Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T01:59:47.669Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

‘Semipelagianism’: The Origins of the Term and its Passage into the History of Heresy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2013

IRENA BACKUS
Affiliation:
Institut d'histoire de la Réformation, Université de Genève, 5 rue de Candolle, CH 1211, Genève 4, Switzerland; e-mail: Irena.Backus@unige.ch
AZA GOUDRIAAN
Affiliation:
Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid, De Boelelaan 1105, NL-1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands; e-mail: a.goudriaan@vu.nl

Abstract

The term ‘Semipelagianism’ is usually taken to refer to fifth- and sixth-century teachings of Hadrumetum and Massilian monks. The term originated, however, with sixteenth-century Protestants who used it to describe a view of salvation by human effort in combination with grace. Theodore Beza invented the term in about 1556, applying it to the Roman Catholic view of grace and human will. The Lutheran Formula of Concord (1577) used it to designate Lutheran synergists. Initially, therefore, the term referred to contemporaneous teachings. Starting with Nicholas Sanders (1571), however, Roman Catholics introduced a shift of meaning, with fifth-century Massilians becoming the central connotation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Livingstone, E. A. (ed.), The Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edn, Oxford 2003Google Scholar (repr.of 1997 edn), 1481 s.v. ‘Semipelagianism’.

2 See Conrad Leyser, ‘Semipelagianism’, in Alan Fitzgerald (ed.), Augustine through the ages, Grand Rapids 2003, 761–5.

3 Ibid. 762.

4 See especially Tibiletti, C., ‘Rassegna di studi e testi sui “semipelagiani”’, Augustinianum xxv (1985), 507–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. A. Markus, ‘The legacy of Pelagius: orthodoxy, heresy and conciliation’, in R. D. Williams (ed.), The making of orthodoxy: essays in honour of Henry Chadwick, Cambridge 1989, 214–34; and T. A. Smith, ‘Augustine in two Gallic controversies: use or abuse?’, in Joseph T. Lienhard and others (eds), Augustine: presbyter factus sum, New York 1992, 43–55. The most recent author to voice this view is Donato Ogliari, who also argues (at p. 106) that although no causal link can be established between Pelagius and the Marseille monastic circles, it is not unlikely that the latter knew at least some works of Pelagius: Gratia et certamen: the relationship between grace and free will in Augustine's discussions with the so-called ‘Semipelagians’, Leuven 2003.

5 See Markus, ‘Legacy of Pelagius’, 214–34.

6 See Leyser, ‘Semipelagianism’, 762.

7 See Ogliari, Gratia et certamen, 99.

8 See ibid. 98–105.

9 ‘Pervenerunt autem isti fratres nostri, pro quibus sollicita est pia caritas vestra, ut credant cum ecclesia Christi, peccato primi hominis obnoxium nasci genus humanum, nec ab isto malo nisi per iustitiam secundi hominis aliquem liberari. Pervenerunt etiam, ut praeveniri voluntates hominum Dei gratia fateantur, atque ad nullum opus bonum vel incipiendum vel perficiendum sibi quemquam sufficere posse consentiant. Retenta ergo ista in quae pervenerunt, plurimum eos a pelagianorum errore discernunt. Proinde, si in eis ambulent et orent eum qui dat intellectum, si quid de praedestinatione aliter sapiunt, ipse illis hoc quoque revelabit; tamen etiam nos impendamus eis dilectionis affectum ministeriumque sermonis, sicut donat ille quem rogavimus, ut in his litteris ea quae illis essent apta et utilia diceremus. Unde enim scimus ne forte Deus noster id per hanc nostram velit efficere servitutem, qua eis in Christi libera caritate servimus?’: Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum 1, 2.

10 See David Lambert's otherwise very accurate entry ‘Semipelagianism’, in Karla Pollmann and others (eds), The Oxford guide to the historical reception of Augustine, Oxford–New York 2013, and Uta Heil, ‘Die Auseinandersetzungen um Augustin im Gallien des 5. Jahrhunderts (bis 529)’, in Volker Henning Drecoll (ed.), Augustin Handbuch, Tübingen 2007, 558–64, esp. p. 558: ‘eine neuzeitliche Etikette …, erstmals in der Epitome der lutherischen Konkordienformel des 16. Jahrhunderts nachzulesen’. The Formula of Concord is also referred to by Christoph Markschies in ‘Pelagius/Pelagianer/Semipelagianer, ii. Dogmatisch, 1. Zur Begrifflichkeit und ihrer nachantiken Geschichte’, in Hans Dieter Betz and others (eds), Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th edn, Tübingen 2003, vi. 1082–4 at p. 1083, and Gerhard Ludwig Müller, ‘Semipelagianismus’, in Walter Kasper and others (eds), Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3rd edn, Freiburg 2000, ix. 451–3, esp. p. 452.

