The Myth of Pelagianism. By Ali Bonner

Abstract

The suspicion that Pelagianism owes more to Augustine than its supposed originator is not new. In his own lifetime Pelagius was supported by influential patrons, defended by respected churchmen, and acquitted by a pope. On the other side of the binary, even Augustine’s own friends struggled with his obsession with the heresy he had drenched with his own words. Notwithstanding the reservations of his critics, an Augustinian triangulation of sin, grace, and salvation would become constitutive of Western Christian culture, making alternatives almost unthinkable—until the twentieth century began to think differently. The Myth of Pelagianism mounts an impressive attack on this Augustinian tradition and the historiography which is its offspring. Dr Bonner’s method is painstaking and her argument forcefully made. Its outline is simple: Pelagius did not teach the things he was said to have taught; he did not represent any kind of self-styled ‘movement’, and he repeated ideas long...