Chap. X. How, in the reign of Arcadius, Pelagius, a Briton, insolently impugned the Grace of God
Bede · Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England · 14 of 145
Chap. X. How, in the reign of Arcadius, Pelagius, a Briton, insolently impugned the Grace of God.
In the year of our Lord 394,63 Arcadius, the son of Theodosius, the forty-third from Augustus, succeeding to the empire, with his brother Honorius, held it thirteen years. In his time, Pelagius,64 a Briton, spread far and near the infection of his perfidious doctrine, denying the assistance of the Divine grace, being seconded therein by his associate Julianus of Campania,65 who was impelled by an uncontrolled desire to recover his bishopric, of which he had been deprived. St. Augustine, and the other orthodox fathers, quoted many thousand catholic authorities against them, but failed to amend their folly; nay, more, their madness being rebuked was rather increased by contradiction than suffered by them to be purified through adherence to the truth; which Prosper, the rhetorician,66 has beautifully expressed thus in heroic67 verse:—
They tell that one, erewhile consumed with gnawing spite, snake-like attacked Augustine in his writings. Who urged the wretched viper to raise from the ground his head, howsoever hidden in dens of darkness? Either the sea-girt Britons reared him with the fruit of their soil, or fed on Campanian pastures his heart swells with pride.Reading 14 of 145
Chap. X. How, in the reign of Arcadius, Pelagius, a Briton, insolently impugned the Grace of God · this device only