Requires the Fall

Augustine’s Conversion and the Pelagian Controversy

TERRA CALD WELL

“Make the leap without anxiety; he will catch you and heal you.”’ So spoke the vision Lady Continence to Augustine mere minutes before his famotis conversion in a garden of Milan. ihroughout his life Augustine felt torn between his concept of evil, which he had stibeonsciotisly united with his guilty desires, and his concept of good, which was most likely intlueneed by his Catholic mother. in a quest to understand his divided self Attgtistine sought the wisdom of the Ianichees, though their concepts of evil did not satisfy his logical mind for long. Unfortunately, that prior association would cause him considerable trouble for years to eome, and sparked a that othenvise may have remained a minor regional matter. This heresy began’ when Pelagitis overheard a reading of Augustine’s Gontèssions and reacted to it as if it were contaminated with Manicheism. Augustine combated the Pelagian heresy by codifying the previously vague concept of original , making it the remainder of his life’swork.4 To do othenvise wotdd have invalidated, in his own mind, his conversion in 386.’ In his seminal study on religious experience the noted psychologist, William James, determined there were two types of religiotis persons: the “healthy minded” individual and the “sicksoul.”6According to James, the siek-sotiled person typically felt that evilwas...

no mere relation of the subject to particular outer things, btit something more radical and general, a wrongness or vice in his essential nature, which no alteration of the environment, or any stipcrfieial rearrangement of the inner self, can cure, and which requires a supernatural remedy.’

Atigustine, who struggled since childhood with his foulnesses and carnal corruptions,”5 used the entirety of the tIrst two books of his atitobiography to illustrate his perfidy, going so far as to compare himself to Lucifer.9 , on the other hand, probably belonged to the healthy-minded camp.’ James characterized healthy-minded individuals chiefly by their optimistic outlook on life, where the “good ... is regarded as the essential thing for a rational being to attend to.’’ Pelagius, who rejected the doctrine of believed that, ‘lvil is not horn with us, and we are procreated without fault.”’ According to this doctrine, people were not fundamentally evil, and could not inherit the ofanothcr. People, Pelagitis believed, chose to be evil. ‘ibis implied,

‘Atigustine, C’onfessions, trans. I lenry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 151. ‘This is a traditional idea. Some scholars believe that Celestius of Rome or Rufinus of Syria ‘ere far more influential to the development of than Pelagius himselt See i3.R. Recs, Pthgitzs:A Reli,eniorilerede, (Suffolk, England: Boydell Press, 1988),9. Rees, Pelagius: TlieJ?eIuemnri1eieric i. Augustine claims quoted “Give me what you command, and command what yoti will”(confessions, io) in Pelagius’s hearing sometime arotind 405. 4Anti-Pelagian writings ocetir between 412 and 430, when he died, his last refutation unfinished. All dates are in the Common Era. William James, The ‘aHedes ofReligious K-iperience, (New York: Penguin Books. 1982) 7Jamcs, L1fiedes, 134. Atiguistine, confessions, 2:1. 9Atigustine, Confessions, 2:9. “ I vacillate because I was unable to find any texts actually written by Pelagius, so for an analysis of his nature I rntisr rely upon secondary sources, including Augustine. “James, Vanenes, 127. “Aiigsistine, On Original Sin. 13:14, quoted in Rees, Pekigiizs,91.

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as Augustine pointed otit. that by choosing to be good, people could achieve heaven without Christ’s mediation.’

Original Sin: Backgrounds and Beliefs The concept of original sin had existed among pre-Christian Jews, though it was nothing like the Christian concept, w’hich came froni Rom. s:ia’.i and i Cot, ;5:zi-a2. Both of these passages could be interpreted to mean that the sin of Adam and Eve was impersonal and therefore inherited; unlike the personal sins all humans are prone to committing. I lowever, this interpretation was not the prevailing belief of the time. To urban Christian parents was the most vital step toward salvation. Baptism secured the probability of the child’s ascension to heaven shotdd it die dtiring childhood because baptism entered the child into covenant with God throtigh Jesus as the savior. I lowever. if the child died prior to his or her baptism, as a non- Christian, the child could only relyupon God’s mercy for salvation. Pelagius did not understand how Augtistine could condemn unbaptized infants to hell. lie believed that the unbaptized children of Christians were Christians themselves. Furthermore, he thought Augustine’s belief that unbaptized people were fundamentally evil implied the Manichean belief that flesh was inherently corrupt. Pelagius may have held these beliefs because he was British. Whereas Augustine preached to people in areas that had known Catholicism for hundreds of years, Pelagius, in Britain, was still explaining to the common people who Christ was.% In addition, Augustine had been a father, possibly the oldest child of several in his family, and a Bishop who performed . I Ic was quite familiar with children.6 In contrast, Pclagius, who t’as not even a monk, probably had no children of his own. I te lacked experience performing the sacraments or speaking with the consoling authority of the priesthood to Christian parents of sick infants. ‘l’heArianism. a belief that many in lands bordering l3ritain adhered to, was of greater immediate concern to Pelagius. who styled himself a foe of heresy. Pelagitis. unlike several other heresiarehs, was not the first or even the most prolific proponent of the heresy that bears his name. I us two colleagues, Rufinus and Celestius, whom he befriended in Rome toward the end of the fourth century, had more to do with creating the Pelagian heresy than he did. I lowever, Rtifinus the Syrian died in 411 and Celestius vas excommunicated hi in 411. The heresy asstimcd Pelagitis’s name becatise he svas still in good standing with the Church, which meant he could be threatened and forced to recant, and also because he ptiblished ovo hooks in 414 inclttding On Nature and On Free Willboth ot which incltLde heretical material. l3ecausc Pelagitis would not take Augustine’s subtle hint&i Augustine and his ally proceeded to harass him. Despite his relatively small involvement in his own heretical ideas Pelagius did argue with Augustine about the origin of free will, the nature of originalsin, and the necessity of infant baptism. In these arguments Pelagius picked up where Rufous and Celestius had left off,

