Christina S.
The Donatist schism emerged as a result of the Great Persecution: under pressure many church leaders handed over scripture to the emperor to avoid persecution. Before this, conflicts already existed within the Christian movement in regard to what the role of church leaders was to be. However, the clergy who survived and handed over scripture emphasized this problem after the Great Persecution: what should happen to the clergy that survived the trials? This offense of surrender (instead of accepting martyrdom), from the perspective of the Donatists, was unforgivable. Thus a schism emerged as the Donatists left the Orthodox Church.
Pelagius proposed his own ideas regarding the natural state of man: he believed that goodness was an innate feature in humans. He also believed it was possible for a person to be sinless on his or her own. Jerome scrutinized this theological possibility which, he explained, led to a vastly different view of the relationship between humans and God than that which was established in the Orthodox Church.
In Jerome’s “Letter to Ctesiphon,” he presents Pelagius’s arguments to be opposite the church's beliefs through analyzing scripture and language. Jerome attacks Pelagius’s intelligence by following Pelagius’s basic principles on to conclusions that are clearly in conflict with scripture. He also attacks Pelagius personally by degrading those who follow him (women, whom Jerome believes are susceptible to any doctrine—despite that Jerome himself being funded by women...), as well as being a theological descendant to other heretics (whom Pelagius himself refutes), thus exposing him as a hypocrite.
Jerome begins his letter by extrapolating Pelagius’s basic idea of human goodness to that of the belief in human equality with God. He then explains that he does not have to go through every detail of Pelagius’s theology to disprove his beliefs because the foundation of Pelagius’s theology is incorrect on this basic assumption (as well as others). Jerome quotes a variety of scriptures in direct conflict with the idea that humans are equivalent to God or that a person could be sinless for an entire lifetime. Jerome puts his knowledge of Latin to use to scrutinize the specific words in Pelagius’s theology, and studies how it differs from how they are used in the Orthodox Church.
The Donatist schism emerged as a result of the Great Persecution: under pressure many church leaders handed over scripture to the emperor to avoid persecution. Before this, conflicts already existed within the Christian movement in regard to what the role of church leaders was to be. However, the clergy who survived and handed over scripture emphasized this problem after the Great Persecution: what should happen to the clergy that survived the trials? This offense of surrender (instead of accepting martyrdom), from the perspective of the Donatists, was unforgivable. Thus a schism emerged as the Donatists left the Orthodox Church.
Pelagius proposed his own ideas regarding the natural state of man: he believed that goodness was an innate feature in humans. He also believed it was possible for a person to be sinless on his or her own. Jerome scrutinized this theological possibility which, he explained, led to a vastly different view of the relationship between humans and God than that which was established in the Orthodox Church.
In Jerome’s “Letter to Ctesiphon,” he presents Pelagius’s arguments to be opposite the church's beliefs through analyzing scripture and language. Jerome attacks Pelagius’s intelligence by following Pelagius’s basic principles on to conclusions that are clearly in conflict with scripture. He also attacks Pelagius personally by degrading those who follow him (women, whom Jerome believes are susceptible to any doctrine—despite that Jerome himself being funded by women...), as well as being a theological descendant to other heretics (whom Pelagius himself refutes), thus exposing him as a hypocrite.
Jerome begins his letter by extrapolating Pelagius’s basic idea of human goodness to that of the belief in human equality with God. He then explains that he does not have to go through every detail of Pelagius’s theology to disprove his beliefs because the foundation of Pelagius’s theology is incorrect on this basic assumption (as well as others). Jerome quotes a variety of scriptures in direct conflict with the idea that humans are equivalent to God or that a person could be sinless for an entire lifetime. Jerome puts his knowledge of Latin to use to scrutinize the specific words in Pelagius’s theology, and studies how it differs from how they are used in the Orthodox Church.