philosophy in Alexandria, so came to an untimely close
the learning that the Ptolemies had done so much to promote. The
"Daughter Library," that of the Serapion, had been dispersed. The fate
of Hypatia was a warning to all who would cultivate profane knowledge.
Henceforth there was to be no freedom for human thought. Every one must
think as the ecclesiastical authority ordered him, A.D. 414. In Athens
itself philosophy awaited its doom. Justinian at length prohibited its
teaching, and caused all its schools in that city to be closed.

PELAGIUS. While these events were transpiring in the Eastern provinces
of the Roman Empire, the spirit that had produced them was displaying
itself in the West. A British monk, who had assumed the name of
Pelagius, passed through Western Europe and Northern Africa, teaching
that death was not introduced into the world by the sin of Adam; that
on the contrary he was necessarily and by nature mortal, and had he not
sinned he would nevertheless have died; that the consequences of his
sins were confined to himself, and did not affect his posterity. From
these premises Pelagius drew certain important theological conclusions.

At Rome, Pelagius had been received with favor; at Carthage, at the
instigation of St. Augustine, he was denounced. By a synod, held at
Diospolis, he was acquitted of heresy, but, on referring the matter to
the Bishop of Rome, Innocent I., he was, on the contrary, condemned. It
happened that at this moment Innocent died, and his successor, Zosimus,
annulled his judgment and declared the opinions of Pelagius to be
orthodox. These contradictory decisions are still often referred to
by the opponents of papal infallibility. Things were in this state of
confusion, when the wily African bishops, through the influence of Count
Valerius, procured from the emperor an edict denouncing Pelagins as
a heretic; he and his accomplices were condemned to exile and the
forfeiture of their goods. To affirm that death was in the world before
the fall of Adam, was a state crime.

CONDEMNATION OF PELAGIUS. It is very instructive to consider the
principles on which this strange decision was founded. Since the
question was purely philosophical, one might suppose that it would
have been discussed on natural principles; instead of that, theological
considerations alone were adduced. The attentive reader will have
remarked, in Tertullian's statement of the principles of Christianity,
a complete a