Who was a pelagius? On this episode of five minutes in church history, we're going to look at the life of an early church figure named pelagius.

Pelagius was an Irish monk. He is known as being an aesthetic.

And this asceticism was very popular in the early church,

and Pelagius was one of the significant figures of it.

He was from Ireland and from that area in the UK, but he had a great reputation, was known significantly

throughout the Roman Empire, and known especially in Rome.

By the four tens, we find Pelagius in Jerusalem in the Holy Land, and from there he continues to

exert his influence.

We need to understand Pelagius's teachings because these had a huge impact in his own day,

but had an impact through the centuries of the church and even right down to our own day.

Plagius was concerned with the question of how we can be moral and of our own morality and of

our own accomplishing of righteousness. This caused him to rethink, as it

were, the relationship between us and Adam. And so as Pelagius looked at that, he began to see that Adam's sin and what Adam did

did not have a direct impact on us. In fact, the better way, this is according to Pelagius, the better way to think of it is

Adam is simply an example to us. That means that you and I are not born in sin or born with a sinful nature, but that according to Pelagius we are born

neutral. In fact, Pelagius wants to go a step further and say that we have the moral ability to do what is right and to

live a holy life. We have a free will. We can choose to serve God, we can choose to love God, we can choose to turn to God.

Pelagius denied the teaching of predestination, and denied the teaching of

original sin.

Well, if you remember your dates here in church history, we are in the 400s,

410s.

This is the time of Augustine. So these teachings of Polygius are not going to escape

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