11 ‘die ‘Papisten’ gemeint’: Heil, ‘Die Auseinandersetzungen’, 558.

12 ‘Auch die Konkordienformel vertritt in ihrem zweiten Artikel wesentlich nur die von [Matthias] Flacius [Illyricus] im Gegensatz zu [Victorin] Strigel entwickelte Auffassung, daß der Wille des natürlichen Menschen zur Bekehrung völlig unkräftig sei’: Otto Ritschl, Dogmengeschichte des Protestantismus, Leipzig 1912, ii. 447–53 at p. 447.

13 See, for example, Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church, 1568, s.v. ‘Synergism’. For a brief presentation of the synergist quarrel see Friedrich Bente's introductory, Historical introductions to symbolical books of the evangelical Lutheran Church, Teddington 2008, 233–68. See also Lund, Eric (ed.), Documents from the history of Lutheranism, 1517–1750, Augsburg 2002, esp. pp. 196209Google Scholar. On the specific debate between Pfeffinger and Amsdorf see Kolb, Robert, Nikolaus von Amsdorf, 1483–1565: popular polemics in the preservation of Luther's legacy, Nieuwkoop 1978Google Scholar. On Pfeffinger see the full biographical information in Gotthard Lechler, ‘Pfeffinger, Johannes’, in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Berlin 1887, xxv. 624–31.

14 See Preus, J. A. O., ‘The use of the Church Fathers in the Formula of Concord’, Concordia Theological Quarterly xlviii (1984), 101Google Scholar.

15 See Lund, Documents, 200–4.

16 ‘it was the Dominican contention that Molina's doctrine of grace which looked to safeguard human free will that was a species of Pelagianism. Molina's opponents went on to identify a “semipelagian” tradition on which they perceived him to be drawing, naming its leading exponents as Cassian and Faustus’: Leyser, ‘Semipelagianism’, 761–2. In several relatively recent lexicon entries the term is declared a seventeenth-century coinage: ‘eine im Gnadenstreit seit Beginn des 17. Jh. v. den Banezianern … polemisch gegen die Molinisten … in Umlauf gebrachte Bez., mit der die Betonung des freien Willens u. die Berücksichtigung der verdienstl. Werke bei der Vorherbestimmung z. Heil … bzw. der Nichtverdienste für die Nichterwählung … in die Nähe der Gnadenlehre der Massilianer gerückt werden sollte’: Müller, ‘Semipelagianismus’, 452; ‘A designation given in the seventeenth century’: Rebecca H. Weaver, ‘Semipelagianism’, in Everett Ferguson and others (eds), Encyclopedia of early Christianity, 2nd edn, New York–London 1999, 1046–7 at p. 1046; ‘the term “semi-pelagian’ came into use at the start of the 17th c.”: C. Tibiletti, ‘Semipelagians’, in Angelo di Berardino (ed.), Encyclopedia of the early Church, Cambridge 1992, ii. 767.

17 See Jacquin, M., ‘À Quelle Date apparaît le terme Semipélagien?’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques i (1907), 506–8Google Scholar. On the Molinist controversy generally see, for example, Flint, Thomas, Divine providence: the Molinist account, New York 2006Google Scholar.

18 See. Jacquin, ‘À Quelle Date’, 506–7; Noris, Henry, Historia pelagiana et dissertatio de synodo v. Œcumenica: additis vindiciis Augustinianis pro libris a s. doctore contra Pelagianos ac Semipelagianos scriptis, Padua 1673Google Scholar; and Friedrich Loofs, ‘Semipelagianismus’, in Albert Hauck (ed.), Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, Leipzig 1906, xviii. 192–203.

19 See, for example, Bonner, Gerald, ‘Pelagianism and Augustine’, Augustinian Studies xxiii (1992), 3351; xxiv (1993), 27–47Google Scholar.

