A new history of ecclesiastical writers containing an account of the authors of the several books of the Old and New Testament, of the lives and writings of the primitive fathers, an abridgement and catalogue of their works ... also a compendious history of the councils, with chronological tables of the whole / written in French by Lewis Ellies du Pin.

PELAGIUS.

PELAGIUS, an English Monk, a 1.1 Rufinus's Disciple, Head of the Heresy called by his * 1.2 Name, hath his place amongst Ecclesiastical Authors, because of some Books that he hath written, of which we have spoken already. His Treatises are a Commentary upon S. Paul's E∣pistles b 1.3, attributed to S. Jerom c 1.4. The Letter to Demetrias d 1.5 and some others, in the last Volume of S. Jerom's Works. A Treatise concerning the power of Nature, refuted by S. Au∣gustin in the Book of Nature and of Grace. Several Books about Free-Will; part whereof S. Au∣gustin refuteth in the Book of the Grace of Jesus Christ; and a Confession of Faith, directed to Pope Innocent e 1.6 which is in S. Jerom, in S. Augustin, and in the second Volume of Councils of the last Edition, pag. 1563. This Author's Style is dry, flat, and barren. He was not learned, but he was a Man of good Sence: His Reflections are short and judicious.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Pelagius, an English Monk.] S. Augustin, Ep. 106. Marius Mercator, S. Prosper in his Chroni∣con, and in the Poem of ungrateful Men, call him Britonem, or Britannum. S. Augustin in several places gives him the Quality of Monk. He was of the Monastery of Bangor in England, not in Ireland. He began to publish his Error in Rome towards the latter end of the fourth Century, if Marius Mercator may be believed.
• * 1.2

  Pelagius.
• b 1.3

  A Commentary upon S. Paul's Epistles.] S. Augustin and Marius Mercator speak of his Com∣mentaries, and the latter observes that he compo∣sed them before the taking of Rome, which hap∣pened in the year 410.
• c 1.4

  Attributed to S. Jerom.] Some question whether this Commentary be the same which S. Augustin quoteth under Pelagius his Name. 1. Be∣cause that among S. Ambrose's Works there is also a Pelagian Commentary upon S. Paul's Epistles. 2. Because all the passages cited by S. Augustin out of Pelagius's Commentaries are not to be found there, or at least they are not there in the same Terms. The former of these two Reasons is very weak, it being possible that a Pelagian Author might write Commentaries upon S. Paul, different from Pelagius's. The second would be of some weight, if in that Commentary attri∣buted to S. Jerom, there were not most of the passages quoted by S. Augustin. For in the first place, S. Augustin in the 16th chapter of Pelagius his Acts, saith, that that Heretick had expounded these Words of the 9th chapter of the Romans, Neque volentis, neque currentis est Dei; by saying that S. Paul spake thus by way of Interrogation, Voce interrogantis & redarguentis. This very Exposition, and these very Words are in the Com∣mentary we are now speaking of. z. S. Augu∣stin, in the 3d Book of the Merits of Sins, ch. 12. saith, that Pelagius expounding that place of the 7th Chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, Sancti∣ficatus est vir fidelis, observes that there were several Examples of believing Women who had converted their unbelieving Husbands. The same Remark is in this Commentary. 3. S. Augustin, in the same Book, chap. 4. saith, that Pelagius tells us upon these Words, Rom. 5. Quae est form••∣futuri, that they may be understood several ways: the same thing is mentioned in this Commentary: But what puts the matter out of doubt, is that Marius Mercator in his Commentaries, cites a long Passage out of Pelagius's Commentaries, which is found intire in this. It is true that S. Augustin in the 3d Book of the Merits of Sins, chap. 2. produces an Argument against Original Sin which is not in this Commentary, and that he quotes in the 3d chap. a place taken notice of by Ma∣rius Mercator, which likewise is not in this Com∣mentary ascribed to S. Jerom; but those places may possibly have been blotted out by some Ca∣tholicks.
• d 1.5

  The Letter to Demetrias.] It is certainly Pelagius's. See what is said of it in the Account of S. Jerom.
• e 1.6

  The Confession of Faith directed to Pope In∣nocent.] This Confession of Faith was delivered to Zosimus Successor to Innocent, who sent it to the African Bishops.