by Stuart Murray Williams

Labels and Insults

‘Anabaptist’ was only one of several damning epithets usedto discredit, rather than merely describe, the various radical groups thatemerging across Europe in the first half of the 16^th century.‘Anabaptist’ was especially damaging because it invoked a centuries-old threatof capital punishment against re-baptisers. The epithet ‘Donatist’ carried asimilar implication1, recalling the North African movement that insisted on re-baptising those whomthe Catholic churches had already baptised.

But labelling the Anabaptist groups ‘Donatists’ also suggested they shared another characteristic with the earlier movement – the search for a pure and spotless church. Other epithets hammered home the sameaccusation: Anabaptists were ‘Pelagians’2,who advocated a form of salvation by human effort that diminished the grace ofGod; and they were a new form of ‘monasticism’3,worryingly suggesting that all Christians should separate from the world andaspire to monastic levels of discipleship.

Such labels seemed to those who used them justified by theAnabaptists’ emphasis on ‘following’ Christ, their limited enthusiasm forforensic understandings of salvation, their practice of the ban to keep thechurch pure, their literalistic interpretation of New Testament texts and theirinsistence on separation from the world. Anabaptists were accused of moralism,legalism and perfectionism.

What are we to make of these accusations? Were theAnabaptists guilty as charged? They were evidently re-baptisers, but were theyperfectionists? Were they Donatists, Pelagians and even new monastics?

We might also ask what such accusations reveal about thosewho used these epithets. What aspects of Catholic or Reformed church life werethe Anabaptists critiquing, either explicitly or implicitly? Labelling can beused as a way of dismissing people and views without facing the troublingpossibility that they might have something helpful, albeit disturbing, tocontribute. What assumptions about discipleship and church life did those whoused epithets like ‘Pelagian’ and ‘Donatist’ hold?

A further set of questions would take us further back intochurch history. Whether or not the Anabaptists were Pelagian, was Pelagius aPelagian? Did he actually hold or teach the views that were ascribed to him bysome of his contemporaries? Were the Donatists troublesome schismatics orfaithful representatives of an indigenous African spirituality? What were thestrengths and weaknesses of the monastic tradition?

Many questions on various levels, most of which cannot beadequately addressed in a single paper. First, then, I will offer somereflections on perceptions of 16^th-century Anabaptists; then I wantto investigate one of the charges – that of Pelagianism; and finally somequestions for those of us today who draw on the Anabaptist tradition.

Were Anabaptists perfectionists?

So why were 16^th-century Anabaptists regarded asperfectionists and labelled in ways that suggested this? Let’s consider firstsome of the assumptions that their accusers held as they watched with alarmthis spreading movement.

• For hundreds of years European Christians had lived with the realities of two-tier Christianity: a minority who attempted to live by New Testament teaching and practise rigorous discipleship, surrounded by the vast majority who had lower aspirations. Historians debate the level of piety, spiritual experience and moral behaviour that characterised the citizens of Christendom, but all accept that two-tier Christianity was regarded by most people as normal. This is not to underestimate the corruption of many monks and priests (witness Michael Sattler’s question: ‘Do you know a chaste priest?’), nor to denigrate the piety of so-called ‘lay’ Christians, many of whom lived more Christianly than their priests. But, except in certain renewal or dissident movements, this two-tier approach was not challenged until the early 16^th century. The Reformers and the Anabaptists, however, both challenged this system – but in opposite ways. The Reformers tried to abolish the monks; the Anabaptists suggested that all Christians should live as serious disciples, exposing themselves to accusations of monasticism.
• At least since the 4^th century most European Christians had accepted that the church would be impure and mixed until the return of Christ. Perfection was an eschatological hope, not a present aspiration. The Parable of the Weeds was widely used to provide biblical undergirding for this position (despite the fact that the text explicitly interprets the field as the world, rather than the church: see Matthew 13:38). Those who espoused a vision of a pure church were out of step with the teaching of the Christendom theologians and were accused of perfectionism.
• At the end of the 4^th century and early in the 5^th century, perfectionism was at the heart of the debates between Augustine and Pelagius and Augustine and the Donatists. Pelagius appeared to Augustine to be advocating perfectionism at an individual level; the Donatists were advocating this at a congregational level. He opposed both vigorously, interpreting the Parable of the Weeds4 as indicating a mixed church throughout human history, and triumphed over both his adversaries, ensuring that Donatism and Pelagianism would become insults in future theological controversies.
• Such insults were the standard responses to various dissident movements that disturbed the unity of Christendom in the medieval period. Their advocacy of a pure church, which would otherwise be threatening to the status quo, could be dismissed as a recurrence of ancient heresies. Inquisitors, however, were often faced with the problem of dealing with dissidents who lived apparently godly lives, who practised what they preached. This was troubling. Heretics were meant to be, by definition, ungodly and immoral. What was going on? A useful line of argument was that such apparent godliness was deceptive and demonically inspired. Furthermore, in persecuted movements there were always some who under severe pressure acted unwisely: such incidents could be used to castigate the movement, to demonstrate as demonstrably false its pretensions to purity and godliness.

