The presence of God’s spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful; and if we look with God’s eyes, nothing on earth is ugly.
Pelagius
John Phillip Newel calls Pelagius (puh-LAY-gee-us) “the most misrepresented Christian teacher of all time.” Theology courses in seminary dismissed Pelagius as a heretic and, rather than reading his writings, mistook his theology from his opponent, Augustine.
This learned monk left Wales around 400 CE to teach in Rome. The prevalent theology issue of that time was the question of why God became human. Augustine taught that Christ needed to die for our sins and redeem our fallen nature, corrupted by Adam’s original sin. Pelagius taught that Christ came to show us how to be fully human, to illumine the image of God within us. Augustine perverted Pelagius teaching by saying that grace was unnecessary for salvation and that it can be achieved through our own human nature. In fact, Pelagius taught that we have original grace, but need God’s continual forgiving grace and illuminative grace due to our blindness (sin). Grace does not correct our human nature or make it something that it something different from how it was created. What is deepest in us is sacred, not sinful or opposed to God. What a different starting point for spirituality!
The doctrine of original sin – later formalized by Rome at Trent in the 16th century—has had a profound impact on Christianity. It has received less emphasis in the Anglican and Orthodox traditions. The doctrine of original sin very well served an imperial religion, which is what Christianity became in Rome. Simply put, you people are inherently corrupt and need external “grace” administered by a central authority.
Pelagius caused an uproar in Rome with two traits that simply reflected his Celtic culture. First, he gathered and taught women. This was frowned upon in Rome which was highly patriarchal. Second, he wore the Druid tonsure: his head was shaved on the sides and back, honoring the pre-Christian religion. The Roman tonsure had monks shave the tops of their heads leaving a sort of crown of hair.
Pelagius fled to the Middle East when Rome was sacked in 410. Two Palestinian synods examined his teachings and found him innocent. Two African synods declared Pelagius a heretic. They asked Zosimus, Bishop of Rome to do the same, but after review, he found Pelagius innocent of any heresy. Augustine however convinced him to excommunicate him.
Pelagius advocated a radical social justice: those who have more are compelled to share with those who don’t have enough. “A person who is rich and yet refuses to give food to the hungry may cause far more deaths than even the cruelest murderer.”
Pelagius also advocated the spiritual practice of sharing our soul with another soul friend or anamchara. The mere attempt to share the sacredness of our soul with another enables us to see it more clearly. St. Brigid would later say: A person without a soul friend is like a body without a head.
Pelagius had a genuine Celtic sense of humor. After returning to Wales and then Ireland, he wrote under the pseudonym “Augustine.”
Pelagius laid the groundwork for much of what follows in the tradition of Celtic Christianity.