20 See Augustine, De gratia Christi et peccato originali 40.

21 Johann Eck, Enchiridion locorum communium adversus Lutheranos et alios hostes ecclesiae, ed. Pierre Fraenkel, Münster 1979, cap. 31 (1527), 322.

22 Ibid. 320–1. Karlstadt refers specifically to the concept of meritum ex congruo (merit earned by those who are not yet justified but who cooperate with grace).

23 See, for example, Joseph Pohle, ‘Semipelagianism’ in the Catholic Encyclopaedia, New York, xiii. 191, available online at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11604a.htm (accessed 22 Apr. 2011). The otherwise highly reliable editorial notes to John Calvin, Defensio sanae et orthodoxae doctrinae de servitute et liberatione humani arbitrii, ed. A. N. S. Lane and G. I. Davis, Geneva 2008, also rely on later terminology and so inevitably commit an anachronism when they refer (p. 270 n. 156) to Prosper's account portraying ‘the semi-Pelagians as being considerably more Pelagian than Augustine himself admits’. Of course De praedestinatione sanctorum 1, 2 does show that Augustine distinguished sharply between Pelagius and the Massilians. ‘Semipelagianism’, however, is not a term that occurs there and the question of there being any such coherent movement is not broached.

24 For further details and extensive critical apparatus see Calvin, Defensio (Lane-Davis edn). All references hereinafter cited are to this edition.

25 Ibid. 269–70.

26 This is reprinted in its entirety ibid. 331–450.

27 Ibid. 418A.

28 ‘Nulla fit itaque diuinae gratiae iniuria si ad eam ex sua ipsorum natura et liberi potestate arbitrii (quae et ipsa quicquid est, diuinae bonitatis et gratiae opus est) sese possint praeparare homines’: ibid. 423B.

29 The Reformer, however, opposed what he called the ‘middle road’ of the Council of Trent: Markschies, ‘Pelagius/Pelagianer/Semipelagianer’, 1083; Mooi, R. J., Het kerk- en dogmahistorisch element in de werken van Johannes Calvijn, Wageningen 1965, 119–20Google Scholar.

30 On Cassander see Friedrich, A. C. Th., Georgii Cassandri vita et theologia: Commentatio, Göttingen 1855Google Scholar; Dolan, J. P., The influence of Erasmus, Witzel and Cassander in the church ordinances and reform proposals of the united duchies of Cleve during the middle decades of the 16th century, Münster 1957Google Scholar; Erbe, Michael, ‘François Bauduin und Georg Cassander: Dokumente einer Humanistenfreundschaft’, Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance xl (1978), 537–60Google Scholar; and Irena Backus, ‘The early Church as model of religious unity in the sixteenth century: Georg Cassander and Georg Witzel’, in Howard Louthan and Randall Zachmann (eds), Conciliation and confession: the struggle for unity in the age of Reform, 1415–1648, Notre Dame, In 2004, 106–33, and ‘Cassander’, in Pollmann, Oxford guide, s.v. Cass.

31 Honorii Augustodunensis ecclesiae presbyteri de praedestinatione et libero arbitrio dialogus nunquam antehac typis expressus; Epistolae duae ad B. Augustinum altera Prosperi, altera Hilarii Arelatensis episcopi de reliquiis Pelagianae haereseos ad fidem vetusti exemplaris restitutae; Sententiae ex libris B. August. De praedestinatione sanctorum et bono perseuerantiae quibus ad superiores epistolas respondetur et tota haec controuersia explicatur, Coloniae 1552. See also Georgii Cassandri Opera … quae reperiri potuerunt omnia: epistolae cxvii et colloquia ii cum Anabaptistis nunc primum edita, Paris 1616 (Cassander's epistle to Bauheim, Honorius' treatise, the two letters from Prosper and Hilary and extracts from Augustine at pp. 615–67).

32 Beza, Theodore, Novum Jesu Christi D. N. testamentum latine iam olim a veteri interprete, nunc denuo a Theodoro Beza versum cum eiusdem annnotationibus in quibus ratio interpretationis redditur, [Geneva]Google Scholar; R. Estienne 1556.

