te: The Pelagian controversy].

[Sidenote: Effect of Pelagianism on papal superiority.]

Pelagius was the assumed name of a British monk, who, about the first of
those dates, passed through Western Europe and Northern Africa, teaching
the doctrines that Adam was by nature mortal, and that, if he had not
sinned, he nevertheless would have died; that the consequences of his
sin were confined to himself, and did not affect his posterity; that
new-born infants are in the same condition as Adam before his fall; that
we are at birth as pure as he was; that we sin by our own free will,
and in the same manner may reform, and thereby work out our own
salvation; that the grace of God is given according to our merits. He
was repelled from Africa by the influence of St. Augustine, and
denounced in Palestine from the cell of Jerome. He specially insisted on
this, that it is not the mere act of baptizing by water that washes away
sin, sin can only be removed by good works. Infants are baptized before
it is possible that they could have sinned. On the contrary, Augustine
resisted these doctrines, resting himself on the words of Scripture that
baptism is for the remission of sins. The case of children compelled
that father to introduce the doctrine of original sin as derived from
Adam, notwithstanding the dreadful consequences if they die unbaptized.
In like manner also followed the doctrines of predestination, grace,
atonement.

Summoned before a synod at Diospolis, Pelagius was unexpectedly
acquitted of heresy--an extraordinary decision, which brought Africa and
the East into conflict. Under these circumstances, perhaps without a
clear foresight of the issue, the matter was referred to Rome as arbiter
or judge.

[Sidenote: Settlement of the Pelagian question by the Africans.]

In his decision, Innocent I., magnifying the dignity of the Roman see
and the advantage of such a supreme tribunal, determined in favour of
the African bishops. But scarcely had he done this when he died, and his
successor, Zosimus, annulled his judgment, and declared the opinions of
Pelagius to be orthodox. Carthage now put herself in an attitude of
resistance. There was danger of a metaphysical or theological Punic war.
Meantime the wily Africans quietly procured from the emperor an edict
denouncing Pelagius as a heretic. Through the influence of Count
Valerius the faith of Europe was settled; the heresiarchs and their
accomplices were condemned to exile