Chapter VII: Those Who Err About Free Choice Deficiently, § 102.
CHAPTER VII: THOSE WHO ERR ABOUT FREE CHOICE DEFICIENTLY
§ 102. This concludes our discussion on the Pelagians, who are the defenders of free choice, and on however many others follow their footsteps and depart to the right-hand side of the path of heavenly truth in this article.
Departing to the left-hand side are all who err in defect, such as: (I) The Valentinians, Marcionites, and the Manichaeans who followed them in binding all the actions of man to the laws of absolute necessity. They claim that sin began not from the free will of man but as a result of an evil substance created by an evil principle, and in so doing they take away all freedom in civil and evil acts. In this regard, let the writings of the fathers, especially of Irenaeus and Tertullian, be examined.
(II) The Enthusiasts, who sprang from Messalius. They claim that the Holy Spirit converts people immediately, without the aid of the Word, with a violent rapture or by falling upon them through the contemplation of dreams or through the pretense of prayer. Concerning them, see the Tripart. (bk. 7, ch. 1).
Some claim that the Euchites are the same as the Enthusiasts; Augustine mentions them (Ad Quodvultdeum, heresy 57). In our day, their footsteps are followed by: those who support the absolute necessity of all things and the immutability of a Stoic fate; those who deny that the ministry of the Word is the instrument of the Holy Spirit as He works conversion; those who imagine that in conversion the substance of the old man is wiped away totally and a new substance taken on; those who do not discern the different states of man but claim that the will of man is always at war with the Holy Spirit, not only before and in conversion but even after conversion.