33 ‘Postremo quia Semipelagiani nostri hunc locum arripiunt ut iustitiam operum cum iustitia fidei concilient (quasi cum Vetere interprete dicendum sit nos non iustificari ex operibus nisi per fidem, id est non ex omnibus operibus sed ex operibus fidem consequentibus, sive non omnia opera salutem mereri, sed ea demum quae ex fide nascuntur) ne habeant isti quod obganniant, primum hoc quaero ex ipsis, quid per opera Legis intelligant quae hic volunt a Paulo coniungi cum fide’: ibid. fo. 240r.

34 ‘Itaque nihil prorsus relinquit homini Paulus, quid non fit per peccatum, non dico semimortuum, ut tradunt sophistae nostri semipelagiani, sed prorsus mortuum, quod ad naturam attinet’: ibid. fo. 249v.

35 ‘Sed et pronomine autou caeteri omnes prorsus excluduntur, aduersus Semipelagianos, id est adversus eos qui naturam, ut aiunt, tantum debilitataem fingunt gratia adiuvari’: ibid. fo. 250r.

36 ‘Hoc igitur qui constituunt, vel Pelagiani sunt, si naturalem faciant gratiam: vel Semipelagiani, si cum natura faciant concurrere gratiam, quae infirmam tantum naturam adiuvet’: ibid. fo. 273r–v.

37 ‘Nam alioqui ad malum praecipites ferimur, ad bonum vero non modo tardi et imbecilli (ut tradunt sophistae Semipelagiani) sed omni etiam bonae voluntatis principio prorsus destituti sumus’: ibid. fo. 310v.

38 On Castellio generally see Guggisberg, Hans Rudolf, Sebastian Castellio (1515–1563): Humanist und Verteidiger der religiösen Toleranz, Göttingen 1997Google Scholar, and Buisson, Ferdinand, Sébastien Castellion, sa vie et son œuvre, Paris 1891Google Scholar, updated repr. Geneva 2010. For exact reference to the above citation see Correspondance de Théodore de Bèze, ed. Hippolyte Aubert and others, iv, Geneva 1965, 191 n. 7.

39 ‘Oportet igitur in primis et ante omnia, non ut Deus praeveniat nostrum liberum arbitrium debile et infirmum (sicut loquuntur Semipelagiani), sed ut nos totis viribus renitentes trahat, idest, quod ad qualitates facultatum nostrarum attinet, nos penitus novos homines reddat’: Theodore Beza, Confessio christianae fidei, et eiusdem collatio cum papisticis haeresibus, n.p. 1560, 57; cf. his Tractationes theologicae, [Geneva] 1582, i. 13–14.

40 For the full text of this preface see Correspondance de Bèze, iv, no. 283, p. 184. Its editors note (p. 191 n. 7) that ‘it is remarkable to see this term [Semipelagianism] appear from the pen of Beza, whereas it is usually seen only in the debates that arose in the context of Molina's doctrines. This at least is the view of E. Ammann’. This use of the term by Beza was first noted briefly by Aza Goudriaan in his ‘Seventeenth-century Arminians and the accusation of Pelagianism: some tactical approaches’, in I. Backus, P. Büttgen and B. Pouderon (eds), L'Argument hérésiologique, l'Église ancienne et les Réformes, XVI–XVIIe siècles, Paris 2012, 363–79 at p. 366 n. 14.

41 ‘Notum est piis omnibus quanti sit momenti certamen de originis peccato, de quo contendit olim ecclesia cum Pelagianis, nunc vero cum Semipelagianis certamus’: Correspondance de Bèze, iv, no. 283, p. 184; cf. Beza, Tractationes theologicae, i. 425.

42 ‘Quia nostrae aetatis Semipelagiani (ex quorum numero utinam ne sit Castellio noster) cupide arripiunt huiusmodi testimonia ut operum iustitiam stabiliant, quae ex diametro repugnat Dei gratiam, idcirco in meis annotationibus admonui, hoc in loco [Rom. 8,10] Apostolum non quaerere de mortis et vitae causis (quanvis peccatum omnibus modis sit mortis propria causa)’: Beza, Theodore, Responsiones ad defensiones et reprehensiones Sebastiani Castellionis, quibus suam Novi Testamenti interpretationem defendere adversus Bezam, et eius versionem vicissim reprehendere conatus est, [Geneva] 1563, 1112Google Scholar. The passage between parentheses, which refers to Castellio, is omitted in Beza's edition of his Tractationes theologicae, i. 465.