‘5Augustine, On tile Spiritand the Lerrei; Tr. P. 1lolmes. Ed. WhitneyJ. Oates, Basic Writings of Sr. Augustine ivi. i, (New York: Random I louse, 1948),Chapter . I lereafter abbreviated as SL. Fhey ... must be resisted ... who suppose that without God’s help, the mere power of the human will in itself, can [achieve] either perfect righteousness, or advance steadily toward it...” ‘ St. Patrick, considered the missionary to the Irish. livedca. 420-490. Pelagius himself probably came from Ireland or the southwestern coast of Wales. Rees, Peiagius: The Reiuctanr Iiere& 121. Augustine, Confessions, 9:22, 27. ‘6Augustine, Confessions, t:8, II. UiThe entirety of SI. is one stich hint.

EX POST FACTo Salvation Requires the faIl though in some eases accidentally. Rufinus argued, “infants receive baptism not on account of their sins, but in order that they may through baptism be, as it were, created in Christ and become partners in his heavenly kingdom.’c Pelagius did not partictilarly agree with this assessment, lie questioned later, “Who can be so impious as to deny to an infant of any age the common redemption of the human race?”9 Baptism, according to Pelagius. was important because it restored a person’s ability to be righteous and not to sin. Jesus. Pelagius believed, did not die to remove any fault of Adam’s, but to remove personal sin. As such baptism was completely pointless for children, who, based on Catholic teachings, could not sin tintil they were eight years old and therefore were already eligible for heaven should they die young.’ lice question of infant baptism became an isstle that neither man wanted to argue. Pelagius believed it was a moot point and was more concerned about Augustine’s theories of . Augustine found the thought of infants going to hell to be depressing, and thus thought it vital to baptize them as soon as possible.’ Unfortunately, infant baptism became a rather large symptom of the underlying problem. While Pelagius’s heresy c’as kind, it ultimately removed Christ from Christianity. Conversely, AugtLstine’sdoctrine was cruel, but held the religion together. The problem had quite a bit to do with the workings of both men’sminds.

In Health and Sickness: Conversion as a Palliative PelagilLs, by all non-abusive accounts, i’as charismatic and well liked. I usopinions and statements, garnered through the few surviving texts he wrote and the considerable quotations embedded in his enemies’ treatises against him, generally show’him to be a person to whom the world is an obvious place, a confident man without internal conflict who was stire of the nature of Ccxl. God, he believed, was good and therefore would not condemn tinbaptiscd infants to hell as sin was committed by those who could act on their own free will. Evil existed, but it was something to be overcome through willpower, which God had enabled his people to do so. Morality showed the way.” Jestis va’ the absolution that allowed humanity a chance to start over. A person like PelagitLswould have a difficult time understanding why anyone would want to complicate the matter by questioning the nature or source of good and evil because he had never wrestled with evil. Pclagius could not fundamentally understand Augustine’s development and thus latched onto the one thing he could obtain from it. in Gontëssions Augustine mentioned being a Manichec for nine years. Pelagius was dedicated to stamping out including Manicheism. lie cotild find nothing in Augustine’s autobiographical passages about his struggle with himself and his ensuing beliefs that did not sound suspiciously like remnants of Manicheism, and, as Pelagius had been doing all along, lie pointed out what he saw, As a quintessential siek-souled person, Augustine did not understand Pelagius’s blunt and simple refutation of his ow’nbeliefs, ones that clearly had sprung out of several i’cn’ painful episodes in his life. To Augustine doctrine was quite clear: Paul stated that original sin existed and was the ptirpose of Christ’s death. Augustine accepted that and with good reason - his entire faith rested on Paul, not Jestis. At the time of his conversion Augustine had spent more time studying Patil and the Psalms than any other part of the i3ible. The book that Acigusrine “picked up acid read” in the Garden in Milan wasa bound copy of Romans; lie had

