yr suffering for the
declaration of truths which were not appreciated,--like Socrates at
Athens, or Savonarola at Florence. In support of all these doctrines,
so different from those of Paul, he appealed, not to the apostle's
authority, but to human reason, and sought the aid of Pagan philosophy,
rather than the Scriptures, to arrive at truth.

Thus was Pelagius represented by his opponents, who may have exaggerated
his heresies, and have pushed his doctrines to a logical sequence which
he would not accept but would even repel, in the same manner as the
Pelagians drew deductions from the teachings of Augustine which were
exceedingly unfair,--making God the author of sin, and election to
salvation to depend on the foreseen conduct of men in regard to an
obedience which they had no power to perform.

But whether Pelagius did or did not hold all the doctrines of which he
was accused, it is certain that the spirit of them was antagonistic to
the teachings of Paul, as understood by Augustine, who felt that the
very foundations of Christianity were assailed,--as Athanasius regarded
the doctrines of Arius. So he came to the rescue, not of the Catholic
Church, for Pelagius belonged to it as well as he, but to the rescue of
Christian theology. The doctrines of Pelagius were becoming fashionable
and prevalent in many parts of the Empire. Even the Pope at one time
favored them. They might spread until they should be embraced by the
whole Catholic world, for Augustine believed in the vitality of error as
well as in the vitality of truth,--of the natural and inevitable
tendency of society towards Paganism, without the especial and
restraining grace of God. He armed himself for the great conflict with
the infidelity of his day, not with David's sling, but Goliath's sword.
He used the same weapons as his antagonist, even the arms of reason and
knowledge, and constructed an argument which was overwhelming, if Paul's
Epistles were to be the accepted premises of his irresistible logic.
Great as was Pelagius, Augustine was a far greater man,--broader,
deeper, more learned, more logical, more eloquent, more intense. He was
raised up to demolish, with the very reason he professed to disdain, the
sophistries and dogmas of one of the most dangerous enemies which the
Church had ever known,--to leave to posterity his logic and his
conclusions when similar enemies of his faith should rise up in future
ages. He furnished a thesaurus not merely t