717 



PEKAHAIH. 



PELAQIUS. 



718 



far from large. As fast as he purchased books and manuscripts he 

 made presents of them to learned men, to whom he knew they would 

 be useful. His remaining library was purchased by the College of 

 Navarre. 



( Vita Nic. Claudii Fabricii de Peireic, a Petro Gassendi, 4to, Par., 

 16*1, transl. into Engl., by W. Rand, 8vo, Lond., 1657, &c.) 



PEKAHIAH,the son of Menahem, succeeded his father on the throne 

 of I.-rael in B.C. 760. He is wholly undistinguished in Holy Writ, 

 except that he " departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of 

 Nebat, who made Israel to sin ; " and after a reign of two years was 

 slain by Pckah. 



PEKAH, a captain of the army of Pekahiah, was the son of Rema- 

 liah, who, with fifty men of the Gileadites, conspired against his 

 master, slew him in his palace, and succeeded him on the throne in 

 B.C. 758. He followed the worship of his predecessors. After reigning 

 seventeen years he formed an alliance with Rezin, king of Syria, 

 against Jotbam, king of Judah, but he dying the war was continued 

 against his successor Ahaz. The Syrians took Elath, which was 

 restored to the Edomites, and I'ekah defeated Ahaz in a battle wherein 

 120,000 men of Judah, "all valiant men," were slain, and 200,000 

 captives were made, " women, sons, and daughters," with much spoil, 

 vmh which they returned to Samaria. But a prophet named Oded 

 commanded that the captives should be released. Certain chiefs of 

 Ephraim " then stood up against them that came from the war," 

 Faying, "ye shall not bring in the captives hitber;" because of the 

 threatened anger of the Lord. The captives were therefore refreshed 

 with meat and drink, clothed with the spoil that had been taken, con- 

 ducted to Jericho, and restored to their country. Ahaz then sought the 

 assistance of Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, who overran Gilead and 

 Galilee, and removed the inhabitants to Assyria and Media. Then 

 Host- a formed a conspiracy against Pekab, and slew him in the twentieth 

 year of his reign, B.C. 738. The government of Israel had now become 

 a military anarchy, in which the strongest chiefs assumed the kindly 

 office. There was an interregnum of ten years after the death of Pekah, 

 probably in consequence of dissensions in the army, which was at length 

 terminated by the accession of Hosea or Hoshca. 



PELA'GIUS. Respecting the early life of this celebrated leader of 

 one great section of the Christian Church Tery little is really known. 

 He is believed to have been born during the 4th century in Britain. 

 His ordinary appellation is a translation of that borne by him in his 

 own country. He settled in Italy as a monk, where by his purity of 

 life and earnest denunciation of the immorality, then so shamefully 

 prevalent among both clergy and laity, he gained much esteem. He 

 began to disseminate his peculiar doctrines in Rome about A.D. 400. 

 Accompanied by his friend and admirer Cselestius (once an advocate, 

 but subsequently a monk, and who from temper, talents, age, and the 

 habita of his former profession, was better fitted to head a party than 

 his aged and simple-hearted leader), Pelagius visited Africa and 

 Palestine. After escaping censure from the Council of Dioapolis, he 

 was subsequently condemned by Pope Zosimus (who had hitherto 

 protected Cselestius), and banished from Italy by an edict of the 

 Emperor Honorius in 418. It is supposed that on his expulsion from 

 his retreat in Palestine, which he was induced to select from the 

 similarity of his own views with those of the Eastern Church, he 

 retired to his native country. Of his subsequent history no authentic 

 particulars are recorded. Very little of his writings has come down 

 to u 1 , and these were transmitted (in an expurgated form) as the 

 writings of Jerome, in whose collated works they are printed. The 

 following are their titles: ' Expositionum in Epistolas 1'uuli Libri 

 XIV.;' ' Epistola ad Demetriadem ; ' ' Libel Ins Fidei ad Innocentium 

 Papam.' Though traces of the views of Pelagius on original sin are 

 easily discoverable in these writings, it is quite certain that they have 

 been considerably altered from their original form. 



We proceed to notice briefly the doctrines that have made the name 

 of Pelagius play go memorable a part in the history of the Christian 

 Church. The disputes in the earlier centuries of the Christian Church, 

 when first liberated from external violence and obloquy by its formal 

 establishment, related to the fundamental dogma of the Trinity. 

 Christian writers, when freed from this struggle for life, and from the 

 task of drawing up apologies in defence of the dignity, consistency, 

 and purity of the faith which they professed, were occupied until the 

 commencement of the 5th century with stating and enforcing the 

 Catholic doctrine on this head. This task accomplished by the leaders 

 of the Eastern Church (for whose speculative predilections a suitable 

 field of labour seemed thus opened), a succession of controversies arose 

 of a blended dialectic and practical nature, and for this reason equally 

 fitted to occupy the attention of the principal intellects of the West. 

 Such were the questions respecting grace, election, and predestination. 



Whether the great fathers of the Church, anterior to the contro- 

 versies of Augustine and Pelagius, had propounded sentiments which 

 might be fairly considered as favourable to either party, is a doubtful 

 question, and one, consequently, which has been the parent of much 

 violent controversy. St. Augustine himself, as is well known, quoted 

 the earlier fathers in support of his principles ; but this asserted coin- 

 cidence will hardly stand the test of a close examination. The caae 

 of St Gregory of Nazianzum, whose sentiments were quoted by St. 

