obligatory character of the parental consecration of a child to monastic life. He succeeded, but
allowed Gottschalk to exchange Fulda for Orbais in the diocese of Soissons in the province of
Rheims. From this time dates his ill feeling towards the reluctant monk, whom he called a vagabond,
and it cannot be denied that Rabanus appears unfavorably in the whole controversy.
At Orbais Gottschalk devoted himself to the study of Augustin and Fulgentius of Ruspe (d.
533), with such ardent enthusiasm that he was called Fulgentius.^674 He selected especially the
passages in favor of the doctrine of predestination, and recited them to his fellow-monks for hours,
gaining many to his views. But his friend, Servatus Lupus, warned him against unprofitable
speculations on abstruse topics, instead of searching the Scriptures for more practical things. He
corresponded with several scholars’ and made a pilgrimage to Rome. On his return in 847 or 848,
he spent some time with the hospitable Count Eberhard of Friuli, a son-in-law of the Emperor Louis
the Pious, met there Bishop Noting of Verona, and communicated to him his views on predestination.
Noting informed Rabanus Maurus, who had in the mean time become archbishop of Mainz, and
urged him to refute this new heresy.
Rabanus Maurus wrote a letter to Noting on predestination, intended against Gottschalk,
though without naming him.^675 He put the worst construction upon his view of a double
predestination, and rejected it for seven reasons, chiefly, because it involves a charge of injustice
against God; it contradicts the Scriptures, which promise eternal reward to virtue; it declares that
Christ shed his blood in vain for those that are lost; and it leads some to carnal security, others to
despair. His own doctrine is moderately Augustinian. He maintains that the whole race, including
unbaptized children, lies under just condemnation in consequence of Adam’s sin; that out of this
mass of corruption God from pure mercy elects some to eternal life, and leaves others, in view of
their moral conduct, to their just punishment. God would have all men to be saved, yet he actually
saves only a part; why he makes such a difference, we do not know and must refer to his hidden
counsel. Foreknowledge and foreordination are distinct, and the latter is conditioned by the former.
Here is the point where Rabanus departs from Augustin and agrees with the Semi-Pelagians. He
also distinguishes between praesciti and praedestinati. The impenitent sinners were only foreknown,
not foreordained. He admitted that "the punishment is foreordained for the sinner," but denied that
"the sinner is foreordained for punishment."^676 He supported his view with passages from Jerome,
Prosper, Gennadius, and Augustin.^677
(^674) By Walafrid Strabo his fellow-student at Fulda, who had a high opinion of his learning and piety, and wrote a poem
entitled "Gotescalcho monacho qui et Fulgentius;" in Opera ed. Migne, Tom. II. ("Patr. Lat.," Tom. 114, col. 1115-1117).
Neander (III. 474, note) supposes that Gottschalk probably borrowed from Fulgentius the term praedestinatio duplex.
(^675) Epist, V. ad Notingum, De Praedestinatione, first published, together with a letter Ad Eberhardum comitem, by
Sirmond, Paris, 1647; also inRabani MauriOpera, Tom. VI., ed. Migne ("Patr. Lat.," Tom. 112, col. 1530-1553). Hefele (IV.
134) complains that this edition has many inaccuracies and typographical errors.
(^676) Hefele (IV. 136) declares this to be inconsistent, because both sentences amount to the same thing and give a good
orthodox sense. "In Wahrheit ist ja auch der Sünder praedestinirt ad mortem oder poenam, aber seine Praedestination ist keine
absolute, wie die des electus, sondern sie ist bedingt durch die praevisa demerita."
(^677) Chiefly from the Hypomnesticon (Commonitorium, Memorandum), usually called Augustinian work against the called
Hypognosticon (Subnotationes), a pseudo-Pelagians, which was freely quoted at that time as Augustinian by Scotus Erigena
and Hincmar; while Remigius proved the spuriousness. It is printed in the tenth vol. of the Benedict. ed. of Augustin, and in
Migne’s reprint, X. 1611-1664. See Feuerlein: Disquis. Hist. de libris Hypognosticon, an ab Hincmaro, in Augustana Confessione
et alibi recte tribuantur divo Augustino. Altdorf, 1735.