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. But before his fall and Apostasie from the faith, he exercised himselfe in the best studies, as Gennadius, Beda, Honorius, and other authors doe report of him, and wrote many bookes seruing not a litle to Christian vtilitie: but being once fallen into his heresie, hee wrote many more erroneous bookes, then he did before honest, and sincere: whereupon, at the last his owne Countreymen banished him, as Walden testifieth in his Epistle to Pope Martine the fift. He flourished in the yere after the Incarnation, 390. Maximus being then King of Britaine. * * * * * A testimonie of the sending of Sighelmus Bishop of Shirburne, by King Alphred, vnto Saint Thomas of India in the yeare of our Lord 883, recorded by William of Malmesburie, in his second booke and fourth Chapter de gestis regum Anglorum. Eleemosynis intentus priuilegia ecclesiarum, sicut pater statuerat, roborauit; et trans mare Romam, et ad sanctum Thomam in Indiam multa munera misit. Legatus in hoc missus Sighelmus Shirburnensis Episcopus cum magna prosperitate, quod quiuis hoc seculo miretur, Indiam penetrauit; inde rediens exoticos splendores gemmarum, et liquores aromatum, quorum illa humus ferax est, reportauit. The same in English.