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Pelagius's Interpretation of Romans Thomas P. Scheck 1. Introduction

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Pelagius's Interpretation of Romans Thomas P. Scheck 1. Introduction Pelagius’s INTERPRETATION OF ROMANS Thomas P. Scheck 1. Introduction Pelagius’s Commentary on Romans (CRm) is his longest extant work.1 It was completed in Rome before 410 and was referred to by St. Augustine in 412.2 After reading Pelagius’s work on Romans, Augustine described Pela- gius as a “distinguished Christian man” (vir ille tam egregie Christianus) and a “highly advanced Christian” (non parvo provectu Christianus).3 He did not give Pelagius his unqualified support, however, but registered an objection to Pelagius’s interpretation of Rom 5.12, saying that Pelagius made use of an argument that is used by those who deny that infants are burdened by original sin. On the whole though it does not seem that Augustine’s early criticism of Pelagius’s CRm was very severe. Later on in his career, of course, the bishop of Hippo would polemically label Pelagius “the enemy of God’s grace” and turn him into a symbol of autonomous humanism that entirely excludes the contribution of divine grace from human salvation. Some forms of hyper-Augustinian theology even claim that any attempt to affirm the meaningful role of human free choice in the process of salvation is really a covert attempt to introduce “Pelagianism” or “Semi-Pelagianism” into Christian theology.4 It is the lat- ter seriously misleading caricature that still exerts a broad popular influ- ence today. This situation obtains in spite of the fact that new light on Pelagius’s theological traditionalism has been shed in modern times as a result of more careful and objective historical research.5 1 All Latin citations of it are taken from Souter’s edition: Pelagius’s Expositions of Thir- teen Epistles of St Paul. Texts and Studies 9 (Cambridge, 1922–31). 3 vols: I: Introduction (1922); II: Text and Critical Apparatus (1926); III: Pseudo-Jerome Interpolations (1931). 2 Cf. Souter, Expositions, I, p. 4; Augustine, De Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione 3.1 (PL 44:186). 3 De Pecc. Mer. 3.6; 3.1 (PL 44:192,186). 4 A good example of this perspective is found in J. I. Packer’s Introduction to Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will: The Masterwork of the Great Reformer trans. J. I. Packer, O. R. Johnston (Old Tappan, N.J. 1957). 5 See Robert F. Evans, Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals (New York, 1968); J. Fergu- son, Pelagius (Cambridge, 1956). 80 thomas p. scheck An important result of the modern reappraisal of Pelagius’s theology has been a more sympathetic assessment of his theology and doctrine of grace and the recognition of its deep rootedness in the antecedent Greek theologians. On the other hand, even the “new perspective” on Pelagius does not contest Augustine’s most fundamental concern, that Pelagius’s understanding of original sin is one-sided and defective. Bonner says that the clue to Pelagius’s orthodoxy or heresy lies not so much in his concept of grace as in the matter of the baptism of infants for the remission of sins.6 Pelagius thought that the Church baptized infants not for the remis- sion of their sins, but for the sake of their obtaining a higher sanctifica- tion through union with Christ. In other words, he denied the inherited transmission of sin from Adam to Adam’s posterity. However, Pelagius’s doctrine of grace, free will and predestination, as represented in his Com- mentary on Romans, has very strong links with Eastern (Greek) theology and, for the most part, these doctrines are no more reproachable than those of orthodox Greek theologians such as Origen and John Chrysos- tom, and of St. Jerome.7 My aim in this chapter is to examine some of the principal themes and insights of Pelagius’s Commentary on Romans and attempt to identify in particular his relationship to the antecedent exegetical tradition, to Ori- gen, above all. But before we consider Pelagius’s interpretation of Romans, it is necessary in the first place very briefly to summarize his career, to offer historically accurate definitions of “Pelagianism” and “semi-Pelagian- ism,” and to discuss the evolution of St. Augustine’s doctrine of operative grace. The latter two preliminary tasks are essential because there is a strong tendency even in modern scholarship to employ the terms Pela- gianism and Semi-Pelagianism imprecisely and inaccurately. For example, in a recent book on Erasmus, the authors define “Pelagian” in a Glossary of Theological Terms as: “Pertaining to the teaching of Pelagius, a fifth- century British monk, who denied man’s total depravity; usually associated in the sixteenth century with a belief that man has Free Will to contribute 6 Gerald Bonner, “How Pelagian was Pelagius? An Examination of the Contentions of Torgny Bohlin.” Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 94 (1966), pp. 357–58. 7 I include Origen among the orthodox on the subject of free will and grace because his views were largely assimilated by Western theologians such as Rufinus, Cassian and Jerome and eastern theologians such as the Cappadocians. Cf. H. Crouzel, “Theological Construction and Research: Origen on Free-Will;” in Scripture, Tradition and Reason: A Study in the Criteria of Christian Doctrine. Essays in Honor of R. P. C. Hanson, eds. R. Bauck- ham, B. Drewery (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988), pp. 239–65..
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