Pelagius

He was a Christian theologian known as an ascetic monk & promoting a system of doctrines (termed Pelagianism by the Catholic Church), which emphasized human choice in salvation & denied original sin.

Pelagius was accused of heresy at the Synod of Diospolis in 415. His doctrines were harshly criticized by Augustine of Hippo, especially the Pelagian views about mankind’s good nature & individual responsibility for choosing asceticism. Pelagius especially stressed the freedom of human will.

Pelagius was active between circa 390 & 418. Pelagius was tall & portly in appearance. He was also highly educated, spoke, & wrote Latin & Greek with great fluency. He was well-versed in theology. Pelagius became better known around 380 when he moved to Rome. There, he enjoyed a reputation for austerity. When Alaric sacked Rome in 410, Pelagius & his follower, Caelestius, fled to Carthage, where he continued his work.

The view that mankind can avoid sinning, & that humans can freely choose to obey God’s commandments, is held to have stood at the core of Pelagian teaching. Pelagius stressed human autonomy & freedom of will. For Pelagius, grace consisted of the gift of free will, the Law of Moses, & the teachings of Jesus.

According to Augustine, Pelagius saw baptism of infants as useless because they had no sin. Celestius, who was a disciple of Pelagius, also denied original sin & the necessity of infant baptism for salvation. Seeking to undo his condemnation, Pelagius wrote a letter &statement of belief to Pope Zosimus, Pope Innocent I’s successor, arguing that he was orthodox.

In these, he articulated his beliefs so as not to contradict what the synods condemned. Pope Zosimus was persuaded by Celestius to reopen the case. But opposition from the African bishops & Emperor Honorius forced Pope Zosimus to condemn & excommunicate Celestius & Pelagius in 418. Pelagianism was condemned at the Council of Carthage in 418. Augustine, shocked that Pelagius & Celestius weren’t denounced as heretics, had called the Council of Carthage in 418.

After his condemnation, Pelagius was expelled from Jerusalem. St. Cyril of Alexandria allowed him to settle in Egypt. He’s not heard of afterwards.

His death didn’t end his teachings. Although those who followed him may have modified those teachings. Because little info actually remains concerning Pelagius’ actual teachings, some of his doctrines possibly were subject to revision & suppression by his enemies.

Pelagius & Caelestius were declared heretics by the First Council of Ephesus in 431.

Belief in Pelagianism & Semipelagianism was common for the next few centuries. Especially in Britain, Palestine,& North Africa. St. Germanus went to Britain to fight Pelagianism in or around 429 AD. In Wales, St. David was credited with convening the Synod of Brefi & the Synod of Victory against the followers of Pelagius in the 6th century.

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Manichaeism

This is a former world religion founded in the 3rd century CE by the Parthian prophet Mani in the Sasanian Empire. An adherent of Manichaeism was called a Manichaean, Manichean, or Manichee.

Manichaeism taught a complex dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good spiritual world of light, & an evil material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process that takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter & returned to the world of light, whence it came.

Mani’s teaching was intended to combine, succeed, & surpass the teachings of Platonism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Rabbinic Judaism, Gnostic movements, Ancient Greek religion, Babylonian & other Mesopotamian religions, & mystery cults. Manichaeism reveres Mani as the final prophet after Zoroaster, the Buddha, & Jesus.

This religion thrived between the 3rd & 7th centuries, & at its height was one of the most pervasive religions in the world. Manichaean churches & scriptures existed as far east as China & as far west as the Roman Empire.

Before the spread of Islam, it was briefly the main rival to early Christianity in the competition to replace polytheism. Under the Roman Dominate, Manichaeism was persecuted by the Roman State & was eventually stomped out in the Roman Empire.

The religion was present in West Asia into the Abbasid Caliphate period in the 10th century. It was also present in China despite gradually strict bans under the Tang Dynasty & was the official religion of the Uyghur Khaganate until its collapse in 830.

It experienced a resurgence under the Mongol Yuan Dynasty during the 13th & 14th centuries. However, it was consequently banned by the Chinese emperors. Manichaeism there became into Buddhism & Taoism.

Some historic Manichaean sites still exist in China, including the Temple of Cao’an in Jinjiang, Fijian, & the religion may have influenced later movements in Europe including Paulicianism, Bogomilism, & Catharism.