43 ‘quae quum auditis, puto vos eius calumniae totidem pene verbis a Pelagianis adversus Augustinum … recordari. Respondeat igitur ille meo nomine, quandoquidem in Castellione revixit Julianus. Sic enim ille ad duas Pelagianorum epistolas respondens lib. 1, cap. 8, Pelagianos inducit de orthodoxis loquentes: “Apostolum etiam Paulum et omnes apostolos dicunt semper immoderata libidine esse pollutos”’: Correspondance de Bèze, iv, no. 283, p. 185.

44 See Théodore de Bèze: cours sur les Épîtres aux Romains et aux Hébreux, 1564–66, d'après les notes de Marcus Widler, ed. Pierre Fraenkel and Luc Perrottet, Geneva 1988.

45 ‘Papistae: 1. docent laesam esse divinitatem, ut aiunt, – sit rebellio intra etc.; depra[va]tam voluntatem, ut per se non posse [!] surgere sine gratia; itaque liberum arbitrium et gratiam coniungunt. Ex baptismo extingui peccatum originis. Unde concupiscentia? Responsio: non haberi peccatum sed esse sensum et vomitem [!] pecati [!] ad nos exercendos, non delendos. Haec est illorum opinio. Nil aliud dicunt quam Pelagiani. Ergo sunt semi–Pelagiani’: Bèze: cours, 68.

46 ‘Apage Meriti nomen, quod gratiae repugnat ex diametro, quicquid Sophistae semipelagiani garriant. Gratiae primae nos synergein qui negat, primae gratiae efficacitatem negat’: idem, Quaestionum et responsionum christianarum libellus, in Tractationes theologicae, i. 666.

47 ‘Nam si perfecta esset ista in nobis sanctificatio, perfecta etiam esset iustitia nostra, sive nobis inhaerens; ac proinde Christus non esset nobis in solidum et proprie servitor, sed duntaxat organum et instrumentum nobis sic disponendis, ut nos ipsos postea nostra iustitia iustificaremus, qui foedus est ac plane detestabilis Sophistarum Semipelagianorum error’: ibid. i. 672.

48 ‘rursum consequetur fidem partim esse Dei donum, partim vero a nostrae voluntatis arbitrio proficisci, quod dogma semiPelagianum est’: idem, De praedestinationis doctrina et vero usu tractatio absolutissima, in Tractationes theologicae, iii. 421.

49 ‘Unde Pelagianum illud autexousion, et gratiam cum Merito, id est, lucem cum tenebris copulans adversariorum nostrorum Semipelagianismus?’: Theodore Beza to Johann Casimir, 15/25 August 1588, in Correspondance de Bèze, xxix, Geneva 2007, 243–63 at p. 254.

50 ‘Nos igitur et mille locis expressum Dei verbum, et ipsius rei naturam, et Augustini in primis disputationes eruditissimas, quibus olim Pelagiani sunt prostrati, et nunc Semipelagiani Sophistae iugulantur, ipsius denique Lutheri in lib. de servo arbitrio sententiam sequuti, ut Electionis sic Reprobationis quoque decretum aeternum, et quod ad eventum attinet, immutabile, id est, tam misericordiae, quam irae vasa statuimus’: Theodore Beza, Ad putidas quasdam a Iacobo Andreae partim recenter conflictas partim aliunde repetitas calumnias responsio, in Tractationes theologicae, iii. 125.

51 Idem, De praedestinationis doctrina, ibid. iii. 430.

52 Idem, Ad Nicolaum Selneccerum Theodorae Bezae responsio prima, ibid. ii. 240.

53 Cf. Markschies, ‘Pelagius/Pelagianer/Semipelagianer’, 1083, who states that neither the Formula of Concord nor Calvin meant a historical fifth-century position, but rather ‘eine spätestens seit dem hoch–MA in diversen Varianten verbreitete Position, die das exakte Verhältnis von Gnade Gottes und Wirken des Menschen nach dem Paradigma des Gradualismus … beschreibt’.

54 ‘Inde [haec haeresis, sc. Pelagianismus] in Angliam profectus, ubique veneni sui afflatum et semina maxima et nocentissima reliquit, quae brevi tempore ita pullularunt, ut totum Christianum orbem occuparent et inficerent misere. Denique tam alte huius erroris radices haeserunt, ut ne nunc quidem extirpari possint. Manent enim in Papatu ubi Semipelagianismus apertissime docetur’: Daneau, Lambert, D. Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi liber De haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum, Geneva 1578Google Scholar, fo. 214r.

