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