Those who encountered the 16^th-century Anabaptists,then, were predisposed to doubt their integrity, regard them as irresponsibleperfectionists and brand them as heretics, using familiar labels. In light ofthe history of the church in Europe, we may be able to understand thispredisposition, but we may also want to challenge the assumptions on which itis based.

In particular (here comes my hobby horse!), we may want toponder the connection between the 4^th-century Christendom shift andthe issue of perfectionism. Donatism arose during the 4^th centuryand, among other things, represented a protest against the lower standards indiscipleship and church life that the Christendom shift seemed to be producing.Pelagius attracted attention because of his protests at the end of the 4^thcentury against the degenerate morality of the churches. Many have interpretedthe emergence of the monastic movement as, at least in part, a protest againstthe growing worldliness of the church under Christendom.5Robert Evans concludes that‘most of the controversial issuesexercising the Western church in the latter two decades of the fourth and thefirst two decades of the fifth centuries were related to one large question:the nature of Christian perfection.’6

Is what Christendom theologians labelled ‘perfectionism’,then, actually a yearning for whole-hearted discipleship at both personal andcorporate levels? Were the 16^th-century Anabaptists doing any morethan recovering this persistent longing at a time when two-tier Christianitywas under threat from others for different reasons? Will it do simply to labelthis persistent longing ‘Pelagian’ or ‘Donatist’? Or do we have here anotherexample of the Christendom mindset distorting perspectives. Is perfectionism(or however we label this) actually the stance of any who dissent from thenominality and ethical compromise that seems to have been inherent in theChristendom system?

Having said all this, though, we need to consider anotherpossibility – namely, that perfectionism is a distorted response to thedistorting perspective of the Christendom mindset. The dissidents may haverightly protested against the low moral standards and corrupt structures of theChristendom churches; they may indeed have practised a higher level ofdiscipleship that confused the inquisitors; but did the momentum of theirprotests carry them too far in the opposite direction? Was there some truth,after all, in the accusations of perfectionism levelled against Anabaptists andothers?

Restricting ourselves for the sake of this paper to the 16^th-centuryAnabaptists, I think we must acknowledge that their accusers were not entirelywrong. There were aspects of the Anabaptist movement that seem, at least to me,less attractive and actually quite worrying. Let me mention just three ofthese:

• The use of the ban. I remain convinced that the practice of what Anabaptists in a pre-inclusive language era called ‘fraternal admonition’ is crucial for healthy communities. Matthew 18, which they also referred to as the ‘rule of Christ’, sets out a process for challenging ungodly behaviour and resolving relational difficulties. One of the consequences of the Christendom shift was that biblical church discipline largely disappeared, replaced either by toleration of immoral behaviour or by persecution of dissent. Movements such as Anabaptism took steps to restore the biblical process, as part of their quest for a pure church. It was this practice that some opponents regarded as a sign of perfectionism. But even if we regard the process of church discipline as biblical, not perfectionist, (once the Christendom blinkers are removed), we may questionhow the ban was used. And what I have read of its application by Anabaptists in the 16^th century does not fill me with any great enthusiasm. Whatever their motivation, however much external pressure distorted their practice, the use of the ban in some Anabaptist churches seems to me to have been excessive, nitpicking, cruel, acrimonious and contrary to the spirit of Christ. Indeed, ‘psychological violence’ and, yes, ‘perfectionism’ are charges that might be justified in such cases.
• Legalism. Any movement that takes seriously the teachings of Scripture can succumb to literalism and legalism. At times, 16^th-century Anabaptists were guilty, I believe, of both. We can excuse them as a first-generation movement facing huge pressures and working out their theology and practice on the run, but we can, I think, detect a legalistic tenor in some of their statements and practices. And this has left a legacy among Mennonites and others who are influenced by Anabaptism. Legalism may not be equivalent to perfectionism, but the two are surely linked. I find some Anabaptist writings (historical and contemporary) lacking in grace and compassion for human weaknesses.7 I have also noticed a form of perfectionism among Anabaptist scholars, who dare not publish or speak without exhaustive preparation.
• Seriousness. Did 16^th-century Anabaptists make good table companions? Were they fun to be with? Did they have a sense of humour? Could they ever relax? Again, I appreciate that they were a persecuted community, facing pressures that I have not experienced, and that they were rightly serious about forming communities of faithful disciples in a world they found corrupt and evil. I do not want to underestimate these factors. But I have a suspicion that Martin Luther might have been a more entertaining dinner guest than Conrad Grebel!

