Sunday, April 24, 2022

Excerpts from Pelagius' Commentary on Galatians

English text used: Pelagius, Commentaries on the Thirteen Epistles of Paul with the Libellus Fidei (trans. Thomas P. Scheck; Ancient Christian Writers 76; New York: The Newman Press, 2022), hereafter “Scheck”

 

Latin text consulted: Alexander Souter, Pelagius's Exposition of Thirteen Epistles of St. Paul, II: Text and Apparatus Criticus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), hereafter “Souter”


Gal 1:19

 

“But I saw none of the other apostles.” Lest he should seem to have learned [even] from them. “Except James the brother of the Lord.” This goes against those who say that blessed Mary had other children (Contra eos qui dicunt beatam Mariam alios filios habuisse). For we read that there were two apostles named James, one of Alphaeus [cf. Matt 10:3] and one of Zebedee [cf. Matt 4:21]. There were none of Mary and Joseph, but they are called brethren of the Lord from their affinity. (Scheck, 229; Souter, 311)

 

Gal 2:20

 

In faith alone, since I owe nothing to the law (In sola fide, quia nihil debeo legi). (Scheck, 232; Souter, 317)

 

Gal 4:19

 

“My little children.” Born into the light of truth [and justice] throughout the gospel [cf. 1 Cor 4:15]. “For whom I am in labor again.” You have caused me to suffer pain and groaning again. He is showing that a person can be reborn through repentance (ostendit hominem per paenitentiam posse renasci) [cf. John 3:5]. (Scheck, 237-38; Souter, 327)

 

Gal 5:24

 

“But they that are Christ’s have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.” If all vices have been simultaneously crucified, and the flesh does not lust, as if it were hanging on the tree, what is the law to us, which he was given to hold the vices in check? At the same time the following should be noted, that he said that they are Christ’s who have crucified the flesh with the vices and lusts. This contradicts those who think that faith alone suffices for salvation (hoc cotra illos qui solam fidem sufficere arbitrantur). (Scheck, 243; Souter, 338)

 

At the beginning of the fifth century, there existed in the Western church a number of errors that presented salvation as more or less independent of good works. Pelagius does not specifically identify the source of these errors, but we learn from Augustine as well as that they affected the Christian faithful. Thus, in spite of Pelagius’s remarkable and sustained insistence that justification is by faith alone, he nevertheless balances this view with the repeated affirmation that salvation is not by faith alone! (Scheck, 399 n. 46, emphasis added)