,8 Rees, Pelagicis: 77ccRelcicrunrHei’ede, lo. “ Rees, Pekigius: The Rclc,ctantllei’edu, 10. Recs, Pelagicis: The Relucranr ilerede, 3S-36 Recs, Pehigitzs: The Reluctant Ileretje, 13. “Rees, Pehigius: The Reluctant here tic, 19.

Ex POST FACTO Terra Caidwell been reading it earlier that day. Throughout Augustine’sworks he quotes Patil more than any other author.’3 Paul was also a sick soul and, like Augustine, had experienced a dramatic conversion that completely changed his life. It is worth askingwhether Augustine assumed that conversions should follow Pauls pattern, and attempted to live up to the man he clearly idolized. In Galatians Paul wrote about his conversion but did not discuss it as explicitly as Bishop Athanasius described St. Antony’s in a separate tale. Augustine had heard St. Anton’s story perhaps an hotir before his conversion. Therefore a conversion resembling Paul’s that tised the same methodology as Antony’s hardly comes as a surprise. Certainly Atigustine vas primed to convert to Christianity.’4 All he needed was a push. In his work. l7zdenc tVilliam James describes the agony a sick soul goes throtigh prior to conversion: ‘[a] sense of incompleteness and iniperfection; brooding. depres.sion. morbid introspection, and sense of sirn ansiet about the hereafter; distress over doubts, and the like. ... the feeling of unwholeness.of moral imperfection, of sin ... accompanied by the \carning after the peace of unity.”'5Through an analysis of Augustine’sown words, he is easily identifiable as a’sick soul’. In Augustine’swork. Confessions,he declared that, ‘I was gnawing at my inner self. I was violently overcome by a fearful sense of shame.”’6and

Then in the middle of that grand struggle in nw inner hous,which I had vehemently stirred up with my sotil in the intimate chamber of m heart. distressed not only in mind but in appearance, I turned on Alypius and cried out: ‘What is wrong with tis? \Vhat is this that you have heard? Unedticatcd people are rising up and capturing heaven, and we with our high culture without any heart’ see where we roll in the mud of flesh and blood. Is it because they are ahead of us that we are ashamed to follow?’ iThis is the gist of what I said, and the heat of my passion took nw attention away from him as he contemplated my condition in astonished silence, for I sounded ;en’ strange. My uttered words said less about the state of my mind than myforehead, cheeks, eyes, color, and tone ofvoice.’

Augustine found relief tisrotigh conversion exactly the way a sick, dkided sotil with an active and developed subconsciotis wotild.° All in a flash ‘a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into [his] heart.”9 Thus Augustine bought his lne pearl, and it cost him everything he had previously treasured.30 One must qtLestionwhether his conversion would have sticceeded had his beloved concubine of fifteen years, who had also mothered his child, not been nvo years out of his life.3

‘3 In SL, for example, Atigustine quotes Paul 215 times, Psalms 37times, and all other hooks of the 01’ and NT. plus a few of his own works, 130 times. Of the Pauline qtiotes. 3are from pscudonyrnicbooks. ‘4Augtistine, Confessions,8:i8. ‘5 James, Variedcc,199, 201. Augustine, c’onfessions,145. ° Augustine, (onfessions, 8:19. ‘ James, t”iriedes, 198. ‘9Augustine. Confessions,8:29. ° Mart. 13:45.4(5, also Augustine. Confessions,8:2. ‘My heart which was deeplyattached was cut and wounded, and left a trail of blood.” Augustine. Confessions,6:25. Augustine could not marry her becatise her social standing was

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I Ic left his etirrent concubine and job and moved back to Africa. Unfominatelv, shordv after his conversionboth his mother and son died. Within a yearof his conversion Augustine had lost his cntire immediate family.

