The nearest meaning of the word ”footloose” is
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From the remote northern province of Britannia, around the year 390, came Pelagius: a fat, self–possessed cleric who called himself a monk (though he had never been ordained). He landed footloose in Rome, preaching about the human capacity for redemption. God did not choose who was saved, he said. Salvation was the result of human effort. If we could reach within ourselves and draw forth the core of natural purity that God had put there – for why would He create us without it? - we could remake the world during our lifetimes. The role of the church, Pelagius said, was to help its members fruitfully exercise the will to be good. Followers gathered around the British monk. He often stood quietly on summer evenings as small groups of passionate would–be reformers of the church, including several of the younger bishops, talked excited about doing away with baptism or encouraging good works. He attacked the nonsensical idea, as he called it, that Adam’s sin had been transmitted to the rest of humanity. He argued that people were perfectible; that human actions and human will, guided by God, could create a kind of echo of heaven on earth. The prayer groups that gathered to hear Pelagius were like reflecting pools, in which the members could see their faith and aspiration echoed in the shape of the conversation.
Far away, in his cell outside Carthage, the solemn bishop Augustine of Hippo turned his attention to the Pelagian gatherings. He had spent his life branding and fighting heretics; Pelagius would be his last great opponent. He was a supreme logician, and he rested his argument against Pelagius on the innate corruption twined within the animal core of human nature. We are all fundamentally flawed – all tagged with our own limited view of the world. Every time we think that we have turned the corner and mastered our fate, our pride contains the seeds of its own collapse. How can we presume to declare that we will create heaven, when we can’t even predict the effects of the everyday exercise of our will?
Saint Augustine won the ear of the emperor, of the Pope, and of the church leaders. Some say they found his doctrine more palatable because it legitimized their authority; if humans were innately damned, then they needed the church to intervene. Others say Augustine’s strictures fit the spirit of the times. And still others say simply that Augustine was right. Fearing for this life, Pelagius fled to Jerusalem. Twenty years later, he was finally tried for heresy there. Despite Augustine’s objections, he was acquitted, but he died shortly thereafter. His death inspired riots in Rome. All followers of Pelagianism were banished from Christian lands.
That was fifteen centuries ago. Ever since, Augustinians and Pelagians have battled for the soul of Western human beings. How arrogant, say the Augustinians, to presume that we can draw forth our full potential without God’s direction. How hopeless, say the Pelagians, to deny our inner beauty and our capacity to help ourselves. (“There are no bad children, only bad parents,” is a Pelagian sentiment.) The arguments echo in every sidelong glance that one human being gives another. Can our neighbors be trusted? Will they rise to meet our trust, or betray it? How much can we have faith in our–selves?