I am not suggesting that Anabaptists were inherentlyperfectionist nor that the charges brought against them were fully justified,but I do think – once we have recognised the illegitimacy of some of theassumptions behind these charges – there remain causes for concern. Passion fordiscipleship and yearning for a pure church can slip over into a form ofperfectionism.

Was Pelagius Pelagian?

But what about the epithet ‘Pelagian’? Were AnabaptistsPelagian in their theology? I want to return to this question once we haveaddressed a prior question: was Pelagius Pelagian?

Did Pelagius actually hold the opinions which were ascribedto him and for which he was eventually condemned by the Council of Ephesusafter being exonerated by two earlier Councils? Part of the difficulty as weconsider this question is that we have so little of Pelagius’ own writingsavailable – a common problem with those accused of heresy. If we read Jerome orAugustine on Pelagius, we will undoubtedly conclude that Pelagius was in error– although even these outraged adversaries were honest enough to acknowledgethat this arch-heretic not only practised what he preached but he was actuallya really nice bloke! But do they accurately represent his theological views? Asecond factor is that, just as later dissidents may have over-reacted undersevere pressure and ended up in perfectionism, so too Pelagius may have beenincited by his opponents to more extreme statements than truly represented hisviews. A third factor is that Pelagius has been regarded as a heretic for solong that challenging this designation can be regarded as unwise and illegitimate.Pelagius is simply accepted as someone who got things wrong.

So Robert Evans writes:‘Pelagius is one ofthe most maligned figures in the history of Christianity. It has been thecommon sport of the theologian and the historian of theology to set him up asthe symbolic bad man and to heap upon him accusations which often tell us moreabout the perspective of the accuser than about Pelagius.’8 And Philip Yancey concludes:‘Pelagiuswas urbane, courteous, convincing, and liked by everyone. Augustine had squanderedaway his youth in immorality, had a strange relationship with his mother, andmade many enemies. Yet Augustine started from God’s grace and got it right,whereas Pelagius started from human effort and got it wrong.’9

But did Pelagius get it wrong? In preparation for this forumI have read not only three or four books by scholars who are far from convincedhe got it wrong but one of the few substantial extant works of Pelagius – hiscommentary of Romans. Theodore De Bruyn, in his introduction, notes that thisis ‘the largest extant work by Pelagius, and one of the few whose Pelagianauthorship is now undisputed. For this reason, and also because it antedatesthe polemics of the Pelagian controversy, it is a most important document ofPelagius’ views.’10

What does Pelagius teach in this commentary? Does he, asYancey suggests, ‘start from human effort’? Does he downplay the grace of God?I am not convinced that he does; indeed, several comments suggest the opposite.He certainly advocates a life of obedient discipleship:

On Romans 3:24: ‘At the same time it should be noted that hedid not buy us, but bought us back, because previously we were his by nature,although we were alienated from him by our transgressions. If we stop sinning,then indeed will our redemption be profitable.’

On Romans 3:28: ‘Some misuse this verse to do away withworks of righteousness, asserting that faith by itself can suffice, althoughthe same apostle says elsewhere “And if I have complete faith, so that I movemountains, but do not have love, it profits me nothing” (1 Cor 13:2); and inanother place declares that in this love is contained the fullness of the law,when he says “The fullness of the law is love” (Rom 13:10). ‘

But he also writes:

On Romans 3:21: ‘The righteousness which has been given tous freely by God, not acquired by our effort, has been made plain without thewritten law, and, having lain hidden in the law, has been revealed with greaterclarity through the examples of Christ, which are more obvious.’

On Romans 3:26: concerning Jesus ‘Who alone has been foundrighteous, and also the one whom he has justified, not by works, but by faith.’

On Romans 4:16: ‘Because faith cannot be voided, nor thepromise annulled, heirship is not by the law, but by faith. For the law doesnot forgive sins, but condemns them, and therefore cannot make all nationschildren of Abraham, since all must finally be punished, inasmuch as all arefound under sin. But faith makes all believers children of Abraham, their sins havingbeen forgiven by grace.’

As De Bruyn says, this commentary is significant because itpredates his controversy with Augustine. Perhaps provoked by this controversyPelagius hardened his views, maybe even becoming a Pelagian, but we have nosure way of assessing this. Maybe his colleagues pushed his teachings furtherthan he wanted to himself (not unknown in church history). What is clear isthat Pelagius never regarded himself as a heretic and that he was interested ininculcating faithful discipleship rather than haggling over theological pointsof detail. Furthermore, it may not only have been Pelagius whose viewshardened: Augustine too seems to have taken more and more extreme positions inhis debates with Pelagius (and the Donatists).

