were they written? and where was the author's home?' The time is fixed without difficulty. In the first of the letters we find the passage: 'Nam et in Francia et in Saxonia et in omni Barbaria Deus est, non tamen et Dei cultores' (p. 3), i.e. at the time of the composition of this letter Francia and Saxonia were heathen lands. The Franks became Christians during the last years of the fifth century. Again, as we have seen in the letter De malis Doctoribus,' the writer speaks of the danger and obloquy which his party had to endure since they were branded as heretics. This must have been after the Rescript of Honorius, in 418, in which the Pelagians were declared heretics and subjected to penalties. The letters, as a whole, on such internal grounds are dated by Caspari from 413 to 430.

As to what was the author's country and home we have no guide but probability. He speaks of his long and dangerous journey, and of the boundless dangers of the sea. Now, we know that the coast of North Gaul was Catholic at this time, but that there were many Pelagians in Britain. We may, then, with a good deal of probability imagine that the author came from Britain. For we know that then, as now, the British were great travellers. About the end of the fourth century Pelagius left Britain and stayed at Rome, and Faustus (circ. 420 A.D.) wandered from his British home to South Gaul, entered the monastery of Lerin, afterwards became its abbot, and finally Bishop of Reji. Gildas, in 570, speaks, in his Liber querulus de Excidio Britanniæ,' of godless British clerics making long sea and land journeys, with objectionable aims and with pernicious results to their country. Towards the end of the sixth century Columban and his companions, among them Gailus, went to France and Lombardy to found a cloister, and combat the remnants of heathenism. Towards the end of the seventh and eighth, Kilian and his companions went as missionaries to Germany. In a book on the miracles of St. Gallus it is said of the Scoti, ie. the Irish, that the habit of travelling abroad had almost become a second nature.

We must further recollect that the author had promised to return to Britain, so that he may very well have done so, and played the important part in the spread of Pelagianism which Caspari, as we shall see, finds reason for believing he did.

The possible names in Britain about this time are (1) Pelagius; (2) Celestius, if he was, as many think, an 1 Monumenta Historica Britannica i. 31.

Irishman or a Scotchman; (3) Fastidius, if he is really the author of the Pelagian treatise De Vita Christiana; and (4) finally, Severianus, or rather his son (in the faith?) Agricola.

It is very unlikely that Pelagius was the author; he was almost certainly never married, and the style of his known writings is quite different, and he was a monk. Celestius is also out of question: a statement in Marius Mercator shows that he was never married, and he was of a more theoretical and dogmatic turn of mind than our author, who is practical and ethical. Moreover he was converted to Pelagianism by Pelagius himself, and not by a Sicilian lady, as the author was. As to Fastidius, Caspari believes that the evidence proves that he was the author of the De Vita Christiana mentioned by Gennadius, but he can hardly be the author of these letters. Agricola, then, alone is left. Now, Prosper of Aquitania writes: Agricola Pelagianus Severiani Pelagiani episcopi filius ecclesias Britanniæ dogmatis sui insinuatione corrupit.' He goes on to say that Pope Celestinus sent St. German to Britain, and that he brought back the people to the Catholic faith. The life of St. German agrees with Prosper's account, except on one point. According to it, it was not the Pope who sent St. German to Britain, but a Gallic synod, summoned at the instance of Hilferuf, a British Catholic. It seems not unnatural, then, to suppose that the author did return to Britain, and that he was none other than the Agricola mentioned by Prosper. His first convert was his so-called father, Severianus. The expression 'corrupted the churches' implies that the heresy was previously little, if at all, prevalent in the island. This harmonizes with the fact that the author learned his Pelagianism in Sicily. After all, however, Caspari's solution of the question of authorship is nothing more than a not improbable supposition.

It remains to give a brief account of the remaining eight sermons or letters edited in this work, and then to add a few concluding remarks. The first is a letter of advice to

1 Cf. Bede, lib..i. cap. 17: Ante paucos sane adventus eorum [Saxonum] annos hæresis Pelagiana per Agricolam inlata, Severiani Episcopi Pelagiani filium, fidem Britanniarum foeda peste commaculaverat.' But Caspari says that Bede did not write 'Pelagiani' after 'Episcopi.' Cf. also Dr. Bright, Early English Church History, p. 15. 'Severianus . . . had a son named Agricola, who devoted himself with passionate ardour to the work of spreading the proscribed theory in the country of its author, so that, in Prosper's words, "Enemies of Grace took possession of the heresiarch's native soil."'

one lately returned to an ascetic life. The writer, Caspari concludes, is not, as it might appear, the British Bishop Faustus, but some unknown person in Gaul.

Next comes a very fulsome (so fulsome as at times almost to approach the blasphemous) letter from one nun to another, who appears to have been of high birth—perhaps St. Radegunde. The date is about the beginning of the sixth century.

Then follow six sermons. (1) A sermon on the Ascension, belonging to the fifth century; (2) a Whitsuntide sermon by the same author, who is fond of mystical interpretations; (3) a sermon by Cæsarius of Arles; (4) a sermon in which the question-Cur Deus Homo?-is considered. The author takes a juristic view of the Incarnation and Atonement. Man, he argues, was the devil's by fair right. He gave himself up to him of his own free will; but Christ, by His death on the Cross, put the devil in the wrong. By seizing upon Christ, to whom he had no right, the devil forfeited his right to man. And he represents our Lord as thus entrapping the devil by offering him a bait. As was not uncommon in the Middle Ages, our redemption is represented as a legal transaction between God, Christ, and the Devil. The author of the sermon has borrowed some of his ideas from Faustus. (5) Is an explanation of the parable of the good Samaritan-entirely allegorical, and belongs to the seventh or eighth century.

