An English monk (d.418) who taught a heretical version of the Christian faith that humanity was not subject to predestination and salvation was possible through the individual's actions and not dependent on divine grace.
Pelagius went to Rome about the first decade of the 5th Cent and began to teach a form of ascetic perfectionism. Adam, according to Pelagius, was created in a state of neutrality, with a capacity for good as well as evil, and a will that was undetermined and free. He was also created mortal, being subject to the natural laws of death, so that his choice did not affect his mortality. Adam, however, chose to sin. His fall, however, did not affect subsequent generations; though he provided a negative model, neither his sinful nature or guilt was transmitted to later generations of humans. Every human person was born, therefore, in the same state as Adam was created, sinless but free to sin. What made sin so pervasive was not a matter of "original sin," but because of bad education and examples.
Pelagius was a contemporary of Augustine (354-430), whose theological opponent he became. Pelagius' teaching was widely spread by his disciple Celestius in North Africa. For a while Celestius' teaching was condemned by the church though Pelagius escaped census. Beginning in 416, however, Pelagius was condemned by the Synods of Mileve and Carthage, and then finally in 431 by the Council of Ephesus (which also condemned Nestorianism).
In its place a mediating movement arose, known since as Semi-Pelagianism, which held that humans were indeed fallen but only in a weakened or diseased rather than fatally (as Augustine taught), that it, therefore, could cooperate with divine grace in his redemption. Though Semi-Pelagianism found wide-spread popularity in Gaul, it was eventually also condemned as heresy by the Council of Orange.
Print Resources:
Bruce Ware, Systematic Theology I. Lecture 4: Calvinism and Arminianism. BiblicalTraining.org.
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