§ 47.21. Pelagians and semi-Pelagians.

  1. Pelagius, a British monk, the originator of the heresy named after him (§ [53, 3], [4]), left behind a considerable number of writings, of which, however, for the most part we have now only fragments in the works of his opponents. References in Augustine, Marius Mercator, and others show that to him belong the Lb. xiv. Expositionum in Epistt. Pauli, which have been ascribed to Jerome and included among his works, scholia-like explanations with good sound grammatico-historical exegesis. The wish to make this useable and safe for the Catholic church led at an early date to various omissions and alterations in it. Afterwards its heretical origin was forgotten which notwithstanding the purifying referred to is still quite discernible. Two epistles addressed to Roman ladies recommending virginity have also got a place among the works of Jerome.—Julianus, bishop of Eclanum in Italy, is the only one among the followers of Pelagius who can be regarded as of scientific importance. He was an acute but frivolous and vulgar opponent of Augustine, whom he honoured with the epithets amentissimus et bardissimus (comp. § [53, 4]).
  2. At the head of the semi-Pelagians or Massilians stands:
    1. Johannes Cassianus. Gennadius designates him as natione Scythus; but he received his early education in a monastery at Bethlehem. He then undertook a journey in company with the abbot to visit the Egyptian monks, stayed next for a long time with Chrysostom at Constantinople, and after his banishment resided some years in Rome, and finally in A.D. 415 settled down at Massilia (Marseilles), where he established a monastery and a nunnery, and organised both after the Eastern model. He died about A.D. 432. His writings were held in high esteem throughout the Middle Ages. In the De institutis Cœnobiorum he describes the manner of life of the Palestinian and Egyptian monks, and then treats of the eight vices to which the monks were specially exposed. The 24 Collationes Patrum report the conversations which he had with the Eastern monks and hermits about the ways and means of attaining Christian perfection. The 13th Collatio is, without naming him, directed against Augustine’s doctrine, and develops semi-Pelagian Synergism (§ [53, 5]). Both writings, however are certainly calculated to serve the development of his own monkish ideal as well as his own dogmatic and ethical views, rather then to afford a historically faithful representation of the life and thinking of oriental monasticism of that time. The 7 bks. De incarnatione Christi combat not only Nestorianism but also Pelagianism as in its consequences derogatory to the divinity of Christ.
    2. Vincentius [Vincent] Lerinensis, monk in the Gallic monastery of Lerinum, was Cassianus’ most distinguished disciple. He died about A.D. 450. On his often printed Commonitorium pro cath. fidei antiquit. et universit., comp. § [53, 5].
    3. Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, left behind him several ascetical works (De laude eremi; De contemtu mundi), Homilies, and a Liber formularum spiritualis intelligentiæ as guide to the mystico-allegorical interpretation of Scripture. He died about A.D. 450.
    4. Salvianus, presbyter at Marseilles, was in his earlier days married to a heathen woman whom he converted, and with her took the vow of continency. He died about A.D. 485. He wrote Adv. avaritiam Lb. iv., in which the support of the poor and surrender of property to the church for pious uses are recommended as means of furthering the salvation of one’s own soul. In consequence of the oppression of the times during the convulsions of the migration of the peoples and the reproach of the heathen again loudly raised that the weakness of the Roman empire was occasioned by the introduction of Christianity, he wrote De providentia s. de gubernatione Dei et de justo præsentique judicio, Lb. viii., which in rhetorical and flowery language depicted the dreadful moral condition of the Roman world of that day.
    5. Faustus of Rhegium, now Riez in Provence, in his earlier years an advocate, then monk and abbot of the cloister of Lerinum, and finally bishop of Rhegium, was the head of the Gallic semi-Pelagians of his times. In his writings he stated this doctrine in a moderate form. He died in A.D. 493.
    6. Arnobius the Younger, the contemporary and fellow-countryman of Faustus, wrote a very important work entitled Prædestinatus, which in a very thorough and elaborate manner contests the doctrines of Augustine. Comp. § [53, 5].