55 ‘Semipelagianismus pontificiorum’: Sturm, Hubert, De aeterna et immutabili praedestinatione Dei, electione et reprobatione diatribe, Leiden 1583Google Scholar, 15; cf. ‘Pelagiani et Semipelagiani partim praesentibus, partim praevisis meritis, electionem adscribunt: de quibus Augustinus, Epist. 89, 90, 92, 94, Thomas, p.p. q. 23, a. 3’ (pp. 45–6). On Hubert Sturm see Schmitt, Heinz, ‘Sturm (Sturmius), Hubert’, Biographisches-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexicon, Nordhausen 2005, xxiv. 1430–5Google Scholar (http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/s/s4/sturm_hu.shtml, accessed 14 June 2011). There were two later editions of Sturm's book, in 1597 and 1604.

56 ‘Nec est quod Semipelagianus aliquis dicat, voluntati ad bonum persequendum infirmae, ad id tamen propensae, gratiam opitulari: et propterea dictum non volentis nec currentis, sed miserentis est Dei, tanquam diceretur: Non sufficit sola voluntas hominis, si non sit etiam misericordia Dei. Etenim cum Augustino [margin: Enchirid. ad Laur. c. 32 et Ad Simpl., lib. 1] respondemus: si eo quod voluntas hominis sola non implet salutem, recte dictum est non volentis est hominis, sed miserentis Dei: etiam e converso, si misericordia Dei eam sola non implet, recte diceretur non miserentis est Dei, sed volentis est homini: quod piae aures non ferunt. Stat ergo propterea dici non volentis nec currentis est hominis, ut totum Deo detur, qui hominis voluntatem bonam et praeparat adiuvandam, et adiuvat praeparatam’: Kimedoncius, Jacobus, De redemtione generis humani libri tres, Heidelberg 1592, 527–8Google Scholar.

On Kimedoncius's book see Herman J. Selderhuis, ‘Das Recht Gottes: der Beitrag der Heidelberger Theologen zu der Debatte über die Prädestination’, in Christoph Strohm and others (eds), Späthumanismus und reformierte Konfession: Theologie, Jurisprudenz und Philosophie in Heidelberg an der Wende zum 17. Jahrhundert, Tübingen 2006, 227–53 at pp. 233–6.

57 On these catalogues see Backus, Irena, Historical method and confessional identity in the era of the Reformation, Leiden 2003, 382–3Google Scholar, 385–90.

58 For exact references to Serry see Jacquin, ‘À Quelle Date?’, 508.

59 On Sander(s) see T. F. Mayer, ‘Sander [Sanders], Nicholas’, ODNB (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/24621, accessed 9 May 2011), and Veech, Thomas McNevin, Dr Nicholas Sanders and the English Reformation, 1530–1581, Louvain 1935Google Scholar.

60 ‘De certis dubiis, quae inter Catholicos hoc tempore circa praedestinationem exorta sunt, quorum pleraque, si quis pertinaciter defenderet, Semipelagianus habendus esset’: Sanders, Nicholas, De visibili monarchia ecclesiae libri octo, Louvain 1571, 387Google Scholar. The same statement is in later editions, for example Antwerp 1578 (p. 363), Paris 1580 (p. 363), Würzburg 1592 (p. 363).

61 ‘Praedictarum opinionum assertores, licet manifeste erraverint, tamen haeretici iure habendi non sunt, quia sic a S. Augustino dissenserunt, ut et ad ipsius dicta, quae ante scripsisset, et ad alios Catholicos Patres, et ad Sedem Apostolicam provocarent. Unde nec in eis pertinacia fuit, nec ullum nomen apud antiquos haeresium censores acceperunt’: ibid. 389.

62 ‘In urbe Massiliensi, et in reliqua Gallia viri quidam Ecclesiastici lectis D. Augustini opusculis, quae contra Pelagianos ediderat, Pelagianos quidem pro haereticis habuerunt: sed nonnulla in Augustini dictis, Patrum opinioni et Ecclesiastico sensui contraria putaverunt’: ibid. 387.

