CornISH Legends
Saints, Mermaids & Phoenicians
"Incurably Pelagian"
"The great German theologian Karl Barth a few years ago described British Christianity as "incurably Pelagian." The rugged individualism of the Celtic monk, his conviction that each person is free to choose between good and evil. And his insistence that faith must be practical as well as spiritual remain hallmarks of Christians in Britain. An the British imagination has remained rooted in nature, witnessed by the pastoral poetry and landscape painting in which Britain excels, indeed that peculiar British obsession with gardening is Celtic in origin. Visitors to the British Isles are often shocked at how few people attend church each Sunday. Yet to the Britons, church-goers as well as absentees, the primary test of faith is not religious observance, but daily behavour towards our neighbours—and towards one’s pets, livestock and plants."
Alan G. Hefner
St. Morgan of Wales is more commonly known by his Latin name Pelagius Britto ~ indicating his association with the sea and Celtic British origins. He was born around 360A.D. in Caerleon-on-Usk near the Severn estuary. He came from a Christian romanized Celtic background, the son of a decurion.
Morgan received a Latin education and was taught Holy Scriptures, inheriting the Celtic tradition which had links with the Eastern Church. An emphasis was placed on faith and good works, on the holiness of all life, and on the oneness-of-all.
Around 400AD Pelagian was sent to Rome as a representative of the Celtic Church. "Tall in stature and portly in appearance Pelagius was highly educated, spoke and wrote Latin as well as Greek with great fluency and was well versed in theology. (Ref. 1). In Rome, he gradually gathered around himself a large and influential circle of loyal adherents, including educated aristocrats, many of them women, as well as many clergy. Though he did not belong to any religious community and never sought ordination in the Roman church, he was often referred to as a monk, a testimony to his holy life. Augustine described him as "a holy man, who, I am told, has made no small progress in the Christian life." (Ref.2) Gleaning what they could from his writings, commentators have described Pelagius as "a cultivated and sensitive layman," "an elusive and gracious figure, beloved and respected wherever he goes," always "silent, smiling, reserved," certainly a "modest and retiring man." (Ref.3) It is in this context, then, that the debates between Pelagius and Augustine must be understood.
Pelagius, was concerned about the breakdown in the moral quality of the Roman church. In part, he blamed this on some of the teachings of his contemporaries, including Augustine. Augustine was considered the pre-eminent of Latin Church theologians. A former Manichaean, he had converted to Christianity in 387. As a Christian theologian he promulgated the doctrines of original sin as a congenital disease passed on at birth and of predestination and election.
Pelagius reacted, to a famous line from Augustine's Confessions: "Thou commandest continence; grant what Thou commandest and command what thou wilt." This, he thought, amounted to a lack of moral responsibility and the verse annoyed him very much; he believed this and other Augustinian teachings contradicted the traditional Christian understanding of grace and free will, turning man into a "mere marionette, a robot." (Ref. 4).
Soon after, he wrote his famous Commentary on the Pauline Epistles, in which he set out his opposition to such Augustinian doctrines as the inherited guilt of original sin, rigid predestination, and the necessity of baptism to spare infants from hell. But with Alaric the Visigoth threatening Rome, Pelagius departed for Palestine in 409AD, where he was greeted with hostility by Augustine's theological ally, Jerome. Jerome had been busy fighting Origenism, and when he heard that Pelagius was teaching that a baptised Christian was able to live a sinless life, if he so willed, he reacted strongly. For him, this doctrine of impeccantia (sinlessness) sounded like the Stoic notion of apatheia which Origen had adopted. So Jerome managed to have Pelagius formally charged with heresy, and the British monk was brought before Bishop John of Jerusalem at the Synods of Jerusalem and Diospolis in the year 415. At these two synods, Pelagius admitted to having taught this doctrine, but disassociated himself from the more extreme views of Celestius, a lawyer whom he had met in Rome. He quoted Scripture on the necessity of grace and anathematised those who denied that it was essential. The Synod of Diospolis therefore concluded:
Now since we have received satisfaction in respect of the charges brought against the monk Pelagius in his presence and since he gives his assent to sound doctrines but condemns and anathematises those contrary to the faith of the Church, we adjudge him to belong to the communion of the Catholic Church. (Ref. 5).
Unsurprisingly, Jerome and Augustine were not convinced by the conclusions at Jerusalem and Diospolis. They decided to direct all their energies to attacking Pelagius and the British monk soon found himself "out-manoeuvred and out-gunned. (Ref. 6). Under the influence of Augustine, the bishops of Africa appealed to Pope Innocent I, and after some time, he declared that Pelagius and Celestius were to be excommunicated unless they renounced their "heretical" beliefs. Innocent died a month later, and his successor Zosimus reversed the judgement. The African bishops stood fast, though, and between 416 and 418, several councils of Carthage passed numerous canons against the tenets of what had become known as "Pelagianism." (Ref.7). Pelagius teaching was seen as a threat, a "potentially dangerous source of schism in the body social and politic. " (Ref.8). His central message that there is only one authentic Christian life, the path to perfection, left no room for nominal Christians.
Rome's need to subjugate the Celtic peoples was a very simple one. Money. Even during its early history, the Roman Church believed in charging its members for its services. The Celtic Church, on the other hand, did not, and focussed on acting as an inspiration for its members to find their own path and way to attaining their spirituality. In this respect, the Celtic Church had much in common with early Gnosticism, which of course the Roman Church also found to be a major threat. The doctrine of the Celtic Church included the concept that man was free from God's will - the Roman Church in turn preached that absolution from the wages of sin could be attained by payment to the Church. Most importantly, The Celtic Church denied the concept of Original Sin and that people could be absolved by their own actions rather than through an intermediary. "Everything good and everything evil, for which we are either praised or blamed, is not born with us, but done by us," wrote Pelagius. The Celtic doctrine became known as Pelagianism and the plain and simple truth was that Pelagianism took money away from the Roman Church - and in turn, political and economic power. This was to lead to the downfall of the Celtic Church and the destruction of Cornwall by the Saxons urged on by the Roman Church.
If Pelagius had gone off into the Syrian or Egyptian desert, he would probably have been a revered "abba." Instead, he clashed with the comfortable Christianity which had become the basis of unity in the Imperial Church, and, as a result, he has gone down as a heresiarch. Prosper, the rhetorician, wrote the following verse
"A scribbler
vile, inflamed with hellish spite,
Against the great Augustine dared to Write;
Presumptuous serpent! from what midnight den
Durst thou to crawl on earth and look at men?
Sure thou wast fed on Britain's sea-girt plains,
Or in thy breast Vesuvian sulphur reigns." (Ref.9)
Around the time of his condemnation by the councils of Carthage in 418AD, Pelagius left Italy, but it is not known where he went...It is not impossible, especially in view of the later history of Pelagianism, that the place he went to on being banished from Italy was West Britain. Not only are there several instances of exiled victims of imperial displeasure going to West Britain [e.g. the Priscillianists banished by Magnus Maximus to the Scilly Islands, and the case of Valentinus] but he would in West Britain, at this time, have been beyond the reach of Honorius' arm" - (Ref.10.)
Rees, B.R.; Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic, Suffolk, 1988 p. xii.
John Ferguson, "In Defence of Pelagius," in Theology (Vol. 83, March 1980), p. 115.
B. R. Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. 138.
Ibid., p. 17.
Ferguson, "In Defence," p. 117.
B. R. Rees, Reluctant Heretic, p. 20
Ferguson, "In Defence,"
ibid
Bede (Ecclesiastical-list., Bk. 1. c. x)
Ferguson, "In Defence,"