Name: RAPHAEL LEITE REIS
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 26/09/2017
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| SERGIO ALBERTO FELDMAN | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| ÉRICA CRISTHYANE MORAIS DA SILVA | Internal Examiner * |
| JOSÉ MÁRIO GONÇALVES | External Examiner * |
| SERGIO ALBERTO FELDMAN | Advisor * |
Summary: In 415 AD, the council of Diospolis (or Lydda) acquitted Pelagius of all charges of heresy made to him and the Breton monk was considered orthodox, that is, the bearer of the true Catholic faith, according to the fourteen Eastern bishops present in the process. This fact further aggravated the controversy with the Pelagians, since about four last years before the Pelagian movement has been condemned as heretic by a synod that occurred in the city of Carthage,
beginning the polemic. According to Augustine of Hippo, who along with the African bishops was one of the main opponents of the movement and who put forth arduous efforts in their confrontation, the Christian followers of Pelagius would have taken advantage of the absolution of the ascetic before the Catholic council to legitimize ideas about human nature Perfect and exempt from original sin, and about the free will of the human will independent of the grace of Christ, as orthodox and therefore Catholic. For the African Church, Pelagianism was heresy precisely because it denied the corruption of human nature from the sin of Adam and because, by taking man as being able to attain salvation and perfection by his own strength, he eventually
despised the Grace of Christ and deny it as the only possible condition for human salvation, making the cross of Christ (the ultimate symbol of Christianity) vain. If Augustine and the African bishops condemned the Pelagians as heretics and Pelagianism as heresy, have been Pelagius acquitted in the Eastern Council would indicate a rupture of the Church? Could the
Eastern bishops be considered favorable to the Pelagian ideas once they have cleared Pelagius? What could be taken as orthodoxy and as heresy in terms of Christian doctrine and identity in the early fifth century? In order to try to approach us these questions in search of the possible solutions, we have selected a historical source from the period that deals precisely with this moment of the controversy: De Gestis Pelagii - a work written by Augustine near two years after the synod of Diospolis in which the Bishop sought ascertain the procedures at the trial by trying to better understand the process and the final sentence. By means of this research, then, we intend to analyze the discourse of Hippo's bishop in the said work in view of his position on
the controversy, on the Pelagianism and on the Pelagius absolution in the Eastern Council. For this, we seek theoretical help in Chartier and his concept of representation, in Woodward and Silva and their concepts of identity and difference, in Kochakwicz and his conceptualization of orthodoxy and heresy, and methodological in Orlandi and his method of discourse analysis.