I suspect the teaching of Pelagius had deficiencies(although we do not have enough of his writings to be sure): he may haveunder-estimated the power and pervasiveness of sin; he may have over-estimatedthe capacity of human free will; he may not have worked through a theology ofatonement; and he may have said little about the work of the Holy Spirit. Butwere these deficiencies more problematic or damaging than those of hisopponent, Augustine, with his teaching on predestination and his lowexpectation of discipleship in the churches of Christendom. It is certainlyarguable that the teaching of Pelagius represents the tradition of thepre-Christendom churches and that Augustine’s position represents accommodationto the new era.

And does the character of the theologian matter? Pelagiuswas widely respected and liked, whereas Jerome appears to have been a vitriolicand thoroughly nasty person. And Pelagius did not represent an extreme positionon issues such as asceticism and celibacy: actually he seems to have held thecentre ground between Augustine and Jerome on the one side and ascetics likeJovinian and Vigilantius on the other.

So was Pelagius Pelagian? I rather doubt this, although I donot think we have enough evidence to convict or clear him of this charge.Should he be rehabilitated? Should we regard him (with whatever deficiencies)as a prophetic figure in the early Christendom era, urging his contemporariesnot to accommodate to the spirit of the age but to live as true disciples? Withinsome traditions such rehabilitation is underway.

• We’ve received input from the Methodist tradition at this forum, so perhaps we should recall that John Wesley is on record as statingthat Pelagius was wrongly called a heretic, and that his so-called heresy was no more than holding that Christians may, by God’s grace, ‘go on to perfection’ and so fulfil the law of Christ.11
• I’ve read recently that some Eastern Orthodox theologians are suggesting that it may be time to rehabilitate Pelagius – partly because they find Augustine’s theology unhelpful at various points, and partly because he was exonerated by two Eastern Councils before being condemned by a Western Council.12
• The Northumbria Community regards Pelagius as a Celtic saint and keeps 28^th August (traditionally the feast of St Augustine) as the feast day of Pelagius in the Celtic Daily Prayer Book!

Were Anabaptists Pelagian?

What about Anabaptists? Were the 16^th-centuryAnabaptists Pelagian? It depends on our evaluation of Pelagius as to how weinterpret this epithet. Certainly they shared his concern about low standardsin the churches and his passion for discipleship. Did they fall into the errorthat he was (rightly or wrongly) accused of – downplaying the grace of God? Myreading of their writings suggests they did not and that ‘Pelagian’ in thenormal use of this term is an inappropriate epithet for the movement. But theywere certainly Pelagian in the sense of being heirs of Pelagius in theirchampioning of radical discipleship and distinctive churches.

And I have been intrigued to discover manyresonances with Anabaptist themes in the life and teaching of Pelagius. Forexample:

• His central conviction that to know God is to do his will (echo of Hans Denck)
• He concentrated on the New Testament and on the teaching and example of Jesus, and he had a Christocentric approach to biblical interpretation.13
• He opposed the swearing of oaths.14
• He challenged the possession of riches and urged Christians to hold these in common for the good of all.15
• Although he continued to advocate the baptism of infants, his theology and moral teaching really presumed believers’ baptism.’16

Conclusion

This has been a brief and exploratory paper. I am not anexpert on Pelagius and so I look forward to our discussion here and hopefully elsewherein the future. Maybe I have missed or misinterpreted things that are important.But I am suggesting that, as others seem to be doing, those who draw on theAnabaptist tradition might rehabilitate Pelagius and learn from him. I am awarethat some Mennonites are more appreciative now of Augustine than they used tobe. This may also be helpful but not, I suggest, at the expense of a renewedmarginalisation of Pelagius.

Finally, let me pose four questions that occurred to me as Iput this paper together:

• How might the history of the church in Europe have been different if Pelagius and Augustine had listened more carefully to each other? What can we do to foster debates and discussions that do not polarise people and push them to extremes but enable us to listen to and learn from each other?
• How significant is the character of theologians in relation to the theology they promulgate? If Arius was a more attractive person than Athanasius or Pelagius was a more likeable man than Jerome17, is this irrelevant to what they taught?
• How can we combine serious and faithful discipleship with a capacity not to take ourselves too seriously?
• Does the search for a pure church inevitably breed intolerance, fragmentation, impatience? Or is this an inevitable part of serious discipleship? What would the church lose if it gave up the search for such a church?

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