§ 47.22. The Most Important Church Teachers among the Roman Popes.

  1. Leo the Great occupied the papal chair from A.D. 440 to A.D. 461. While but a deacon he was the most distinguished personage in Rome. On assuming the bishopric he gave the whole powers of his mind to the administration of his office in all directions. By the energy and consistency with which he carried out the idea of the Roman primacy, he became the virtual founder of the spiritual sovereignty of Rome. With a strong arm he guided the helm of the church, reformed and organized on every side, settled order and discipline, defended orthodoxy, contended against heretics (Manichæans, Priscillianists, Pelagians, Eutychians), and appeased the barbarians (Attila). Of his writings we have 96 Sermones and 173 Epistles, which last are of the utmost importance for the church history of his times. He is also supposed to be the author of a talented work De vocatione Gentium (§ [53, 5]).
  2. Gelasius I., A.D. 492 to A.D. 496, left behind him a treatise Adv. hæresin Pelagianem, another De duabus in Christo naturis, and a work against the observance of the Lupercalia which some prominent Romans wished to have continued. He also wrote 18 Decretals. The celebrated Decretum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis, in a sense the oldest Index prohibitorum, is ascribed to him. The first section, wanting in the best MSS., contains a biblical canon corresponding to that of the Synod of Hippo, A.D. 393 (§ [59, 1]); the second section treats of the pre-eminence of the Church of Rome granted by our Lord Himself in the person of Peter; the third enumerates the œcumenical Councils; and the fourth, the writings of the fathers received by the Roman Church; the Chronicle and Church History of Eusebius are found fault with (quod tepuerit) but not rejected; in respect to the writings of Origen and Rufinus the opinion of Jerome is approved. The fifth section gives a list of books not to be received—the New Testament Apocrypha, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, Cassianus, Faustus of Rhegium, etc.
  3. Gregory the Great, A.D. 590 to A.D. 604, born in Rome about A.D. 540, sprung from a distinguished old Roman family, held about A.D. 574 the office of city prefect, after his father’s death founded on his inherited estates, six monasteries, and himself withdrew into a seventh, which he built in Rome.Ordained deacon against his will in A.D. 579, he was entrusted with the important and difficult office of a papal apocrisiarius in Constantinople, and was constrained in A.D. 590, after a long persisted-in refusal, to mount the papal chair, which obliged him to abandon the long-cherished plan of his life, the preaching of the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons (§ [77, 4]). Gregory united a rare power and energy of will with real mildness and gentleness of character, deep humility and genuine piety with the full consciousness of his position as a successor of Peter, insight, circumspection, yea even an unexpected measure of liberal-mindedness (comp. e.g. § [57, 4]; [75, 3]) with all monkish narrowness and stiff adherence to the traditional forms, doctrines and views of the Roman Church. He himself lived in extremest poverty and simplicity according to the strictest monastic asceticism, and applied all that he possessed and received to the support of the poor and the help of the needy. It was a hard time in which he lived, the age of the birth throes of a new epoch of the world’s history. There is therefore much cause to thank the good providence which set such a man as spiritual father, teacher and pastor at the head of the Western Church. He took special interest in fostering monasticism and such-like institutions, which were, indeed, most conducive to the well-being of the world, for during this dangerous period of convulsion, monasticism was almost the only nursery of intellectual culture. The Roman Catholic church ranks him as the last of the Fathers, and places him alongside of Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, the four greatest teachers of the church, Doctores ecclesiæ, whose writings have been long reverenced as the purest and most complete vehicles of the Catholic tradition. Among the Greeks a similar position is given to Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen and Chrysostom. The rank thus assigned to Gregory is justifiable inasmuch as in him the formation and malformation of doctrine, worship, discipline and constitution peculiar to the ancient church are gathered up, completed and closed. His most complete work is the Expositio in b. Jobum s. Moralium, Ll. xxxv., (Engl. transl., Lib. of Fath., 3 vols., Oxf., 1844-1850) which, by dragging in all possible relations of life which an allegorical interpretation can furnish, is expanded into a repertory of moral reflections. His Regula pastoralis s. Liber curæ pastoralis obtained in the West a position of almost canonical authority. In his “Dialogues,” of which the first three books treat “de vita et miraculis Patrum Italicorum,” and the 4th book mostly of visionary views of the hereafter (heaven, hell and purgatory), “de æternitate animarum,” we meet with a very singular display of the most uncritical credulousness and the most curious superstition. Besides these we have from him Homilies on Ezekiel and the Gospels, as well as a voluminous correspondence in 880 Epistles of great importance for the history of the age. To Gregory also is attributed the oft quoted saying which compares holy scripture to a stream in quo agnus peditat et elephas natat.

