{"author":"Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)","date_end":1887,"date_label":"1887 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain)","date_start":1887,"edition_year":1887,"edition_year_basis":"Original NPNF I V title and imprint 1887; physical transcription printing date uncertain; per-work translator allocation unspecified","id":"ws-library-full-note:0c811acf6c5d609e56bd:cite_note-83","is_genuine_commentary_verified":false,"license_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Reusing_Wikisource_content","public_import_allowed":true,"publication_location":"source-library","record_type":"editorial-footnote","references":[],"rights_approved":true,"section":"Chapter uncertain; original source section: Augustin's Part in the Controversy, editorial note cite_note-83","semantic_kind_reviewed":false,"source_context":["The controversy now entered upon a new stage. Among the evicted bishops of Italy who refused to sign Zosimus’ Epistola Tractoria, Julian of Eclanum was easily the first, and at this point he appears as the champion of Pelagianism. It was a sad fate that arrayed this beloved son of his old friend against Augustin, just when there seemed to be reason to hope that the controversy was at an end, and the victory won, and the plaudits of the world were greeting him as the saviour of the Church. But the now fast-aging bishop was to find, that, in this “very confident young man,” he had yet to meet the most persistent and most dangerous advocate of the new doctrines that had arisen. Julian had sent, at an earlier period, two letters to Zosimus, one of which has come down to us as a “Confession of Faith,” and the other of which attempted to approach Augustinian forms of speech as much as possible; the object of both being to gain standing ground in the Church for the Italian Pelagians. Now he appears as a Pelagian controversialist; and in opposition to the book On Marriage and Concupiscence, which Augustin had sent Valerius, he published an extended work in four thick books addressed to Turbantius. Extracts from the first of these books were sent by some one to Valerius, and were placed by him in the hands of Alypius, who was then in Italy, for transmission to Augustin. Meanwhile, a letter had been sent to Rome by Julian, designed to strengthen the cause of Pelagianism there; and a similar one, in the names of the eighteen Pelagianizing Italian bishops, was addressed to Rufus, bishop of Thessalonica, and representative of the Roman see in that portion of the Eastern Empire which was regarded as ecclesiastically a part of the West, the design of which was to obtain the powerful support of this important magnate, perhaps, also, a refuge from persecution within his jurisdiction. These two letters came into the hands of the new Pope, Boniface, who gave them also to Alypius for transmission to Augustin. Thus provided, Alypius returned to Africa. The tactics of all these writings of Julian were essentially the same; he attempted not so much to defend Pelagianism, as to attack Augustinianism, and thus literally to carry the war into Africa. He insisted that the corruption of nature which Augustin taught was nothing else than Manicheism; that the sovereignty of grace, as taught by him, was only the attribution of “acceptance of persons,” and partiality, to God; and that his doctrine of predestination was mere fatalism. He accused the anti-Pelagians of denying the goodness of the nature that God had created, of the marriage that He had ordained, of the law that He had given, of the free will that He had implanted in man, as well as the perfection of His saints. He insisted that this teaching also did dishonour to baptism itself which it professed so to honour, inasmuch as it asserted the continuance of concupiscence after baptism,—and thus taught that baptism does not take away sins, but only shaves them off as one shaves his beard, and leaves the roots whence the sins may grow anew, and need cutting down again. He complained bitterly of the way in which Pelagianism had been condemned,—that bishops had been compelled to sign a definition of dogma, not in council assembled, but sitting at home; and he demanded a rehearing of the whole case before a lawful council, lest the doctrine of the Manichees should be forced upon the acceptance of the world."],"source_library_url":"/library/0c811acf6c5d609e56bd/#ws-library-full-note:0c811acf6c5d609e56bd:cite_note-83","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_V/Introductory_Essay/Introductory_Essay/Augustin's_Part_in_the_Controversy#cite_note-83","translator":"Peter Holmes (edition translator credit; work allocation unspecified), Robert Ernest Wallis (edition translator credit; work allocation unspecified), Benjamin B. Warfield (translation reviser and introduction author), Philip Schaff (series editor)","verification":{"proof_file":"raw/review/source-library-note-batch-0056/proof-records.jsonl","proof_file_sha256":"e0df170d421dcd73bd0a76f61768b09f25dd2e36668f01c873ba3f2300ffa8a2","proof_record_id":"ws-library-full-note:0c811acf6c5d609e56bd:cite_note-83"},"verified":true,"work":"Introductory Essay","work_id":"ws-augustine-antipelagian-npnf1-5-0c811acf6c5d609e56bd"}