The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation - Volume 08 Asia, Part I

Excerpt

The life and trauailes of Pelagius borne in Wales.

Pelagius Cambrius ex ea Britanniæ parte oriundus, famati illius Collegij Bannochorensis a Cestria non procul, præpositus, erat, in quo Christianorum philosophorum duo millia ac centum, ad plebis in Christo commoditatem militabant, manuum suarum laboribus, iuxta Pauli doctrinam victitantes. Post quam plures exhibitos, pro Christiana Repub. labores, vir eruditione insignis, et tum Græcè, tum Latinè peritus, vt Tertullianus alter, quorundam Clericorum lacessitus iniurijs, grauatim tulit, ac tandem a fide defecit.

Peragratis igitur deinceps Gallijs, in Aegyptum, et Syriam aliásque orientis Regiones demum peruenit. Vbi ex earum partium Monacho præsul ordinatus, sui nominis hæresim fabricabat: asserens hominem sine peccato nasci, ac solo voluntatis imperio sine gratia saluari posse, vt ita nefarius baptismum ac fidem tolleret. Cum his et consimilibus impostricis doctrinæ fæcibus in patriam suam reuersus, omnem illam Regionem, Iuliano et Cælestino Pseudoepiscopis fautoribus, conspurcabat. Verum ante lapsum suum studia tractabat honestissima, vt post Gennadium, Bedam, et Honorium alij ferunt authores, composuítque multos libros ad Christianam vtilitatem. At postquam est Hereticus publicatus, multo plures edidit hæresi succurrentes, et ex diametro cum vera pietate pugnantes, vnde erat a suis Britannis in exilium pulsus, vt in Epistola ad Martinum 5. Valdenus habet. Claruit anno post Christum incarnatum, 390. sub Maximo Britannorum Rege.

The same in English.

Pelagius, borne in that part of Britaine which is called Wales, was head or gouernour of the famous Colledge of Bangor, not farre from Chester, wherein liued a Societie of 2100. Diuines, or Students of Christian philosophie, applying themselues to the profite of the Christian people, and liuing by the labours of their owne hands, according to Pauls doctrine. He was a man excellently learned, and skilfull both in the Greeke and Latine tongues, and as it were another Tertullian; after his long and great trauailes for the good of the Christian common wealth, seeing himselfe abused, and iniuriously dealt withall by some of the Clergie of that time, he tooke the matter so grieuously, that at the last he relapsed from the faith.

Whereupon he left Wales, and went into France, and hauing gone through France, [Footnote: He is said to have resided long at Rome, only leaving on the capture of that city by the Gottis.] hee went therehence into Egypt, Syria, and other Countries of the East, and being made Priest by a certaine Monke of those partes, he there hatched his heresie, which according to his name was called the heresie of the Pelagians: which was, that manne was borne without sinne, and might be saued by the power of his owne will without grace, that so the miserable man might take away faith and baptisme. With this and the like dregges of false doctrine, he returned againe into Wales, and there by the meanes of the two false Prelates Iulian and Celestine, who fauoured his heresie, hee infected the whole Countrey with it....