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XI. How during the reign of Honorius, Gratian and Constantine were created tyrants in Britain; and soon after the former was slain in Britain, and the latter in Gaul. [407 A.D.]
CHAP. X. How, in the reign of Arcadius, Pelagius, a Briton, insolently impugned
the Grace of God. [395 AD]
In the year of our Lord 394, Arcadius, the son of Theodosius, the forty-third
from Augustus, succeeding to the empire, with his brother Honorius, held it
thirteen years. In his time, Pelagius, [Pelagius, the founder of the heresy
known as Pelagianism, was probably born in 370 A.D., and is said to have been a
Briton. His great opponent, St. Augustine, speaks of him as a good and holy man;
later slanders are to be attributed to Jerome’s abusive language. The cardinal
point in his doctrine is his denial of original sin, involving a too great
reliance on the human will in achieving holiness, and a limitation of the action
of the grace of God] a Briton, spread far and near the infection of his
perfidious doctrine, denying the assistance of the Divine grace, being seconded
therein by his associate Julianus of Campania, who was impelled by an
uncontrolled desire to recover his bishopric, of which he had been deprived. St
. Augustine, and the other orthodox fathers, quoted many thousand catholic
authorities against them, but failed to amend their folly; nay, more, their
madness being rebuked was rather increased by contradiction than suffered by
them to be purified through adherence to the truth; which Prosper, the
rhetorician, has beautifully expressed thus in heroic" verse :—
"They tell that one, erewhile consumed with gnawing spite, snake-like attacked
Augustine in his writings. Who urged the wretched viper to raise from the ground
his head, howsoever hidden in dens of darkness? Either the sea-girt Britons
reared him with the fruit of their soil, or fed on Campanian pastures his heart
swells with pride."
CHAP. XI. How during the reign of Honorius, Gratian and Constantine were created
tyrants in Britain; and soon after the former was slain in Britain, and the
latter in Gaul. [407 A.D.]
IN the year of our Lord 407, Honorius, the younger son of Theodosius, and the
forty-fourth from Augustus, being emperor, two years before the invasion of Rome
by Alaric, king of the Goths, when the nations of the Alani, Suevi, Vandals, and
many others with them, having defeated the Franks and passed the Rhine, ravaged
all Gaul, Gratianus, a citizen of the country, was set up as tyrant in Britain
and killed. In his place, Constantine, one of the meanest soldiers, only for the
hope afforded by his name, and without any worth to recommend him, was chosen
emperor. As soon as he had taken upon him the command, he crossed over into
Gaul, where being often imposed upon by the barbarians with untrustworthy
treaties, he did more harm than good to the Commonwealth. Whereupon Count
Constantius, by the command of Honorius, marching into Gaul with an army,
besieged him in the city of Arles, took him prisoner, and put him to death. His
son Constans, a monk, whom he had created Caesar, was also put to death by his
own follower Count Gerontius, at Vienne.
Rome was taken by the Goths, in the year from its foundation, 1164. Then the
Romans ceased to rule in Britain, almost 470 years after Caius Julius Caesar
came to the island. They dwelt within the rampart, which, as we have mentioned,
Severus made across the island, on the south side of it, as the cities,
watch-towers, bridges, and paved roads there made testify to this day; but they
had a right of dominion over the farther parts of Britain, as also over the
islands that are beyond Britain.
