Pelagian Christians

[Cleopatra Aelia]

Salvete Omnes,

Actually Marius should've opened a thread like that but since we started talking about this topic in two other threads I thought it might be helpfull to start an extra thread.

I have to admit that I'd never heard about this Christian belief before but that's actually the nice thing about this forum that you still keep learning new stuff. And I'd appreciate it very much if Marius would tell us more about it in this thread if he'd like to.

I'm posting here now is that I remembered having heard something about Pelagius when watching the movie "King Arthur" and this came back to my memory when reading about Pelagian Christians in the thread General -> Where IS Everybody? So I checked out the information I have in the press information of that movie where it says:

In the time where the movie's set the two most known opponents were Augustinus of Hippo and Pelagius. Those two men represented the exact opposits fo Christian lives. Augustinus on the one side taught that all human beings are inferior to the will of God. Pelagius who refered to the classical philosophy said that all human beings should have the freedom to choose their own style of life and that life should follows the natural laws of honor and virtue. After a public debate in which both men fought bitterly for their ideas the ecclesiastical court declared the ideas of Pelagius as heresy and banned him from Rome. At the fringe of the Roman Empire, far away from the influence of the church, Britannia was was already thought to be the breeding-ground for heretic ideas, and since Pelagius was a Briton and lived there for some time, the British Christians were suspected to give shelter to the followers of Pelagius, which they surely did. The authorities sent the orthodox bishop Germanus of Aachen in Gallia to stop the heresy in Brittania. He wasn't welcomed friendly and soon thereafter left again. In this time the Pelagianism already had been strengthened in Britannia. Of Pelagius' fate is only known that he most likely got murdered by his enemies, to reduce him to silence.

From historical tradition we know nothing about Arthur's belief, except that we was most probably Christian. The fact that he is shown in the movie as a follower of Pelagius' teachings fits his charackter. As for someone who fights for the indiviual freedom as well as for the freedom of the nation this would have been a logical consequence.

Your comments will be highly appreciated.

[Marius]

Avete omnes!

Found 'em...my Pelagian offerings from "Where IS Everybody??". Here ya go; this starts off about the American election:


Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:36 am Post subject: It's My Party...

Salve, mi Garrule, et salvete omnes!

I share your sentiment, Luci Tyrrheni, and have this day also done my part to procure for us a Consul (whose the hell idea was it to stop electing them in pairs?!) who is not sacer and who actually has some respect for the lives of his troops. I think the election of one such will bring an end to spending said lives on the strategic equivalent of costume jewelry.

And I have done better than merely curse the evangelists. As a member of their (supposedly self-same) religion, I give them allergic reactions ranging from heaving shudders to fits of raving. Compared to their normal behavior, an encounter with me leaves fundies of all faiths sounding almost rational...! They just can't seem to get that there were other kinds of Christians before Jerry Falwell became King. I'm a Pelagian Christian, a British sect with Celtic sympathies that got itself named "heretical" even before Rome fell. (We don't do hierarchy, so when the Church of Rome showed up to Organize everybody, obviously we had to go.)

So here I am, practitioner of a non-centralized, non-authoritarian, culturally-mellow Christianity that is respectful both of women and of Creation, and that emphasizes the role of Man's free will in (our) God's plan (that was the part that got us kicked out of the "Western" Church, btw)...and I have a sacred grove, and I burn incense to ancestor-spirits, and I dance the seasons of the year...and doctrinally they can't touch me!! I give them absolute fits!! lol

...Phew! --best belly-laugh I've had since the last one. I ask your forbearance, sodales, for wandering off-topic if I did. I saw the opening; I couldn't resist...you know how I am. Besides, it's my dies natalis. I'm always extra-frisky then. 42 in another hour (2145 my time)...give or take a millennium or two.

Please send any flames to my PM inbox. I wasn't looking to get into a discussion on religion or American politics, but I realize that I might have anyway. >({(:-)

In amicitia et fide,
_________________
Marius the Wanderer: Storyteller and Citizen of Rome

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Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2004 2:45 am Post subject: Pelagian Christian

>> Pelagian Christian
>
> Isn't King Arthur rumoured to have been one? At least, according to
> that movie, he was 8)
>
> Draco

This might go better in the CollRel if there's much interest; but, fwiw, yes, Artorius Pendragon is more likely to have been a Pelagian than anything else.

Pelagius the priest was active in the late 300's-early 400's AD, iirc. I know he went on a mission to Rome shortly before the Goths came a-knockin'. The Roman Church at the time actually gave its blessing to his activities. He taught and preached all around Britain, so his was one of the earlier brands of Christianity to which the Island was exposed. Its central tenet (besides the Christian basics) was that salvation was a joint effort between God and Man; God extended His grace, but Man had to make the choice. (This goes for after conversion, too: Man was equally responsible with God for the path his spiritual journey took. We tend, therefore, to be self-starters, and not to have great tolerance for being told what to believe...by anybody. You see my fundie troubles coming, nonne...? <feg>)

Fast-forward to the mid-500's, the time of the Saxon invasions. The Catholic Church was just beginning to make its own first forays into Britannia. (Think Patrick.) Most Christian Britons, therefore, were still Pelagians. If Arthur was raised Christian, this is the most likely branch.

The Catholics who came to do missionary work were a bit on the rude-and-fundie side. (Some things never change!) They asked us to do most everything their way, from church setup to the date of Easter. When we wouldn't fall into lockstep, they went back to Rome and spread a lot of bull about how the followers of Pelagius thought Man could save himself, that God's grace was not necessary to salvation at all.. This is how Pelagianism is still described on any Catholic-run Web site...even though the Pope issued an apology some years ago to Wiccans, Jews, and 'variant' Christians for the little misunderstanding. Well, I could bend, twist, and distort my pilum around somebody's neck and call it a "misunderstanding"...!

However, I've never had any grief from today's Catholics. I worshipped among them for many years; and most of them cannot be gotten to care about what the Church thought of anybody in the years before the Fall. No, I get it from the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the so-called non-denoms, and the Moral Majoritarians who, unfortunately, run my bit of the planet. Historically, each of these spun off from something else that they thought was too structured. And, indeed, none of them formally persecutes anybody. But you can't stop a redneck from fearing what he doesn't understand, and they do not understand me. Hence my rather alarming effect on them...<g>

Eh...I do seem to have strayed again; but hopefully, mi Draco, I have answered your question.

In fide (and now ya know which!),