Mani was an Iranian born in 216 CE in or near Ctesiphon (now al-Mada’in in Iraq) in the Parthian Empire. According to the Cologne Mani-Codex, Mani’s parents were members of the Jewish Christian Gnostic sect known as the Elcesaites.

Mani composed 7 works, 6 of which were written in the late-Aramaic Syriac languages. The 7th, the Shabuhragan, was written by Mani in Middle Persian & he gave it to Sasanian emperor Shapur I. There’s no proof that Shapur I was a Manichaean, he did tolerate the spread of Manichaeism & didn’t persecute the religion or its adherents within his empire’s borders.

Manichaeism won the support of many high-ranking political figures. With the help of the Sasanian Empire, Mani began missionary trips. After failing to win the favor of the next generation of Persian royalty & experiencing the disapproval of the Zoroastrian clergy, Mani reportedly died in prison awaiting his execution by the Persian emperor Bahram I. His death date is estimated between 276-277 CE.

Mani believed that the teachings of Jesus, Buddha, & Zoroaster were incomplete. He’s believed his revelations were for the entire world, calling his teachings the “Religion of Light.”

Manichaean writings suggest that Mani received revelations when he was 12 years old & again when he was 24. Over this period, Mani grew dissatisfied with the Elesaites, a Jewish Christian Gnostic sect, that he was born into.

Mani taught how the soul of a righteous individual returns to Paradise upon dying. But the souls of a person who persisted in things of the flesh – fornication, procreation, possessions, cultivation, harvesting, eating of meat, drinking of wine – is condemned to rebirth in a succession of bodies.

Mani began preaching at an early age & was possibly influenced by contemporary Babylonian-Aramaic movements like Mandaeism, Aramaic translations of Jewish apocalyptic works similar to those found at Qumran (Book of Enoch literature), & by the Syriac dualist-Gnostic writer Bardaisan, who lived a generation before Mani. With the discovery of the Mani-Codex, it also became clear that he was raised in the Jewish Christian sect of the Elcasaites & possibly influenced by their writings.

According to biographies preserved by ibn al-Nadim & Persian polymath al-Biruni, Mani received as a youth from a spirit. Whom he (Mani) would later call his “Twin,” Syzygos (“spouse, partner,” in the Cologne Mani-Codex), “Double,” “Protective Angel,” or “Divine Self.” This spirit taught him wisdom that he then developed into a religion.

It was his “twin” who brought Mani to self-realization. Mani claimed to be the Paraclete of the Truth promised by Jesus in the New Testament. Paraclete is a word used, in Christian theology, to refer to the Holy Spirit & is translated as “advocate,” “counsellor,” or “helper.”

Jesus, in Manichaeism, possessed 3 separate identities: Jesus the Luminous, Jesus the Messiah, & Jesus patibilis, or the Suffering Jesus.

As Jesus the Luminous, his primary role was as supreme revealer & guide. It was Jesus who woke Adam from his slumber & revealed to him the divine origins of his soul & its painful captivity by the body & mixture with matter.

Jesus the Messiah was a historical being who was a prophet of the Jews & a forerunner of Mani. Manichaeans believed that he was wholly divine, & he never had a human birth. The Christian doctrine of a virgin birth was regarded as obscene. Since Jesus was the Light of the World, where was this light, they reasoned, when Jesus was in the womb of the Virgin? Jesus the Messiah was truly only born at his baptism. It was on this occasion that the Father openly acknowledged his sonship. The suffering, death, & resurrection of this Jesus were in appearance only & a prefiguration of Mani’s own martyrdom.

The pain suffered by the imprisoned Light-Particles in the whole of the visible universe, on the other hand, was real & immanent. This was symbolized by the mystic placing of the Cross whereby the wounds of the passion of our souls are set forth. On this mystical Cross of Light was suspended the Suffering Jesus (Jesus patibilis) who was the life & salvation of man. This mystica crucifixio was present in every tree, herb, fruit, vegetable, & even stones & the soil. This constant & universal suffering of the captive soul is exquisitely expressed in 1 of the Coptic Manichaean Psalms.

St. Augustine of Hippo noted that Mani declared himself to be an “apostle of Jesus Christ.” Manichean tradition is also noted to have to have claimed that Mani was the reincarnation of religious figures from previous eras such as the Buddha, Krishna, & Zoroaster, in addition to Jesus Himself.