63 ‘Existimabant (ut Hilarius in Epistola sua ad Augustinum refert) adiuvari gratia Dei eum, qui coepisset velle, non etiam donari, ut velit’: ibid.

64 ‘Deinde quicquid donatum sit praedestinatis, id eos amittere posse, et retinere propria voluntate’: ibid.

65 ‘Non esse definitum eligendorum rejiciendorum numerum’: ibid.

66 ‘Ex parvulis tales baptizari antequam moriantur, talesque mori antequam baptizentur, quales futuros illos in annis maioribus, si ad activam servarentur aetatem, divina scientia praeviderit’: ibid.

67 ‘Praedicatione praedestinationis audientibus plus desperationis, quam exhortationis afferri’: ibid. 389.

68 ‘Arbitrabatur, velle Deum omnes homines salvos fieri, ut nullus habeatur exceptus, sed propitiationem quae est in Sacramento sanguinis Christi, universis hominibus sine exceptione esse propositam’: ibid.

69 Eder, Georg, Mataeologia haereticorum sive summa haereticarum fabularum, Ingolstadt 1581, 230–2Google Scholar. On Eder (1523–87) see Jellouschek, C., ‘Eder, Georg’, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, Freiburg 1959, iii. 657–8Google Scholar, and Heurterize, B., ‘Eder, Georges’, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Paris 1911, iv. 2101–2Google Scholar.

70 Vazquez, Gabriel, Commentariorum ac disputationum in primam partem S. Thomae tomus primus, Alcala de Henares 1598Google Scholar, esp. pp. 783–91, 843–64 (ad: Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 23, art. 4 and 5, respectively).

71 ‘Deinde disputabat Augustinus contra alium errorem, eorum scilicet, qui dicuntur a Prospero, et Hilario de reliquiis Pelagianorum, et vulgo Semipelagiani nuncupantur. Hi erant Massilienses, quorum caput et auctor doctrinae contra Aug. ex professo fuit Cassianus’: Vazquez, Commentariorum, 784–5. (This is quoted, from the second edition [1604], in Jacquin, ‘À Quelle Date’, 508 n. 6).

72 For example. Vazquez, Commentariorum, 832 (‘multi Scholastici cum eis conveniunt’).

73 Latius, Ioannes, De Pelagianis et Semipelagianis commentariorum ex veterum patrum scriptis, Harderwijk 1617Google Scholar; Vossius, Gerardus Ioannes, Historiae de controversiis quas Pelagius eiusque reliquiae moverunt libri septem, 2nd edn, Amsterdam 1655Google Scholar.

74 Geisendorf, Paul F., Théodore de Bèze, Geneva 1949, 84Google Scholar, 89; Baird, Henry Martyn, Theodore Beza: the counsellor of the French Reformation, 1519–1605, New York–London 1899, 85Google Scholar, 90–1; Martin Brecht, ‘Andreae, Jakob (1528–1590)’, in Horst Robert Balz and others (eds), Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Berlin 1978, ii. 672–80 at p. 675.

75 Sanders, De visibili monarchia, for example 5 (Beza's Confessio), 367 (annotation at Luke xxii. 20), 679 and 681 (annotation at Luke. xxii. 20), 713 (cf. annotation ad Acts ii. 27), 740 (annotation ad 2 Thessalonians ii. 3), 745 (annotation at 2 Thess. ii. 3), 746 (ibid.), 752 (annotation ad 2 Thess. ii), 785 (Confessio), 810 (Confessio), 822 (annotation ad 2 Thess. ii. 3).

76 Noris, Historia pelagiana, 158–338.

77 For its use in the Arminian controversy see Goudriaan, ‘Seventeenth-century Arminians’. For extensive use of the term by G. W. Leibniz in the 1697–1704 negotiations for union between the Lutheran Church of Hanover and the Calvinist Church of Brandenburg see Irena Backus, ‘Leibniz et l'hérésie ancienne’, in Backus, Büttgen and Pouderon, L'Argument hérésiologique, 69–94.

78 He states this in the Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken of 1597–8, a document that he produced jointly with Gerhard Wolter Molanus and which aimed to reunite the Lutheran Church of Hanover and the Calvinist Church of Brandenburg: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Gesammelte Schriften und Briefe, Berlin 1980– at 4th ser. (Politische Schriften), vii. 220–1, and Backus, ‘Leibniz et l'hérésie ancienne’, 85–94.