AG STUDY GUIDE FINAL - The Forerunner

legitimate for a church council to do that is another question – but what they’re trying to
say is that this is an issue that is so important that we feel that if a person believes this,
they actually are destroying an essential aspect of the Gospel. And so it is better for that
person simply to be cut off from the church than to allow them to continue to teach and
have the possibility of destroying souls.
“But even if we preach any other Gospel to you other than what we have preached to you,
let him be accursed.” ~ Galatians 1:8
In total, three councils condemned Pelagianism in all its forms. Six years after the
Council of Carthage, a general council of African churches reaffirmed the anathemas of
412 A.D. Unfortunately, in the interval between these two councils, the bishop of Rome,
Zosimus, sided with Pelagius. In 412, he wrote a letter condemning the Council at
Carthage for their anathema of Pelagius. Of course, understanding that they had the
support of Scripture, the leaders of the Carthaginian council disregarded the bishop and
his letter. Philip Schaff, noted church historian, observes,
“This temporary favor of the bishop of Rome towards the Pelagian heresy is a
significant presage of the indulgence of later popes for Pelagianizing
tendencies…”~ Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, WM. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co. Volume III, p. 798
It was these Pelagianizing tendencies advocated by the bishop of Rome that allowed for
the later development of the works righteousness in the Roman Catholic belief system.
This can perhaps be best illustrated by the life and writings of Cornelius Otto Jansen, a
leader of the post-Reformation movement within Roman Catholicism. Most of his
works were published and became popular after his death in 1640. Like Martin Luther,
Jansen believed that the Church of Rome had departed from the early church’s position
– that all of life was by the grace of God. And, like Augustine, he taught that man’s
spirit was dead in sin and therefore needed to be regenerated – what the Bible called
“born again”.
“Jesus answered him and said to him, ‘Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born
again, he cannot see the Kingdom of Heaven.” ~ John 3:3
Jansen understood that this experience was something that happened to man by God’s
grace, and not something that a man made happen by his faith. On behalf of the pope,
the Jesuits launched a violent attack on the Jansenist movement. In 1713, Pope Clement
XI issued a Papal Bull or formal condemnation, against them denouncing 101 statements
from their writings. What’s troubling is that many of these statements were direct
quotations from the writings of Augustine against Pelagius.
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