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St. Augustine of Hippo

St. Augustine of Hippo was a theologian & philosopher of Berber origin & the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. Hippo Regius is in modern-day Annaba, Algeria. He was born I 354 in the municipium of Thagaste (now Souk Ahras, Algeria) in the Roman province of Numidia.

His mom, Monica/Monnica, was a devout Christian. His dad, Patricius, was a pagan, who converted to Christianity on his deathbed. Augustine, in his writings, mentions his identity as a Roman African.

His writing deeply influenced the development of Western philosophy & Western Christianity. He’s viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Church.

Patristics, a.k.a. Patrology, is a branch of theological studies focused on the writings & teachings of the Church Fathers, between the 1st-8th century AD.

St. Jerome said of Augustine: he “established anew the ancient Faith.”

In his youth, he was drawn to the Manichaean faith & later to the Hellenistic philosophy of Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity & baptism in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy & theology, that had a variety of methods & perspective.

Believing the grace of Chris was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin & made significant contributions to the development of just war theory.

The just war theory is a doctrine of military ethics that aims to ensure that a war is morally justifiable through a series of criteria, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just.

When the Western Roman Empire began to fall apart, Augustine imagined the Church as a spiritual City of God, which is distinct from the material Earthly City.

There’s a segment of the Church that follows the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea & the Council of Constantinople closely identified with Augustine’s On the Trinity.

Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lutheran church, & Anglican church. He’s also a Catholic “Doctor of the Church.” And he’s the patron of the Augustinians. His feast day is on August 28th, the day he passed away. The Church of England also celebrates August 28th as his feast day. In the Greek & Russian Orthodox Churches, his feast day is June 15. He’s the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, & a number of cities & dioceses.

Many Protestants, especially Calvinists & Lutherans, consider Augustine one of the theological fathers of the Protestant Reformation due to his teachings on salvation & divine grace.

In the East, Augustine’s teachings are disputed. The most controversial doctrine associated with him is the filioque. It was rejected by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Other disputed teachings include Augustine’s views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, & predestination. Despite this, Augustine is considered mistaken on some points, he’s still considered a saint.

Filioque is a Latin phrase meaning “and the Son.” This was added to the Nicene Creed by the Western Church to clarify that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from the Father & the Son.”

In 1842, a portion of Augustine’s right arm (cubitus) was secured from Pavia & returned to Annba. It now rests in St. Augustin Basilica within a glass tube inserted into the arm of a life-sized marble statue of the saint. It’s considered a relic.

Augustine was canonized by popular acclaim. He was later recognized as a Doctor of the Church in 1298 by Pope Boniface VIII.

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Predestination

Predestination is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. This usually references to the eventual fate of an individual soul.

Predestination often seeks to address the contradiction of free will. God’s omniscience seems to conflict with human free will.

In this way, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism/predeterminism. Also known as theological determinism. Determinism is a metaphysical view that all events within the universe can occur in only 1 possible way.

Josephus wrote, during the 1st century, that there were 3 main Jewish sects. They differed on this subject. Josephus argued that the Essenes & Pharisees thought that God’s Providence orders all human events. The Pharisees still maintained that people were able to choose between right & wrong. Josephus wrote that the Sadducees didn’t have a doctrine of Providence.

In the New Testament, Romans 8-11 speaks on a statement of predestination, in Romans 8:28-30. People have interpreted this passage in some different ways. Some say this only has to do with service & not about salvation.

Others say that this passage should be interpreted to the Christian community as a group rather than individuals. While some Catholics believe that this passage teaches that God has predestined the salvation of all humanity.

Some Protestants believe that this passage is teaching that God has predestined a certain set of people to salvation, & the remainder of humanity is predestined to reprobation. Reprobation is a doctrine that teaches that a person can reject the Gospel to a point where God can, in turn, reject them & curses their conscience.

Origen when writing in the 3rd century taught that God’s Providence extends to every single person. He believed God’s predestination is based on God’s foreknowledge of every human being’s merits, whether in their current life, or a previous one.

Valentinus believed in a form of predestination. In his opinion, people are born into 1 of 3 natures. This depended on which elements prevailed in a person. In Valentinus’ view, a person born with a bad nature can NEVER be saved because they’re too inclined to evil.

