Pelagius.  While these events were transpiring in the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, the spirit that had produced them was displaying itself in the West.  A British monk, who had assumed the name of Pelagius, passed through Western Europe and Northern Africa, teaching that death was not introduced into the world by the sin of Adam; that on the contrary he was necessarily and by nature mortal, and had he not sinned he would nevertheless have died; that the consequences of his sins were confined to himself, and did not affect his posterity.  From these premises Pelagius drew certain important theological conclusions.

At Rome, Pelagius had been received with favor; at Carthage, at the instigation of St. Augustine, he was denounced.  By a synod, held at Diospolis, he was acquitted of heresy, but, on referring the matter to the Bishop of Rome, Innocent I., he was, on the contrary, condemned.  It happened that at this moment Innocent died, and his successor, Zosimus, annulled his judgment and declared the opinions of Pelagius to be orthodox.  These contradictory decisions are still often referred to by the opponents of papal infallibility.  Things were in this state of confusion, when the wily African bishops, through the influence of Count Valerius, procured from the emperor an edict denouncing Pelagins as a heretic; he and his accomplices were condemned to exile and the forfeiture of their goods.  To affirm that death was in the world before the fall of Adam, was a state crime.

Condemnation of pelagius.  It is very instructive to consider the principles on which this strange decision was founded.  Since the question was purely philosophical, one might suppose that it would have been discussed on natural principles; instead of that, theological considerations alone were adduced.  The attentive reader will have remarked, in Tertullian’s statement of the principles of Christianity, a complete absence of the doctrines of original sin, total depravity, predestination, grace, and atonement.  The intention of Christianity, as set forth by him, has nothing in common with the plan of salvation upheld two centuries subsequently.  It is to St. Augustine, a Carthaginian, that we are indebted for the precision of our views on these important points.

In deciding whether death had been in the world before the fall of Adam, or whether it was the penalty inflicted on the world for his sin, the course taken was to ascertain whether the views of Pelagius were accordant or discordant not with Nature but with the theological doctrines of St. Augustine.  And the result has been such as might be expected.  The doctrine declared to be orthodox by ecclesiastical authority is overthrown by the unquestionable discoveries of modern science.  Long before a human being had appeared upon earth, millions of individuals—­nay, more, thousands of species and even genera—­had died; those which remain with us are an insignificant fraction of the vast hosts that have passed away.