountability. The Greek church adhered to her undeveloped synergism, which coördinates the human will and divine grace as factors in the work of conversion; the Latin church, under the influence of Augustine, advanced to the system of a divine monergism,' which gives God all the glory, and makes freedom itself a result of grace; while Pelagianism, on the contrary, represented the principle of a human monergism, which ascribes the chief merit of conversion to man, and reduces grace to a mere external auxiliary. After Augustine's death, however, the intermediate system of Semi-Pelagianism, akin to the Greek synergism, became prevalent in the West. Pelagius and Augustine, in whom these opposite forms of monergism were embodied, are representative men, even more strictly than Arius and Athanasius before them, or Nestorius and Cyril after them. The one, a Briton, more than once convulsed the world by his errors; the other, an African, more than once by his truths. They represented principles and On the anthropology of the ante-Nicene and Nicene fathers, comp. the rele vant sections in the larger works on Doctrine History, and Wiggers, 1. c. vol i. p. 407 ff. * From σùv and pyov. There are, it may be remarked, different forms of syn ergiem. The synergism of Melanchthon subordinates the human activity to the divine, and assigns to grace the initiative in the work of conversion. • From μόνον and ἔργον. tendencies, which, in various modifications, extend through the whole history of the church, and reappear in its suc cessive epochs. The Gottschalk controversy in the ninth century, the Reformation, the synergistic controversy in the Lutheran church, the Arminian in the Reformed, and the Jansenistic in the Roman Catholic, only reproduce the same great contest in new and specific aspects. Each system reflects the personal character and experience of its author. Pelagius was an upright monk, who without inward conflicts won for himself, in the way of tranquil development, a legal piety which knew neither the depths of sin nor the heights of grace. Augustine, on the other hand, passed through sharp convalsions and bitter conflicts, till he was overtaken by the unmerited grace of God, and created anew to a life of faith and love. Pelagius had a singularly clear, though contracted mind, and an earnest moral purpose, but no enthusiasm for lofty ideals; and hence he found it not hard to realize his lower standard of holiness. Augustine had a bold and soaring intellect, and glowing heart, and only found peace after he had long been tossed by the waves of passion; he had tasted all the misery of sin, and then all the glory of redemption, and this experience qualified him to understand and set forth these antagonistic powers far better than his opponent, and with a strength and fulness surpassed only by the inspired apostle Paul. Indeed, Augustine, of all the fathers, most resembles, in experience and doctrine, this very apostle, and stands next to him in his influence upon the Reformers. The Pelagian controversy turns upon the mighty antithesis of sin and grace. It embraces the whole cycle of doctrine respecting the ethical and religious relation of man to God, and includes, therefore, the doctrines of human freedom, of the primitive state, of the fall, of regeneration and conversion, of the eternal purpose of redemption, and of the nature and operation of the grace of God. It com es at last to the question, whether redemption is chiefly a work of God or of man; whether man needs to be born anew, or merely improved The soul of the Pelagian system is human freedom; the sou. of the Augustinian is divine grace. Pelagius starts from the natural man, and works up, by his owr exertions, to righteous ness and holiness. Augustine despairs of the moral sufficiency of man, and derives the new life and all power for good from the creative grace of God. The one system proceeds from the liberty of choice to legalistic piety; the other from the bondage of sin to the evangelical liberty of the children of God. To the former Christ is merely a teacher and example, and grace an external auxiliary to the development of the native powers of man; to the latter he is also Priest and King, and grace a creative principle, which begets, nourishes, and consummates a new life. The former makes regeneration and conversion a gradual process of the strengthening and perfecting of human virtue; the latter makes it a complete transformation, in which the old disappears and all becomes new. The one loves to admire the dignity and strength of man; the other loses itself in adoration of the glory and omnipotence of God. The one flatters natural pride, the other is a gospel for penitent publicans and sinners. Pelagianism begins with self-exaltation and ends with the sense of self-deception and impotency. Augustinianism casts man first into the dust of humiliation and despair, in order to lift him on the wings of grace to supernatural strength, and leads him through the hell of self-knowledge up to the heaven of the knowledge of God. The Pelagian system is clear, sober, and intelligible, but superficial; the Augustinian sounds the depths of knowledge and experience, and renders reverential homage to mystery. The former is grounded upon the philosophy of common