§ 47.23. The Conservators and Continuators of Patristic Culture.

  1. Boëthius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus, was descended from a distinguished Roman family, and stood high in favour with the Ostrogoth Arian king Theodoric. Accused, however, by his enemies of treasonable correspondence with the Byzantine court, he was, after a long imprisonment, condemned unheard and executed, A.D. 525. In prison he composed the celebrated treatise, De consolatione philosophiæ, which, written in pure and noble language, was the favourite book of the Latin Middle Ages, and was translated into all European languages: first of all by Alfred the Great into Anglo-Saxon, and often reprinted in its original form. The book owed its great popularity to the mediæval tradition which made its author a martyr for the Catholic faith under Arian persecution; but modern criticism has sought to prove that in all probability he was not even a Christian. Still more decidedly the theological writings on the Trinity and the Two Natures of Christ bearing his name are repudiated as irreconcileable with the contents and character of the De consolatione; though, on the other hand, their authenticity has again found several most capable defenders. Finally, Usener has conclusively, as it seems, in a newly discovered fragment of Cassiodorus, brought forward a quite incontestable witness for their authenticity. In any case Boëthius did great service in preserving the continuity of Western culture by his hearty encouragement and careful prosecution of classical studies at a time when these were threatened with utter neglect. Of special importance was his translation of a commentary on the logical works of Aristotle as the first and for a long time almost the only philosophical groundwork of mediæval scholasticism (§ [99, 2]).
  2. Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, surnamed Senator, belonged to Southern Italy and held the highest civil offices under Odoacer and Theodoric for fifty years. About A.D. 540, he retired to the cloister of Vivarium founded by him in Southern Italy, and devoted the rest of his life to the sciences and the instruction of the monks. He collected a great library in his monastery, and employed the monks in transcribing classical and patristic writings. He died about A.D. 575 when almost a hundred years old. His own writings show indeed no independence and originality, but are all the more important as concentrated collections of classical and patristic learning for the later Latin Middle Ages. His twelve books of the History of the Goths have come down only in the condensed reproduction of Jordanes or Jornandes. His twelve books Variarum (sc. epistolarum et formularum), which consist of a collection of acts and ordinances of the period of his civil service, are important for the history of his age. His Historia ecclest. tripartita (§ [5, 1]), was for many centuries almost the only text book of church history, and his Institutiones divinarum et sæcularum litterarum had a similar position as a guide to the study of theology and the seven liberal arts (§ [90, 8]). Also his commentary on the Psalms and the most of the books of the New Testament, made up of compilations, was held in high esteem.
  3. Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian by birth, who became a Roman abbot, and died about A.D. 566, may also be placed in this group. He translated many Greek patristic writings, by his Cyclus paschalis became founder of the Western reckoning of Easter (§ [56, 3]), and also the more universally adopted so-called Dionysian era. By his Codex Canonum he is also the founder of the Western system of Canon Law (§ [43, 3]).
§ 48. Branches of Theological Science and Christian Poetry.