 Augustine as identical with his own, will serve to illustrate this remark. 

 St. Gregory of Nazianzum, according to the deliberate judgment of 



his biographer, was not BO consistent as either Augustine or Pelagius. 

 He appears to have held a mean between the doctrines of unqualified 

 freedom, as laid down by Origen, and those of grace, as subsequently 

 taught by Augustine. His theory, if carried out (for the germs only 

 of a theory are to be found in his writings), would have led him, in all 

 probability, as an admirer of Origen, to the system of Pelagius rather 

 than of Augustine ; but precise dogmatic statements not being called 

 for (as no theory on these subjects had been formally put forward), 

 the sentiments of St. Gregory seem to have remained to the last an 

 anticipation of what, in the days of the Reformation, would have been 

 called Synergism. 



Previous to the 5th century, the moral incapacity and the fallen 

 condition of man, and the necessity of grace to change his nature aud 

 enable Mm to live aright in the sight of God, were admitted as doc- 

 trines of the Church ; but no controversy in connection with them 

 having as yet arisen, they had not been treated so precisely as' the 

 subjects of the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ. The seeds of dispute 

 may be plainly discerned in the statements put forward by various 

 fathers on these important topics. The usual differences in tone 

 between the theology of the Eastern and Western Churches are to be 

 observed in the course of these controversies the first, more directly 

 philosophical, taking a paramount interest in the Trinitarian question ; 

 the second being chiefly directed to the effects of certain doctrines on 

 human practice. To tax the Greek fathers with tenets equivalent to 

 Pelagianism is unfair, although, according to Hooker and Jackson, they 

 approached somewhat too nearly to it ; but it would be an arduous 

 task to establish their entire freedom from a leaning to that side. Such 

 must ever be the case with regard to the recorded sentiments of the 

 class of divines so happily designated as " superstructure men," whose 

 mission was rather to set forth the fruits of a change of heart than the 

 means ordained of God to effect the change itself. Accordingly, some 

 expressions of Clement of Alexandria, when speaking of the natural 

 condition and powers of man, can be explained only by such means. 

 The admiration of Origen evinced by Pelagius was erected, by the 

 jealousy of Jerome, into a proof of his heterodoxy. Annianus, a fol- 

 lower of Origen, employed himself during the period of his diegrace 

 by translating some of the homilies of St. Chrysostom, in order to 

 establish the identity of the doctrines contained in them with those 

 for which he suffered. On the other side, Tertulliau and Cyprian in 

 Africa, and subsequently Hilary and Ambrose, asserted very different 

 doctrines, the precursors of the controversy which at last broke out in 

 the 5th century. 



Pelagius himself, of a cold and passionless temperament, had not 

 gone through the fiery trials of St. Augustine. Although fully alivo 

 to the dradly evils of Antinomianism, he fell into an error equally 

 pernicious when he proposed to preach, as an antidote, the limitation 

 of the sin of Adam (in its consequences) to himself; and the power of 

 man to " do good works pleasant and acceptable to God," so as to 

 merit eternal happiness, without the aid of divine grace. Not merely 

 the culminating points of the system of Augustine, the doctrines of 

 irresistible and absolute predestination, were repudiated by Pelagius, 

 but the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, of the necessity of 

 pardoning mercy and sanctifying grace, were degraded from their 

 proper rank in the Christian scheme, and the Atonement deprived of 

 its essential virtues. 



Differing so widely as did the systems of Pelagius and his great 

 antagonist, it was not difficult to foresee that attempts at compromise 

 would hardly be successful. The Church of the south of Gaul was at 

 that time in a flourishing condition, its leaders were pious and learned, 

 aud an active ecclesiastical spirit pervaded the whole body. The first 

 attempt to reconcile these contradictory dogmas was made at Marseille. 

 Its supporters were consequently designated as Semi-Pelagians. They 

 agreed with St. Augustine in that they ascribed (generally) a holy life 

 aa such to the grace of God ; but, on the other hand, they approached 

 more nearly to Pelagius, as they attributed the beginning and end, or 

 the commencement and sum of a course of acceptable actions, to the 

 force of human merit. Its internal character, as well as the circum- 

 stances under which it originated, contributed to give it some popu- 

 larity, and to rank among its defenders the names of Cassian, aud the 

 better known one of Vincentius Lerinensis. But the received belief 

 found active champions in Hilary and Prosper. To the exertions of 

 the latter the formal document of Pope Cselestinus condemnatory of 

 Pelagian doctrines is principally attributable. 



Subsequently to the decisions of the Council of Orange in 529, the 

 system of Augustine may be considered as the established standard of 

 orthodoxy throughout the West. But the seeds of future discussion 

 were contained in the authoritative declarations of the Church, which 

 were studiously couched in wide terms. And the subject of predes- 

 tination was treated indirectly and in general expressions, with a view 

 to avoid controversy. But this temporising policy for the hope of 

 present security proved, as usual, the parent of weakness. Various 

 attempts were made to turn the embarrassing doctrine of predestination. 

 The most celebrated among these is that which arose during the 9th 

 century, witli which the name of the unhappy Gottschalk is connected. 

 The condemnations, disgrace, and punishment inflicted on this unhappy 

 man, in consequence of his ultra-Augustitiianisin witli regard to the 

 doctrine of predestination, which brought upon him the hostility of 

 the ruling Semi-Pelagian party, are well known. It is manifest how- 



