This is Communio Sanctorum, the history of the Christian Church, season two.

The title of this episode is Heretics Part 5. Was he really?

As we've seen in other episodes,

theologically, the church spent the 4th and 5th centuries

figuring out exactly how to articulate

what it believed about the nature of God and Jesus.

The main questions it dealt with

in the 5th through 7th centuries

centered on how God saves the lost. Theologians were

consumed with properly understanding God's grace, free will, and the nature of sin. Just what

happened in the fall. Instead of the nature of God, it was the nature of humanity that dominated

the church councils. In this episode of Communia Sanctorum, we'll deal with what's become something of a

boogeyman in theological discussions, and especially those that take place between Calvinists

and non-Calvinists. That boogie is a man named Pelagius. His debate with the 5th century

church father Augustine took center stage

in the theological brouhaha over human nature and the extent of the fall. Pelagius was born

around 354 in Britain. Descriptions of him cast a large figure, both tall and wide, who cut an imposing figure wherever he went.

Pelagius took his faith seriously and followed the tradition of many of his Celtic peers

by being an ascetic and becoming a monk. Having taken advantage of the finest education that he

could in his native Britain, mastering both Latin and Greek,

in 380 he went to Rome to further his studies in law and theology. What he saw there

grieved him greatly. The church that had been persecuted through the third century had by the late

...