sense, which is indispensable for ordinary life, but has no perception of divine things; the latter is grounded upon the philosophy of the regenerate reason, which breaks through the limits of nature, and penetrates the depths of divine revelation. The former starts with the proposition: Intellectus præcedit fidem; the latter with the opposite maxim: Fides præcedit intellec tum. Both make use of the Scriptures; the one, however, conforming them to reason, the other subjecting reason to them. Pelagianism has an unmistakable affinity with rationalism, and supplies its practical side. To the natural will of the former system corresponds the natural reason of the latter; and as the natural will, according to l'elagianism, is competent to good, so is the natural reason, according to rationalism, compe tent to the knowledge of the truth. All rationalists are Pela gian in their anthropology; but Pelagius and Coelestius were not consistent, and declared their agreement with the traditional orthodoxy in all other doctrines, though without entering into their deeper meaning and connection. Even divine mysteries may be believed in a purely external, mechanical way, by inheritance from the past, as the history of theology, especially in the East, abundantly proves. The true solution of the difficult question respecting the relation of divine grace to human freedom in the work of conversion, is not found in the denial of either factor; for this would either elevate man to the dignity of a self-redeemer, or degrade him to an irrational machine, and would ultimately issue either in fatalistic pantheism or in atheism; but it must be sought in such a reconciliation of the two factors as gives full weight both to the sovereignty of God and to the responsibility of man, yet assigns a preeminence to the divine agency corresponding to the infinite exaltation of the Creator and Redeemer above the sinful creature. And although Augustine's solution of the problem is not altogether satisfactory, and although in his zeal against the Pelagian error he has inclined to the opposite extreme; yet in all essential points, he has the Scriptures, especially the Epistles of Paul, as well as Christian experience, and the profoundest speculation, on his side. Whoever reads the tenth volume of his works, which contains his Anti-Pelagian writings in more than fourteen hundred folio columns (in the Benedictine edition), will be moved to wonder at the extraordinary wealth of thought and experi ence treasured in them for all time; especially if he considers that Augustine, at the breaking out of the Pelagian controver sy, was already fifty-seven years old, and had passed through the Manichæan and Donatist controversies. Such giants in theology could only arise in an age when this queen of the sciences drew into her service the whole mental activity of the time. The Pelagian controversy was conducted with as great ar expenditure of mental energy, and as much of moral and religious earnestness, but with less passion and fewer intrigues than the Trinitarian and Christological conflicts in the East. In the foreground stood the mighty genius and pure zeal of Augustine, who never violated theological dignity, and, though of thoroughly energetic convictions, had a heart full of love. Yet even he yielded so far to the intolerant spirit of his time as to justify the repression of the Donatist and Pelagian error by civil penalties. 8 147. External History of the Pelagian Controversy, A. D. 411-431. Pelagius' was a simple monk, born about the middle of the fourth century in Britain, the extremity of the then civilized world. He was a man of clear intellect, mild disposition, learned culture, and spotless character; even Augus tine, with all his abhorrence of his doctrines, repeatedly speaks respectfully of the man.' He studied the Greek theolo gy, especially that of the Antiochian school, and early showed great zeal for the improvement of himself and of the world. But his morality was not so much the rich, deep life of faith, as it was the external legalism, the ascetic self-discipline and self-righteousness of monkery. It was characteristic, that, even before the controversy, he took great offence at the wellknown saying of Augustine: "Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt." He could not conceive, that 1 His British name is said to have been Morgan, that is, Of the sea, Marigena, in Greek Πελάγιος. ⚫ Comp. the passages where Augustine speaks of Pelagius, in Wiggers, 1. e. i. p. 35 f. Yet Augustine, not without reason, accuses him of duplicity, on se count of his conduct at the synod of Diospolis in Palestine. Wiggers (i. p. 40) says of him: "It must be admitted that Pelagius was not always sufficiently straightforward; that he did not always express his views without ambiguity; that, in fact, he sometimes in synods condemned opinions which were manifestly his own. This may have arisen, it is true, in great part from his love of peace and the slight value which he attached to theoretical opinions." "Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis," Confess. I. x. c. 29, et passim. Augus tine himself relates the above-mentioned fact, De dono persev. c. 20 (or § 53, tom Af 981): "Quæ mea verba, Pelagius Romæ, cum a quodam fratre et coepiscope |