Origen and the History of Justification: The Legacy of Origen's Commentary on Romans

Chapter 2: Pelagius’s Reception of Origen’s Exegesis of Romans

Chapter 2 Pelagius’s Reception of Origen’s Exegesis of Romans Introduction to Pelagius Rufinus’s Latin edition of Origen’s CRm was published in 406.1 The first known student of the work was the British monk Pelagius (360?–420) who was sojourning in Rome at the time the translation was being composed . He was able to make a thorough study of it before writing his own Commentary on Romans, which was completed in Rome before 4102 and was cited by Augustine in 412.3 Although the Pelagian controversy broke out after Rufinus’s death in 411, its themes were evidently being discussed in Rome at the time when Rufinus was translating Origen. The doctrines of Pelagius condemned by the Church in 417–18 have been summarized in the excursus at the end of chapter 1. The consensus of older scholarship (Fremantle, Westcott, Murphy, Kelly) had been that Rufinus’s translation of Origen’s CRm was carried out in Aquileia, not Rome. This would have put Rufinus far from the center of Pelagius’s activities. Hammond calls this assumption into question: “Rather than defending Rufinus against the charge that he was associated with the genesis of Pelagianism, we should be ready to acknowledge the 63 stimulation of his influence in person as well as through his translations on the creative thought of his generation.”4 Among other evidence, the new theory is confirmed by the immediate and extensive use of Rufinus’s translation made by Pelagius. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that texts from Origen’s CRm played an important role in the wider Pelagian controversy.5 Both sides cited passages from it to support their interpretation of the disputed themes: divine grace and human responsibility, free will, the relationship between predestination and foreknowledge, the possibility of sinlessness, the propagation of Adam’s sin. Hammond Bammel suggests that Rufinus was able to translate Origen “without inhibitions” since the Pelagian/anti-Pelagian camps had not yet become entrenched.6 Pelagius’s Commentary on Romans History, Legacy, and Style Pelagius’s Commentary on Romans is his longest extant work.7 At this early stage of his career, Pelagius was not yet in open conflict with Church authorities. The commentary seems to be written with a humble and churchmanlike spirit. Ostensibly Pelagius’s polemic is directed against Manichaean and Arian interpretations of Paul, not Augustinian views, at least not explicitly. One of its most striking features is its concern for orthodoxy.8 Like Origen, Pelagius does not dogmatize but often offers a range of possible interpretations of the Pauline text, introducing them with the words sive or aliter.9 After Pelagius’s condemnation and death, this particular work of his circulated pseudonymously, in particular in the pseudo-Jerome version, made before 432, and the pseudo-Primasius version, which is a revision supervised by Cassiodorus (485?–580), who at first believed it to be the work of Pope Gelasius. Upon closer scrutiny, Cassiodorus observed that the work was marred by Pelagian errors and consequently revised it. In the Middle Ages it passed as a work of St. Jerome. Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) printed it in his edition of St. Jerome’s writings (1516), but he declared that he recognized that Jerome was not the true author. He had no idea that Pelagius was the author.10 The original form was rediscovered and printed in 1926 by A. Souter.11 64 Origen and the History of Justification In form Pelagius’s commentary differs markedly from Origen’s. Pelagius ’s work is literal and terse, whereas Origen’s is discursive, speculative, allegorical, and lengthy. Pelagius draws on the entire antecedent tradition, and many tributaries feed into his own independent appropriation of that tradition. Among the authors used by Pelagius are the early Augustine, Ambrosiaster, the anonymous commentator on Paul, Jerome, and others.12 The direct and particularly strong dependence of Pelagius upon Origen’s work was first demonstrated in the modern era by Smith (1919) and has been confirmed by Souter, Bohlin, and other modern scholars. Pelagius had read Origen’s entire Latin commentary. He inserts material derived from Origen in various locations in his own commentary and not merely in passages under the same lemma of the Epistle to the Romans. Smith has assembled a series of parallel Latin passages between Origen and Pelagius beginning at Rom...