Pelagius lived at Kardonoel
and taught a doctrine there
How whether you went to heaven or hell
It was your own affair …
It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy,
But was your own affair.
 
These are the opening lines of Hilaire Belloc’s delightfully rambunctious and delightfully titled “Song of the Pelagian Heresy for the Strengthening of Men’s Backs and the Very Robust Outthrusting of Doubtful Doctrine and the Uncertain Intellectual”. Belloc’s song came to mind because today is the feast of St. Germanus, the sixth century Bishop of Paris, who worked tirelessly to refute the error of the Pelagian heresy that man was not subject to Original Sin and that he could save his own soul, through the power of his own will, without the necessity of sanctifying grace. Belloc’s song defines Pelagius’ heresy thus:
 
Oh, he didn’t believe
In Adam and Eve,
He put no faith therein!
His doubts began
With the fall of man,
And he laughed at original sin!
With my row-ti-tow, ti-oodly-ow,
He laughed at original sin!
 
The Pelagian heresy was particularly prevalent in England. Indeed, one of the strongest arguments for the dating of Beowulf to the sixth century is the fact that the poem is clearly concerned with rebutting the heresy through its repeated reminder that God’s supernatural assistance (grace) is necessary and that no victory against evil is possible without it. Beowulf is, therefore, a profoundly orthodox and anti-Pelagian poem of which St. Germanus would have been pleased.
 
In many ways, St. Germanus is to history what Beowulf is to literature. He fought tirelessly and valiantly for orthodox truth against the monsters of heresy. As Belloc puts it:
 
Whereat the bishop of old Auxerre
(Germanus was his name),
He tore great handfuls out of his hair,
And he called Palagius Shame:
And then with his stout Episcopal staff
So thoroughly thwacked and banged
The heretics all, both short and tall,
They rather had been hanged.
 
Oh, he thwacked them hard, and he banged them long,
Upon each and all occasions,
Till they bellowed in chorus, loud and strong,
Their orthodox persuasions.
With my row-ti-tow, ti-oodly-ow,
Their orthodox persuasions.
 
In these effervescent lines we see St. Germanus as a warrior bishop, a courageous leader of the Church Militant and a hammer of the heretics. His is the spirit of Christ, irrepressible and courageous even unto death, against which the gates of hell will not prevail:
 
Now the Faith is old and the Devil is bold,
Exceedingly bold indeed;
And the masses of doubt that are floating about
Would smother a mortal creed.
But we that sit in a sturdy youth,
And still can drink strong ale,
Oh – let us put it away to infallible truth,
Which always shall prevail!
 
In Belloc’s rambunctious spirit and with his own brand of irrepressible faith, let’s raise a glass to St. Germanus on this his feast day in thanksgiving for his role in delivering us from the evil of bad theology:
 
And thank the Lord
For the temporal sword,
And howling heretics too:
And whatever good things
Our Christendom brings,
But especially barley brew!
 
With my row-t-tow, ti-oodly-ow,
Especially barley brew!