Some people have a nature that’s a combo of good & evil. They can choose salvation. The 3rd type of person has a good nature & will be saved because they’re inclined to be good.

Irenaeus attacked predestination that Valentinus set out. Irenaeus argued that it was unfair. For Irenaeus, people were free to choose salvation or not.

In the 4th & 5th century, Augustine of Hippo also taught that God orders all things whilst preserving human freedom. Prior to 396, Augustine believed that predestination was based on God’s foreknowledge of whether people would believe, that God’s grace was “a reward for human assent.”

In response to Pelagius, Augustine said the sin of pride consists in assuming that “we are the ones who choose God or that God chooses us (in His foreknowledge) because of something worthy in us.” Augustine argued that it’s God’s grace that causes the individual act of faith.

Scholars are divided over whether Augustine’s teaching implies double predestination, or the belief that God chooses some people for damnation, as well as some for salvation.

Catholic scholars tend to deny that Augustine held this view. Some Protestants & secular scholars believe that Augustine did indeed believe in double predestination.

Augustine’s view raised some objection. Julian of Eclanum said that Augustine was bringing Manichean ideals into the Church. Tensions became obvious, eventually, with the confrontation between Augustine & Pelagius culminating in the condemnation of Pelagianism. As interpreted by Augustine, at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Pelagius denied Augustine’s view of predestination in order to affirm that salvation is achieved by an act of free will.

The Council of Arles, in the late 5th century, condemned the position “that some have been condemned to death, others have been predestined to life.” This seems to follow Augustine’s teaching.

The Second Council of Orange in 529 also condemned the position that “some have been truly predestined to evil by divine power.”

In the 8th century, John of Damascus emphasized the freedom of the human will in his doctrine of predestination. He argued that acts arising from peoples’ wills aren’t part of God’s Providence at all. Damascene teaches that people’s good actions are done in cooperation with God, but aren’t caused by Him.

Cassian believed that despite predestination being a work that God does, God only decides to predestinate based on how people will respond.

In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas taught that God predestines certain people to the beatific vision based solely on his own goodness rather than that of creatures. Aquinas also thought that people are free in their choices, fully cause their own sin, & are solely responsible for it. According to Aquinas, there are a few ways in which God wills actions.

Again in the 13th century, William of Ockham (Of Occam’s Razor fame.) taught that God doesn’t cause human choices & associated predestination with divine foreknowledge. Ockham/Occam taught that God predestines based on people’s foreseen works, he sustained that God’s will wasn’t constrained to do this.

John Calvin repudiated the idea that God allows rather than actively decrees the damnation of sinners, as well as other evil. Calvin didn’t believe God to be guilty of sin. But rather he considered God imposing sin on His creation to be an enigmatic mystery.

Though he maintained God’s predestination applies to damnation is caused by their sin. but that the salvation of the saved is solely caused by God.

In Roman Catholicism, free will isn’t denied. Predestination plays a very small role in Roman Catholicism. The “heretical” 17th & 18th century sect within Roman Catholicism known as Jansenism preached the doctrine of double predestination.

Although Jansenism claimed that even members of the saved elect could lose their salvation by doing sinful, un-repented deeds, implied in Ezekiel 18:21-28. According to the Roman Catholic Church, God doesn’t will anyone to mortally sin & so to deserve punishment in Hell.

The Mormons (LDS church) rejects predestination. But they believe in foreordination. Foreordination teaches that during the pre-mortal existence, God selected (foreordained) particular people to fulfill certain missions (“callings”) during their mortal lives.

For example, prophets were foreordained to be God’s/the Lord’s servants (Jeremiah 1:5), all who receive the priesthood were foreordained to that calling & Jesus was foreordained to enact the atonement.

However, all such people foreordained to retain their agency in mortality to fulfill that foreordination or not. The Mormon church (LDS church) teaches the doctrine of mortal agency, the ability to choose & act for oneself, & decide whether to accept Christ’s atonement.

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There have been a variety of world view traditions which have developed along parallel paths in western thought. With varied junctures in this history through the transition from ancient and medieval to modern (at the time of the Renaissance, 1400-1500) and through enlightenment to Romanticism and postmodernist thought, 1800-1900...
#staugustineofhippo #Neoplatonism #philosophy #christianity #theology #gnosticism #pantheism #scepticism #theism #dualism https://philosophyindefinitely.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/st-augustine-and-neo-platonism/