Agricola

AGRICOLA: Pelagian writer; under the date 429 in his Chronicon, Prosper of Aquitaine mentions a British theologian of this name, the son of Severianus, a Pelagian bishop, saying that he corrupted the churches of Britain by his teaching, until Pope Celestine sent Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, to undo the mischief and bring back the 91 Britons to the Catholic faith (cf. Bede, Hist. eccl., i. 17). Caspari has printed five unsigned letters and a tract on riches which are obviously all by the same Pelagian author, and has shown it to be probable that this is Agricola. From them it is learned that the author on his way to the East to learn the true ascetic life, heard the Pelagian ascetic teaching from a Roman lady in Sicily, and became a zealous preacher of it. The value of these writings lies in the glimpse which they give of the ethical side of Pelagianism.

(A. Hauck.)

Bibliography: C. P. Caspari, Briefe, Abhandlungen, und Predigten aus den zwei letzten Jahrhunderten des kirchlichen Altertums und dem Anfang des Mittelalters, Christiania, 1890.