05 — The Pelagian Controversy and Grace
The third and greatest controversy of Augustine’s life, and the heart of the contested Augustine: the long struggle (411–430) against Pelagius, Caelestius, and Julian of Eclanum over the necessity of grace, the reality of original sin, and the freedom of the fallen will — in which Augustine became the “Doctor of Grace” of the Latin West; and the late predestinarian works, in which his doctrine reached the form that has drawn the most sustained Eastern reservation. This section presents both the controversy and the Eastern objection in full, with named proponents on each side, per METHODOLOGY.md §4.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism West; “Blessed Augustine”)
Here the collection reaches the question on which the Eastern reception of Augustine most turns. Against Pelagius’s confidence in the unaided power of the will to fulfill God’s commands, Augustine defended the absolute necessity of grace and the wounding of human nature by the Fall — and the East stands with him against Pelagius. But in pressing the argument Augustine developed a doctrine of original sin as inherited guilt, of grace as irresistibly efficacious, and finally of a predestination of the elect (and, in some texts, of the reprobate) that the Greek tradition, holding to synergy and to a different reading of the Fall, did not follow. This section sets out the controversy and then, in its second file, the Eastern objection — fully and fairly, with synergy stated as the Church’s settled teaching, not one option among two.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Against Pelagius | The Pelagian controversy (411–430); Pelagius, Caelestius, and Julian of Eclanum; the necessity of grace; original sin and the massa damnata; the bondage and liberation of the will; the conciliar condemnations of Pelagianism (Carthage 418, Ephesus 431). |
| Predestination and the Eastern Objection | The late predestinarian works (On the Predestination of the Saints, On the Gift of Perseverance); the response of the Eastern monastic tradition (John Cassian) and of Vincent of Lérins; the central point of Eastern reserve, presented in full with named scholars, the Church’s teaching of synergy stated as settled. |
See Also
- Against the Manichees — the early defense of free will the grace controversy qualified
- The Garden at Milan — the bound and liberated will of the Confessions
- St. John Cassian — the Eastern monastic answer to the late Augustine
- St. Vincent of Lérins — the Lérins critic of Augustinian novelty
- Ancestral vs Original Sin — the East–West divergence on the Fall
- Soteriology — grace and synergy in the Orthodox tradition
References
- Augustine of Hippo. Anti-Pelagian Writings. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 5. 1887.
- Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. New ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
- Demacopoulos, George E., and Aristotle Papanikolaou, eds. Orthodox Readings of Augustine. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008.