(6) The last sermon is a remarkable composition. Its subject is the last times, Antichrist, and the end of the world. It is falsely ascribed to Ephraim Syrus in one MS., to Isidore in another. It has strong affinities with the Revelationes of Pseudo-Methodius. Caspari believes that it was originally written in Greek. He dates it from 565 to 628 A.D., and raises several interesting questions in connexion with it.

We have covered so much ground in describing the book before us that we have little space left for any further remarks. Yet we must attempt to form a brief estimate of our Pelagian and his creed. And in the first place it is no palliation of his heresy to say that he was a man of high aims and ascetic life. This was admitted on all sides with regard to Pelagius himself. 'It is right to remember,' writes Dr. Bright,'' that he had in his own way a “zeal for God," a grave indignation against the inertness of many professing Christians, who pleaded their weakness as an excuse Early English Church History, 2nd edit. p. 15.

for not striving after sanctity. But he went astray through an exaggeration of human capacities for moral attainment.' We have seen how true this is in the case of the Pelagian author of these letters. The standard both of Pelagius and his followers was utterly beyond the reach of human nature, and if the Church had been as rigorous in her interpretation of Christ's law as they were, Christianity would soon have come to be looked upon much as the Quakers are now. Dr. Bright continues: He overrated the power of the will and denied the necessity of internal grace.' The essential doctrine of Pelagius, as Milman points out,2 was the absolute freedom of the will. This led him to deny the Augustinian doctrine of invincible grace. In his reaction from this doctrine he went to extremes, and denied what is a truism now, viz. that man's will, though free, is conditioned by hereditary and other circumstances. Hence he rejected that view of the Fall, as a source of inherited corruption, and debasement, which is technically called the doctrine of original sin.'3 Pelagianism may also be regarded as a revolt against Solifidianism. It was condemned at the Council of Carthage in the year 418.

It is evident that Agricola, if we may assume his identity with our author, was a man of wealth, and the advocates of Pelagianism in Britain at this time appear to have been 'laymen of wealth and importance.'

At the same time Agricola was not one of those who were attracted by Pelagianism as a philosophy. He is above all things practical, and his scathing condemnation of the moral corruption of his time would, we may hope, stir men's hearts, in spite of the grave errors of his teaching. Yet perhaps it is little use to scourge men's sins, if you do not at the same time preach the Divine remedy for sin, and point them to the power of Divine Grace. It is not enough to glorify the example of Christ if we do not also tell of the grace which flows from His Incarnation. Hence the need of a St. German to dispel the errors of Agricola, and recall the Church to the paths of truth.

1 Early English Church History, 2nd edit. p. 15. 2 Latin Christianity, 4th edit. i. 146.

Dr. Bright, loc. cit.

Cf. Dr. Bright, pp. 15-16. 'Some laymen of wealth and importance were attracted by a system which tended to resolve Christianity into a philosophy.'

ART. X.-ST. CLEMENT'S EPISTLE AND THE EARLY ROMAN CHURCH.

1. Sancti Clementis Romani ad Corinthios Epistule versio Latina antiquissima. Edidit D. GERMANUS MORIN, Presbyter et monachus Ord. S. Benedicti. (Vol. ii. of Anecdota Maredsolana). (Maredsous and Oxford, 1894.)

2. The Apostolic Fathers. Part I. S. Clement of Rome. A Revised Text, with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and Translations. By the late J. B. LIGHTFOOT, Lord Bishop of Durham. 2 vols. (London, 1890.)

3. The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170. By W. M. RAMSAY, M.A. (London, 1893.)

4. Ueber die jüngst entdeckte lateinische Uebersetzung des I. Clemensbriefs. Von A. HARNACK. (Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, March 8, 1894.) 5. Review by A. HILGENFELD. (Wochenschrift für klassische Philologie, Berlin, April 18, 1894.)

6. Review by TH. ZAHN. (Theologisches Literaturblatt, Leipzig, April 27, 1894.)

IT is only three years since the Epistles of St. Clement were the subject of an article in the Church Quarterly Review (April 1891), on the occasion of the posthumous publication of Bishop Lightfoot's second edition, and now attention is again directed to the same Father by the remarkable and unexpected discovery of a Latin version of his genuine epistle. We need make no apology for returning under these circumstances so soon to a writing which possesses interest from so many aspects as does this epistle of St. Clement of Rome to the Corinthians. All relics, however insignificant, of the hidden period of growth and development which intervenes between the apostolic age and the middle of the second century-the Epistles of Clement, Barnabas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apology of Aristides, the fragments of Papias-are unspeakably precious; and of all these sub-apostolic writings, the Epistle of Clement is far the most considerable in bulk, except the Shepherd, while, unlike the Shepherd, not only its place but its date is fixed by critics of the most different schools with some approach to unanimity. The Epistle to the Corinthians is not, indeed, impressed with the stamp of theological genius which characterizes the letters of Ignatius; the facts recorded or implied in it want something of the unique interest of the