§ 48.1. Exegetical Theology.—Nothing was done in the way of criticism of the original biblical text. Even Jerome was only a translator. For the Old Testament the LXX. sufficed, and the divergences of the Hebrew text were explained as Jewish alterations. Hebrew was a terra incognita to the fathers, Polychronius and Jerome only are notable exceptions. The allegorical method of interpretation was and continued to be the prevalent one. The Antiocheans, however, put limits to it by their theory and practice of the right of historico-grammatical interpretation. Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia contested the principles of Origen, while Gregory of Nyssa in his Proemium in Cant. undertook their defence. The first attempt at a system of Hermeneutics was made by the learned Donatist Tychonius in his book the Regulæ vii. ad investigandam intelligentiam ss. Scr. More profound is Augustine’s De Doctrina Chr. The Εἰσαγωγὴ τῆς θείας γραφῆς of the Greek Adrianus with its opposition to the immoderate allegorizing that then prevailed, deserves mention here. Jerome contributed to biblical Introduction by his various Proœmia. The first attempt at a scientific introduction to biblical study (isagogical and biblico-theological in the form of question and answer), is met with in the 2 bks. Instituta regularia div. legis of the African Junilius, a prominent courtier at Constantinople, about A.D. 550. There is a Latin rendering made by Junilius at the request of Primasius, bishop of Adrumetum, of a treatise composed originally in Syriac, by Paul the Persian, teacher of the Nestorian seminary at Nisibis, which he had collected from the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia, for the purposes of instruction. The title Departibus div. legis, usually given to the whole, properly belongs only to the first part of the treatise. A more popular guide is Cassiodorus’ Institutio divinarum litt. Some contributions were made to biblical archaeology by Eusebius and Epiphanius. Of the allegorical Exegetes of the East, the most productive was Cyril of Alexandria. The Antiochean school produced a whole series of able expositors of the grammatico-historical sense of scripture. In the commentaries of Chrysostom and Ephraem [Ephraim] the Syrian, that method of interpretation is applied in a directly practical interest. The Westerns Hilary, Ambrose, Ambrosiaster, Jerome and Augustine, as well as their later imitators, all allegorize; yet Jerome also applied himself very diligently to the elucidation of the grammatical sense. Only Pelagius is content to rest in the plain literal meaning of scripture. From the 6th century, almost all independent work in the department of exegesis ceased. We have from this time only Catenæ, collections of passages from commentaries and homilies of distinguished fathers. The first Greek writer of Catenæ, was Procopius of Gaza, in the 6th century; and the first Latin writer of these was Primasius of Adrumetum, about A.D. 560.

§ 48.2. Historical Theology.—The writing of Church history flourished especially during the 4th and 5th centuries (§ [5, 1]).For the history of heresies we have Epiphanius, Theodoret, Leontius of Byzantium; and among the Latins, Augustine, Philastrius [Philaster], and the author of Prædestinatus (§ [47, 21f]). There are numerous biographies of distinguished fathers. On these compare the so-called Liber pontificalis, see § [90, 6]. Jerome laid the foundation of a history of theological literature in a series of biographies, and Gennadius of Massilia continued this work. With special reference to monkish history, we have among the Greeks, Palladius, Theodoret and Joh. Moschus; and among the Latins, Rufinus, Jerome, Gregory the Great and Gregory of Tours (§ [90, 2]). Of great importance for ecclesiastical statistics is the Τοπογραφία χριστιανική in 12 bks., whose author Cosmas Indicopleustes, monk in the Sinai peninsula about A.D. 540, had in his earlier years as an Alexandrian merchant travelled much in the East. The connection of biblical and profane history is treated of in the Chronicle of Eusebius. Orosius too treats of profane history from the Christian standpoint. The Hist. persecutionis Vandalorum (§ [76, 3]), of Victor, bishop of Vita in Africa, about A.D. 487, is of great value for the church history of Africa. For chronology the so-called Chronicon paschale, in the Greek language, is of great importance. It is the work of two unknown authors; the work of the one reaching down to A.D. 354, that of the other, down to A.D. 630. These chronological tables obtained their name from the fact that the Easter cycles and indictions are always carefully determined in them.

§ 48.3. Systematic Theology.