I am pleased to announce the publication of the 600+-page book, The Oxford Handbook of the Pelagian Controversy edited by Anthony Dupont, Giulio Malavasi, and Brian Matz (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2025). The Pelagian controversy arose in the Church in the early fifth century. It centered around teachings on original sin and the roles of grace and free will in salvation. I wrote Ch 29: “An Anonymous Treatise on Predestination from a Controversy in the Early Sixth Century” on pages 458-472. It is about a pseudo-Augustine/pseudo-Fulgentius text entitled De praedestinatione et gratia (On Predestination and Grace). In earlier centuries it was attributed to Augustine and Fulgentius, but modern scholarship recognizes that it was not authored by either of them. Scholars also believe that it was written roughly between the years 430 and 530. After discussing the contents, sources, and circumstances of the text, this chapter proposes a more specific timeframe for the writing of the treatise and an author. It argues that it was written near the time of the Council of Valence (528) and most likely by Cyprian of Toulon.
I was also privileged to contribute an appendix on pages 581-599, which offers first English translations of four short texts from the Pelagian controversy. They are: The Faith of Rufinus, Testimonies Against the Heretic Pelagius, the Manifesto of Aquileia, and Anti-Pelagian Summaries of the Epistles of Saint Paul.
If you have interest in this controversy in early Christianity, I hope you will get a copy. For a link to it, click here.
