m and Eve were dressed after their sin were
the fleshly bodies they were compelled to assume on being expelled
from the Paradise of their previous existence; that in proportion
to their sins they are confined in subtile or gross bodies of
adjusted grades until by penance and wisdom they slowly win their

1 Bretschneider, Was lehren die altesten Kirchenvater uber die
Entstehung der Sude und des Todes, Adam's Vergehen und die
Versohnung durch Christum. Oppositionsschrift, band viii. hft. 3,
ss. 380-407.

2 De Principiis, lib. lit. cap. 5.

deliverance, this gradual descent and ascent of souls being
figuratively represented by Jacob's ladder; that all punishments
and rewards are exactly fitted to the degree of sin or merit,
without possibility of failure; that all suffering even that in
the lowest hell is benevolent and remedial, so that even the worst
spirits, including Satan himself, shall after a time be restored
to heaven; that this alternation of fall and restoration shall be
continued so often as the cloy and satiety of heavenly bliss, or
the preponderant power of temptation, pervert free will into sin.3
He declared that it was impossible to explain the phenomena and
experience of human life, or to justify the ways of God, except by
admitting that souls sinned in a pre existent state. He was
ignorant of the modern doctrine of vicarious atonement, considered
as placation or satisfaction, and regarded Christ's suffering not
as a substitute for ours, but as having merely the same efficacy
in kind as the death of any innocent person, only more eminent in
degree. He represents the mission of Christ to be to show men that
God can forgive and recall them from sin, banishment, and hell,
and to furnish them, in various ways, helps and incitements to win
salvation. The foregoing assertions, and other kindred points, are
well established by Mosheim, in his exposition of the characteristic
views of Origen.4

The famous controversy between Augustine and Pelagius shook
Christendom for a century and a half, and has rolled its echoing
results even to the theological shores of to day. Augustine was
more Calvinistic in his doctrines than the Fathers before him, and
even than most of those after him. In a few particulars perhaps a
majority of the Fathers really agreed more nearly with Pelagius
than with him. But his system prevailed, and was publicly adopted
for all Christendom by the third general council at Ephesus in the
ye