Pelagianism in the Christian Sources from 431 to the Carolingian Period (I) 16:00 - 18:30 Thursday, 22nd August, 2019 Room 6 Presentation type Workshop [No author data]
Discussant: Victoria Escribano Paño It is generally assumed that the anti-Pelagian pronouncements by Popes Innocent I (416) and Zosimus (418), the council of Carthage of 1 May 418, and Emperor Honorius (418) set down, once and for all, the boundaries between the “Imperial-Catholic orthodoxy” and the “Pelagian heterodoxy”. Yet, there is enough evidence that long after 418, and even after 431 (Council of Ephesus), these boundaries remained a matter of discussion. Although fully integrated into the Christian heresiological discourse, “Pelagianism” remained a shifting concept employed to denigrate and to exclude from Christianity a wide range of practices and beliefs, some (but not all) of them related to the doctrinal issues discussed between 411-431.
This workshop aims at analyzing the presence of Pelagian themes and the uses of the heresiological category of “Pelagianism” in the Western and Eastern Christian sources from between c. 431 and the Carolingian period.
289 Honorius, Flavius Constantius and anti-Pelagian legislation (418)
M. Victoria Escribano University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain
Abstract
On April 30 418, Honorius issued a law by which Pelagius and Caelestius were expelled from Rome as capites of an execrating dogma (ut pulsis ex urbe primitus capitibus dogmatis exsecrandi Caelestio et Pelagio). The followers of the impia commentatio, if they persisted in their deviation, had to be brought before a judge and, if found guilty, punished with deportatio. This law, the first among anti-Pelagian laws, was addressed to the Italian Praetorian prefect Palladius and has been transmitted in the Collectio Quesnelliana (Coll. Quesnell. 14). The same collectio has preserved the edict that implemented the imperial order (Coll. Quesnell, 15). The debate has focused preferentially around the causes of Honorius'' legislative intervention and less attention has been paid to its consequences. This paper analyzes therefore the forms assumed by the enforcement of Honorius'' law and the legislative dynamics that caused the intervention of imperial officials in this implementation. For this purpose, special attention will be paid, on the one hand, to the letter of Flavius Constantius to the urban prefect Volusianus (Coll. Quesnell, 19), probably dating from the autumn of 418, and to the edict of publication of the aforementioned letter by Volusian (Coll. Quesnell, 20). 287 Pélage, Célestius et la controverse pélagienne dans les sermons de Léon le Grand à Grégoire le Grand
Ribreau Mickael Universite Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France
Abstract
Il s’agit d’examiner si Pélage, Célestius, ou plus largement les enjeux de la controverse pélagienne sont explicitement mentionnés dans les sermons de Léon le Grand, Quodvutdeus de Carthage, Eusèbe Gallican, Césaire d'Arles et Grégoire le Grand. Il s’avère que chez Césaire d’Arles et Léon le Grand il n’y a aucune mention explicite, ce qui peut surprendre, alors même que les deux auteurs présentent une vision de la grâce toute augustinienne. L’absence de mention de l’adversaire tend à dépolémiser les conceptions augustiniennes. En revanche chez Eusèbe Gallican, Grégoire le Grand ou Quodvultdeus de Carthage Pélage, voire Célestius, sont mentionnés. Pourquoi ces différents auteurs se réfèrent-ils à une polémique ancienne, en particulier à l’époque de Grégoire le Grand ? Les réponses dépendent des différents auteurs. Chez Quodvultdeus, la mention de Pélage permet à l’évêque de s’inscrire dans les pas de l’évêque d’Hippone et de se forger un éthos augustinien qui assure sa légitimité face aux ariens au pouvoir. De même, pour Grégoire le Grand, il s’agit, face à un public lettré, de se présenter comme le successeur d’Augustin. La question est plus complexe pour Eusèbe Gallican. Sans doute le texte s’adresse-t-il à des clercs, avertis de ces questions doctrinales. Cependant l’étude de la grâce dans les sermons d’Eusèbe Gallican montre un éloignement de la doctrine augustinienne et une proximité nette avec celle de Fauste de Riez, qui pourrait être l’auteur de ces sermons. 214 A List of Augustine’s Anti-Pelagian Works by Prosper of Aquitaine (c. coll. 21.3)
Jérémy Delmulle Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes, Paris, France
Abstract
In his treatise Contra collatorem (c. coll. 21.3), published in 432/3 AD, Prosper of Aquitaine lists ten anti- Pelagian works written by Augustine, which he advises his adversaries and other readers to turn to, in order to better understand the unity and continuity of Augustine’s thinking on grace, free will and predestination. The aim of the present paper is to try to understand what guided Prosper in the choice of these ten titles and what his knowledge of this anti-Pelagian corpus might have been. By comparing the Contra collatorem list with the other lists of Augustine’s anti-Pelagian works already available at the same time (in Augustine’s Retractationes or Possidius of Calama’s Indiculus) and by taking a look at Prosper’s many direct sources, it can be argued that Prosper had a first-hand knowledge of all the works he cited. Did this anti-Pelagian corpus already exist as such before Prosper, or did Prosper forge it himself? Even if this list seems to have had almost no impact after Prosper’s time, it certainly provides a very valuable testimony with regard to the question of the first diffusion of Augustine’s works in the years immediately following the death of the bishop of Hippo. 235 ‘I cut its neck with its own sword’: tradition, subversion and heresiological authority in the Praedestinatus
Richard Flower University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
Abstract
The anonymous Praedestinatus is a fifth-century Latin text sometimes attributed to Arnobius the Younger. Written soon after the death of Augustine of Hippo, it presents a response to that bishop’s views on predestination, which are ostensibly disassociated from him and presented as the work of an imposter writing under his name. Augustine’s position is labelled as the heresy of the ‘Praedestinati’, who become the ninetieth and final sect in the heresiology that comprises the first book of the Praedestinatus. This article explores how the author of this work weaves a very particular account of the history of the Church and its battle against heresy in order to position himself and his theological allies as the heirs and defenders of this orthodox legacy. Moreover, it also considers the text’s subversive engagement with heresiology, especially Augustine’s own De haeresibus, as a means of classifying and combatting religious deviance and a tool for constructing personal authority. Through close analysis of the Praedestinatus’ rhetoric and reworking of its sources, this article argues that the text is not simply a deceitful confection of plagiarism and invention. Instead it can be read as a clever manipulation of the growing phenomenon of heresiological literature and an attempt by the author to challenge the authority of his predecessors and arrogate it to himself.