Aäron Vanspauwen: Between a free will and a divine grace: the anti-Manichaean treatise De fide contra Manichaeos in an anti-Pelagian context.

De fide contra Manichaeos is a treatise of anti-Manichaean religious polemics attributed to Evodius of Uzalis. A friend of Augustine of Hippo, Evodius was ordained bishop of Uzalis (present El Alia, Tunisia) at the end of the fourth century. In contrast to the Manichaean teaching, the author of De fide posits that evil does not exist as a substance, but only as the consequence of the human will, which can freely choose for good or evil. In essence, such an argument was common among both Catholic Christian and pagan refutations of Manichaeism in late antiquity.
This traditional anti-Manichaean argumentation, however, would become somewhat problematic in Catholic North Africa. The treatise De fide was written when the African church (including Augustine and Evodius) had just condemned Pelagius’ teachings. According to Pelagius, Augustine’s doctrine of divine grace and original sin nullified personal responsibility by eliminating any robust sense of authentic human freedom. In response, the African church held that Pelagius’ reliance on human free will undermined the efficacy of Christ’s grace.
This paper addresses a readily apparent tension: can the anti-Manichaean defence of human freedom, found in De fide, be understood as an expression of ‘correct’ faith, given that the African church had so strongly opposed Pelagius’ views? It will be argued: 1) that  De fide’s author did not rigorously follow Augustine’s doctrine of grace and original sin and yet, 2) at the same time, aware of contemporary polemical-theological developments, deliberately avoided extreme ‘Pelagian’ formulations in his defence of the free will.