Do the Ends Justify the Means? Pclagius stated that all that was needed to find God’s grace was morality.Augustine knew from personal experience that this was not true. Neither of them was willingto admit that their religious experience tvas not the only viable one, and that the doctrines they had developed supported only their own personal experiences. From Augustine’s perspective, he had been incapable of converting to Christianity on his own, even after he knew’what Christianity meant and agreed with the doctrines. Willpower was not enough and PattI agreed w’ith him.3’ With his own experience and Scriptural testimony about the necessity of God’s grace to effect Salvation, Augttstinc knew’ he was correct. Pelagius, who had probably not experienced a dramatic conversion, believed that salvation simply required the sacrament of baptism once he or she was capable of sinning, and a moral life. Essentially, those who did not live moral lives did not belong in the Church. Pelagius set his bar rather high and in the process created a situation wherein ordinary sinners would be excluded from the ChlLreh because they were not moral enough. Pelagius’s ftee Christian w’ould have xiewed his religion as one in which self- control was of tantamount importance, while the afterlife was reduced to a reward or punishment system. Attgttstine’s piotts Christianity” cottld in theory belong to anyone, if he converted properly. Piousness, according to Augustine. was not the product of an individual act - it required a relationship tvith God that infuses this lifetime. it was a stibmission or stirrender. It was communal. Joralin was seen as delusional because in a moral system the ends were the means, and in that fashion God was excluded.33 I lowever, it is important to note that any religion that places its sole emphasis on faith in God as a means to achieving heaven denies morality any worth whatsoever, which has at times led to iniqtiities enacted in the name of God. in short, balance must be achieved between grace and morality. Neither man was able to agree that the other consideration held any clout, which resulted in Pelagius’s exeommtmication fi)r denying the grace of God. lie eventually ended up in Egypt, where he died of old age. Augustine took Paul’s ideas to extremes, codifying a doctrine in which God knew in advance who would be saved and who w’ouldnot, and endowed those to be saved with the grace to convert. All others w’eredamned. Conveniently Augustine was one of those predestined to be saved. ibis idea of predestination. w’hieh was relatively undeveloped when Pelagius took exception to it in Confessions, would probably have never developed had the Pelagian Controversy not occurred. Although the rclected .Atugtistine’scomplete doctrine of predestination, certain Protestant sects adopted it and used it to create societies in which financial sticeess eqtialcd God’s favor thus making chatit not only pointless, bitt also hamiful. Why go to such extremes? Augustine had lost everything. in return, he had a conversion experience that he wholeheartedly bought into becatise it provided him relief from

too low, but considering his and freedom to sleep with any lower class woman lie could find, his fidelity of 13 years speaks of great love and affection fur her. If they had married perhaps his life would have gone in another direction. 3’ Augustine, Cunfessions, $:ia. Atigustine qtlotes Romans 7:24-25. 33 Fricdrich Schleiermaeher, On Rehion: Speeches ro irs Cultured Despisers, (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994) 34 Some of the more dour Protestant sects, like , in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries followed this format.

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the guilt he felt over his lit,ido. That libido, alongwith his”iniquitous”childhood, had troubled him since adolescence. There must have been some explanation for his wickedness. Pelagius told him that there was no explanation for his wickedness, that he had chosen to be eviland that only by choosing to he good could he find heaven. lie could not accept that because, as he said, “the body obeyed the slightest inclination of the soul to move the limbs at its pleasure more easilythan the soul obeyed itself, when its stipreme desire cotild be achieved exclusivelyby the will alone. lie literally could not will himself into a close personal relationship with God, and from his perspective it must have seemed incredibly merciful when God reached out to him. Pelagius basically said Augustine was not worthy of his Christianity because he could not do it himself,and that the pearl he had won had nothing to do with the price he had paid. The proud Augustine hounded Pelagius for this until Pelagius was excommtinicated and dead, and then hammered his successor, the far more hostile and more able , until he himself died. To protect the Church from Pelagius’s (unintended) atheistic end-point and to protect himself from the invalidation of his own conversion. Augustine encoded the doctrine of original sin and developed predestination. At the time the Church reqturcd refutation of Pelagius’s beliefs the Church would have collapsed had both Jesus and God been removed as the means of salvation. In this fashion Pelagius did deserve the label “heretic,” despite his personal orthodoxy and impeccable Christology.37 I iowever, Pelagius believed he was simply trying to ensure that people behaved in a moral fashion, the way Scripture had told him God intended them to l,ehave. lie did not believe that evil could have such a profound influence and viewed anyopinion that it cotild as Manichcan in origin. I us intentions were proper, bitt he did not think his position through, and when his rror was explained o him he either did not understand or did not accept the warnings of others. In this fashion his actions led to his exile, excommunication, and his position as a hcresiarch. Augustine too disappoints in that he allowed his own personal feelings and influences to dictate to Christians for decades to come the existence of their own fitndamental wotinded sotils, creating a doctrine still in contention today. One can only specitlate as to how the world wotild be had Pelagius never read Atigustine’s autobiography.

Class issues most likelycatised Augustine’s “libido trouble.” lie was monogamotis whilewith his long-term concubine, lie loved her and he enjoyed sex, hut because he could not many her, the sexwas fornication. I iad he married her, he probably would not havethought of the sex as libidinous. Augustine. Confexsions,8:20. Rees, Pckzgius: The Relucrant heretic, 27.

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