Chapter 511 (continued)
gustine wrote a detailed commentary, On the Deeds of Pelagius (De gestis Pelagii), trying to excuse his Palestinian colleagues and to analyze what he perceived as Pelagius's evasiveness and deceptions.
In 416, the North African bishops, gathering in two province-wide councils, one in Carthage and another in Milevis, formally condemned both Pelagius and Caelestius, then forwarded their judgments to Pope Innocent I, asking him to lend his authority to their decisions. The pope was sent a hefty dossier. It included the statements of both councils and a long private letter, cosigned by Aurelius, Augustine, Alypius, Possidius, and Evodius. It also included copies of Pelagius's On Nature and Augustine's On Nature and Grace, with key passages marked for quick perusal. Innocent answered decisively on January 27, 417, officially excommunicating Pelagius and Caelestius. Two months later, Innocent was dead, and his successor, Zosimus (d. 418), reopened the case. Caelestius came to Rome, while Pelagius sent in a formal profession of faith, professing loyalty. Zosimus vindicated both men and sent a curt letter to the North Africans, scolding them for their rash judgments. Again, there was violence, this time in Rome, some riots as well as an attack on a local dignitary. Because of this and because of lobbying from the North Africans, the imperial court at Ravenna stepped in, and on April 29, 418, issued a rescript. The Emperor sentenced Pelagius and Caelestius to exile and attributed their attitudes to the movement's aristocratic origins: "This subtle heresy considers it a particular mark of low breeding to agree with other people, and the palm of outstanding good sense to destroy what is generally approved."29 One day later, on May 1, 418, hundreds of North African bishops met in council in Carthage and passed nine anathemas pertaining to issues of grace, free will, and infant baptism. This legislation would come to define for later ages the official theology on the matter. Pope Zosimus abruptly reversed himself, issuing in the summer of 418 his own condemnation, the Tractoria. Pelagius was forced to leave Palestine. He disappears from history, likely spending his final years in Egypt. Caelestius fled Rome, and was taken in by the Antiochene theologian, Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428).
The condemnations of 418 were decisive, but hardly the last word. The controversy entered a third phase. Zosimus had required the bishops of Italy to sign his Tractoria. A handful of bishops, led by the recently ordained Bishop Julian of Eclanum (c. 380–c. 445), opposed him. For his opposition, Julian was exiled to the Greek East, where he joined Caelestius under Theodore's protecsalem at least one letter (ep. 179), requesting a copy of the transcript. This new letter proves that Cyril (at least) sent him an official copy. For more on what this letter reveals about the sequence of events, the ecclesiastical diplomacy, and the theological exchanges, see Geoffrey D. Dunn, "Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, and the Pelagian Controversy," Augustinian Studies 37 (2006): 63–88.
29. Honorius, Ad Palladium (PL 48:379–81); trans. Bonner, Modern Research, 50–51.