Gottschalk saw in this tract the doctrine of the Semi-Pelagian Gennadius and Cassianus
rather than of "the most catholic doctor" Augustin. He appeared before a Synod at Mainz, which
was opened Oct. 1, 848, in the presence of the German king, and boldly professed his belief in a
two-fold predestination, to life and to death, God having from eternity predestinated his elect by
free grace to eternal life, and quite similarly all reprobates, by a just judgment for their evil deserts,
to eternal death.^678 The offensive part in this confession lies in the words two-fold (gemina) and
quite similarly (similiter omnino), by which he seemed to put the two foreordinations, i.e. election
and reprobation, on the same footing; but he qualified it by a reference to the guilt and future
judgment of the reprobate. He also maintained against Rabanus that the Son of God became man
and died only for the elect. He measured the extent of the purpose by the extent of the effect. God
is absolutely unchangeable, and his will must be fulfilled. What does not happen, cannot have been
intended by him.
The details of the synodical transaction are unknown, but Rabanus, who presided over the
Synod, gives as the result, in a letter to Hincmar, that Gottschalk was condemned, together with
his pernicious doctrine (which he misrepresents), and handed over to his metropolitan, Hincmar,
for punishment and safe-keeping.
§ 121. Gottschalk and Hincmar.
Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, a most influential, proud and intolerant prelate, was ill-disposed
towards Gottschalk, because he had been somewhat irregularly (though not invalidly) ordained to
the priesthood by a rural bishop (chorepiscopus), Rigbold of Rheims, without the knowledge of
his own bishop of Soissons, and gone on travels without permission of his abbot.^679 He treated the
poor monk without mercy. Gottschalk was summoned before a synod of Chiersy (in palatio
Carisiaco)^680 in the spring of 849. He refused to recant, and was condemned as an incorrigible
heretic, deposed from the priesthood, publicly scourged for obstinacy, according to the rule of St.
Benedict, compelled to burn his books, and shut up in the prison of a convent in the province of
Rheims.^681 According to the report of eye-witnessses, he was scourged "most atrociously" and
"nearly to death," until half dead he threw his book, which contained the proofs of his doctrine
from the Scriptures and the fathers, into the fire. It is a relief to learn that St. Remigius, archbishop
of Lyons, expressed his horror at the "unheard of impiety and cruelty" of this treatment of the
miserabilis monachus, as Gottschalk is often called by his friends.
(^678) The fragment of this confession is preserved by Hincmar, De Praedest., c.5 (Migne, 125, col. 89 sq. ): "Ego Gothescalcus
credo et confiteor, profiteor et testificor ex Deo Patre, per Deum Filium, in Deo Spiritu Sancto, et affirmo atque approbo coram
Deo et sanctis. ejus, quod gemina est praedestinatio, sive electorum ad requiem, sive reproborum ad mortem [so far quoted
verbatim from Isidore of Seville, Sent. II. 6]: quia sicut Deus incommutabilis ante mundi constitutionem omnes electos suos
incommutabiliter per gratuitam gratiam suam praedestinavit ad vitam aeternam, similter omnino omnes reprobos, quia in die
judicii damnabuntur propter ipsorum mala merita, idem ipse incommutabilis Deus per justum judicium suum incommutabiliter
praedestinavit ad mortem merito sempiternam."
(^679) Mauguin vindicates Gottschalk in both respects.
(^680) Carisiacum, Cressy or Crécy in Northern France, in the department of Somme, celebrated by the battle of 1346 between
the English Edward III. and the French Philip VI.
(^681) Mansi, XIV. 921; Pertz, Monum. I. 443 sq.; Migne, Tom. 115, col. 1402; Hefele, IV. 142 sqq. Hefele doubts, with
plausible reason, the concluding sentence of the synod, in which Gottschalk is condemned to everlasting silence.