Editing Pelagianism (section)

==Background==
{{Main|Christianity in late antiquity}}
{{Further|Christianity in the 4th century|Christianity in the 5th century}}

During the fourth and fifth centuries, the Church was experiencing rapid change due to the [[Constantinian shift]] to Christianity.{{sfn|Harrison|2016|p=78}} Many Romans were converting to Christianity, but they did not necessarily follow the faith strictly.{{sfn|Kirwan|1998}} As Christians were no longer [[Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire|persecuted]], they faced a new problem: how to avoid backsliding and nominal adherence to the [[state religion]] while retaining the sense of urgency originally caused by persecution. For many, the solution was adopting [[Christian asceticism]].{{sfn|Harrison|2016|p=78}}

Early Christianity was [[Diversity in early Christian theology|theologically diverse]]. While [[Western Christianity]] taught that the inevitability of [[death]] was the result of the [[fall of man]], a Syrian tradition including the second-century figures [[Theophilus of Antioch|Theophilus]] and [[Irenaeus]] asserted that mortality preceded the fall. Around 400, the doctrine of [[original sin]] was just emerging in Western Christianity, deriving from the teaching of [[Cyprian]] that infants should be baptized for the sin of [[Adam]]. Other Christians followed [[Origen]] in the belief that infants are born in sin due to their failings in a [[previous life]]. [[Rufinus the Syrian]], who came to Rome in 399 as a delegate for [[Jerome]], followed the Syrian tradition, declaring that man had been created mortal and that each human is only punished for his own [[Sin in Christianity|sin]].{{sfn|Teselle|2014|pp=1–2}}

[[Pelagius]] ({{circa|355|420}}){{sfn|Elliott|2011|p=377}} was an ascetic layman, probably from the [[British Isles]], who moved to [[Rome]] in the early 380s.{{sfn|Keech|2012|p=38}}{{sfn|Scheck|2012|p=81}} Like Jerome, Pelagius criticized what he saw as an increasing laxity among Christians, instead promoting higher moral standards and asceticism.{{sfn|Elliott|2011|p=377}}{{sfn|Wetzel|2001|p=51}}{{sfn|Scheck|2012|p=81}} He opposed [[Manicheanism]] because of its [[fatalism]] and [[determinism]]{{sfn|Harrison|2016|p=78}} and argued for the possibility of a [[sinless |sinless life]].{{sfn|Bonner|2004}} Although Pelagius preached the renunciation of earthly wealth,{{sfn|Beck|2007|pp=689–690}} his ideas became popular among parts of the Roman elite.{{sfn|Keech|2012|p=38}}{{sfn|Wetzel|2001|p=51}}{{sfn|Harrison|2016|p=78}} Historian [[Peter Brown (historian)|Peter Brown]] argued that Pelagianism appealed "to a powerful centrifugal tendency in the aristocracy of Rome—a tendency to scatter, to form a pattern of little groups, each striving to be an elite, each anxious to rise above their neighbours and rivals—the average upper‐class residents of Rome."{{sfn|Beck|2007|p=691}} The powerful Roman administrator [[Paulinus of Nola]] was close to Pelagius and the Pelagian writer [[Julian of Eclanum]],{{sfn|Brown|1970|pp=60–61}} and the former Roman aristocrat [[Caelestius]] was described by [[Gerald Bonner]] as "the real apostle of the so-called Pelagian movement".{{sfn|Bonner|2004}}  Many of the ideas Pelagius promoted were mainstream in contemporary Christianity, advocated by such figures as [[John Chrysostom]], [[Athanasius of Alexandria]], Jerome, and even the early [[Augustine]].{{sfn|Bonner|2018|p=299}}{{sfn|Teselle|2014|pp=2, 4}}