The part taken by the emperors themselves in the dogmatic disputes of the Christians, and the notoriety acquired by the rhetoricians who attacked or defended the truth, had made a number of vain nonentities rival each other in extravagance and recklessness in their endeavours to become celebrated: they tried to attract public notice by an excess of zeal against the heretics, by the austerity of their habits, by some eccentric practice, or by the rashness of their attacks against the discipline of the Church, notably against the worship paid to the Virgin. Such were Coluthus, Aetius, Bonosus, Helvidius, Jovinian, the Barefooted Friars, the Messalians, the Priscillianists, &c. Civil dissensions broke out and blood was shed, and the Court of Byzantium felt, through the great officers of the empire--and especially through the women, who took a passionate interest in these abstractions of dogma--the effect of every religious collision. During the fourth century Arianism, which only saw in the Word a superior being created to intervene between God and man, was the prevailing heresy. The fifth century was agitated by the Pelagians, disciples of Pelagius, a native of Great Britain. This man, who was wanting neither in talent nor in ability, endeavoured to promulgate his doctrine, based upon the negation of original sin; he maintained that _man_ could observe the commandments of God and work out his own salvation without the supernatural aid of divine grace--this was a virtual denial of Christ’s word, “Without me ye can do nothing.” Celestius, one of his followers, promulgated this heresy in Africa, where it was eloquently combated by St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippona. The council of Carthage (415) condemned it, and, upon the demand of the Fathers there present, Pope Innocent I. issued his anathema against Pelagius and his adherents. It was then that St. Augustine pronounced the celebrated sentence, “Rome has spoken, the judgment of the African bishops is confirmed by letters from the pope, the cause is at an end--pray God that the error may be also!” (_Roma locuta est, causa finita est_). But the leader of the sect wrote to Zosimus, Innocent’s successor, a respectful letter of justification, and, his envoy Celestius having presented to the new pope an insidious profession of faith, by which he undertook to condemn anything which should be reprobated by the Holy See, Zosimus intervened with the African bishops on behalf of Pelagius, whom he sincerely believed to be attached to the true faith. Those bishops represented to the pontiff that his credulity had been imposed upon, and that the heretic, before receiving absolution, ought to be made to abjure his errors formally and explicitly. The pope then saw the trickery which had been attempted, and again condemned Pelagius and his followers. The latter appealed to the Council, but St. Augustine proved that the heresy imputed to them had been fully inquired into by the African bishops