The fall of Rome did not happen at the feet of an enemy.  There was no battle of Waterloo. It came from within its vast territory when women no longer spun spindles, blacksmith hammers no longer fell, and people refused to suffer the lash of indentured servitude.  The efficiency of the civil administration collapsed. The fall began with the most misrepresented Christian teacher of all time.

Pelagius (ca. 360-430) was a Celtic Christian from Wales who argued with St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) about separating people from nature and consolidating Caesar’s rule over Mediterranean Christians. The church responded to Pelagius’s critique indirectly with three misrepresentations. They said none of Pelagius’s writings are available, so scholars must rely on Augustine’s account of what he wrote. Pelagius was a one-off heretic, rather than one with the vision at the heart of the Celtic mission. Third, Pelagius preached that we do not need grace and that humanity has the capacity to save itself. He was also criticized for eating too much “Scottish porridge,” which was said to make him stupid.

The radical priest was a noteworthy teacher and a spiritual advisor to some of the church’s prominent families in Rome. The first complaint involved Pelagius teaching women how to read and interpret the scriptures, as imperial Christianity relegated women to work on “spindles and wickerwork.” Celtic Christians celebrate the sacredness of women and honor their role in the study of wisdom.

Pelagius seized on imperial religion’s greatest fear when consolidating power through his hairstyle. The Roman clerical tonsure involved shaving the top of the head, leaving a ring of hair to symbolize where the crown of thorns had been placed on Jesus. Pelagius opted for the Celtic tonsure, featuring long hair on top with the sides and back shaved to reflect the placement of the crown of thorns. Drawing on pre-Christian Celtic customs, Pelagius appeared to be a pagan because he seemed to wear the Druid tonsure.

Pelagius’s primary criticism was his belief that in the face of a newborn child, we see the face of God freshly born among us. The dignity of human nature is profound, and our sacredness overrides our sinfulness. What is deepest in us is of God, not opposed to God.

According to Pelagius, Adam chose to leave the Garden of Eden as an act of free will. Adam was mortal, innocent, and not created holy. Without a moral compass, Adam could not sin. Eve and Adam needed a garden of their own to raise a family. Eventually, they would die physically regardless of whether they ever sinned. “Sin is not born with man but is committed afterwards by man. It is not the fault of nature, but of free will.” Truth is not dispensed from above; it is mined from within in conversation with others.

Meanwhile, in 413, Augustine formalized a religion that suited imperial power through the doctrine of original sin: at birth, we are corrupted, not sacred. Instead of honoring people’s divine dignity, their worth was assessed by baptism and allegiance. Disobey, and you’ll be thrown out of the garden.

In 415, Augustine had Pelagius tried for heresy in Palestine, where he taught. Two church synods examined Pelagius’s teachings and found him innocent because they were in line with Eastern Christian beliefs.  The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates human nature as sacred and blessed at birth.

The following year, with Augustine preaching in northern Africa, two African synods found Pelagius guilty of heresy. The bishop of Rome was petitioned to have Pelagius excommunicated. Zosimus found Pelagius innocent. With a Greek name and likely influenced by Eastern Orthodox perspectives, he wrote to Augustine: “Love peace, prize love, strive after harmony.”

Thwarted by the church, Augustine went to the emperor and had Pelagius banned from the empire on a charge of disturbing the peace. A few months later, Zosimus died, and the new pope promptly excommunicated Pelagius.

Far from Roman control in Wales and Ireland, Pelagius continued writing. With a Celtic sense of humor, he often wrote under the name Augustine to enable his pieces to circulate freely throughout the empire.

Pelagius had been disturbing the peace with his teachings on the sacredness of nature and humanity. The bread and wine of the Eucharist, the grace of God, are shared widely.  So too should the bounty of the earth be shared equitably. “A person who is rich,” he said, “and yet refuses to give food to the hungry may cause far more deaths than even the cruelest murderer.”

Nature is sacred. “Narrow shafts of divine light pierce the veil that separates heaven from earth.” Divine light emanates from within every creature, every life-form, every human being.” God’s spirit is in all things, he said, “and if we look with God’s eyes, nothing on the earth is ugly.”

Pelagius taught the sacredness of compassion. Like Christ, we must feel another’s pain as if it were our own. “When Jesus commands us to love our neighbors, he does not only mean our human neighbors; he means all the animals and birds, insects and plants, amongst whom we live.” Pelagius called on the Roman Empire to treat the body of the earth and its resources with reverence and to ensure they are equitably shared.

Rome was not pleased. In 421, an imperial edict banned followers of Pelagius from coming within 100 miles of Rome. Still threatened, in 428, another edict prevented followers from being anywhere in Italy. One hundred years later, in 529, another church council condemned Pelagius’s teachings, lest there be any doubt. Finally, the bishop of Rome in a papal encyclical of 640 complained that Pelagius’s “pernicious” teachings were still rampant in Ireland and demanded the Irish “expel the venom of this wicked superstition” from among them.

Today, in our secular society, the white robes of sacrament have been exchanged for the black robes of academia. Instead of a Bible, something is considered true if it is published in the most esteemed science journals. Scientists who publish in top-tier journals are the first to receive federal funding. There are financial incentives to cleave to publishers’ beliefs and not challenge their understanding of the truth.

Often, only the Abstract is publicly accessible. Since science is a language foreign to the ordinary person, those outside the ivory tower cannot fully know the researchers’ findings, only the spin put on by publishers. For example, findings in a recent paper on the global temperature rise were not made clear in the title and abstract, likely because the authors noted that best-guess estimates of climate drivers, including greenhouse gas emissions and El Niño, fell far short by about 1.2 degrees Kelvin in explaining the 1.5-degree temperature rise.

Less cumulus cloud cover led to a record-low planetary albedo, the reflection of solar energy away from the planet, causing nearly all of the abrupt global warming observed in 2023. The rise in carbon dioxide accounted for only 10% (0.2 kelvin) of the warming. Water vapor was responsible for more than 80% of the warming. Climate scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies have found that the world’s cloud cover has shrunk by a small, yet significant degree on a global average over the past two decades. Cumulus clouds that once reflected light away now allow more light to warm the Earth, enhancing global warming. The climate change balance was tipped when cumulus cloud cover fell to less than 50% of planetary coverage.

We are told that burning fossil fuels is the greatest sin. Yet, the science of clouds (nephology) is clear. Cloud formation depends on the aerosols of bacteria and fungi released by plants, which are carried in water vapor and condense. Landowners who convert vegetation and soils into impervious hard surfaces are eight times more responsible for the rise in global temperatures. In New England, we suffer from terrible floods caused by torrential stormwater overflow. While the annual rainfall has not increased, the profits for developers have when they prevent rainwater from infiltrating the ground where it falls. They know how to build rain gardens, French drains, and cisterns. Instead, municipalities are burdened with the costs of sewage-laden stormwater abatement while people in the miasmic lowlands suffer.

Pelagius’s question remains: Will we awaken to the sacredness of the earth and of all people, regardless of gender, race, and religion, to act responsibly with compassion?

Cited reference

1. H. F. Goessling, T. Rackow, T. Jung, Recent global temperature surge intensified by record-low planetary albedo. Science 387 (6729), 68–73 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adq7280

Published by The Eden Magazine, August 2025