Leo the Great was the bishop of Rome from AD 440 to his death in AD 461. We have the collection of 173 letters of Leo. The date of the present letter is uncertain but it is earlier than another letter of Leo to Septimus of Altinum dated to 30 December 447 (see PCBE, Italie 2, Septimus 1; Sotinel 2007: 281-282). The unnamed bishop of Aquileia, here refered to as the metropolitan of Venetia, could be Adelfius (PCBE, Italie 1, Adelfius 2) or his successor Januarius (PCBE, Italie 1, Ianuarius 11).

 

Pelagius, born in Britain and baptized in Rome in 380/384, was a monk who in his writings reflected on God`s grace and human freedom. In general, Pelagius was inclined to think that the grace of God is only an external help for a person who has to autonomously, thanks to the free will given him or her by God in the act of creation, make choices about good and wrong. This approach raised opposition, most famously that of Augustine, who argued that free will can operate in a person only because of God`s grace and without it it will be always compromised and unable to make good choices. In 411, the disciple of Pelagius, Caelestius, was condemned at the conference in Carthage, though later, in 415, Pelagius himself was exonerated at the Council in Diospolis in the East. In 417, Pope Innocent I again condemned the Pelagian doctrine, and this condemnation was later confirmed by Pope Zosimus but only after some hestiation on his part (see [1467], [1496], [1497], and [1520]). After 418, the controversy continued between Augustine and another disciple of Pelagius, Julian of Eclanum. In spite of recurring condemnations of Pelagianism, and exile of Julian (he died in Sicily in 454), the doctrine had some currency among the fifth-century Italian clergy. For further reading on Pelagius see Bibliography. On Leo the Great and Pelagians in North Italy see Wessel 2008: 131-133, 157.