Pelageus
It was after this monk, Pelageus, had been sitting on the end of the 4th century, reading ‘St Augustine’s Greatest Hits’that he decided to square up to the establishment. Now he was a rank outsider from the start.First, he waded in by saying that man’s salvation depends on how he conducts his self in this world, and not merely on ‘grace’, otherwise we might as well forget the good works and just go for the cigareets an’ whusky an’ wild, wild wimmin’,
safe in the knowledge that, providing we got absolution before the Grim Reaper got us, then the church would see us All Right.
“Look” he says, “take a heathen Eskymoo sittin’ on his Tundra in the back of beyond: even if he never heard of Christ, providing he lives right, helping old ladies, feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, all to that effect- in short, living a Christian life- then God won’t slam the Pearly Gates in his gob; stands to reason”.
Well, them bishops in their velvet frocks and diamond rings, they put down their Big Macs, and their chalices of Carling Black Label; they dabbed their greasy chops with their fancy hankerchoos, and they said “Listen Shorty, we- The Management- will decide who gets to heaven. All them toe rags out there have to do is believe what they’re told to believe, pay their tithes, and keep schtum! Any Party don’t like it gets tied to a pole and has a bonfire lit up his Khyber- Right?”
Well old Pelageus hauls off on another tack. “Wot about this bit , then?- about the number of people to enter heaven being predetermined, fixed, and unalterable- that can’t be right, can it? Not very encouraging for the rest of us, due to where if all the tickets have been bespoke, where’s the point in spending your whole life standing in the queue? And another thing-“ he says. He’d fair got the bit between his teeth by this time. “- I think this bit about Original Sin is a load of old squit!”
Well, in among them bishops, you could have heard a port wine gum drop- or even a marsh maller.
“If a new born infant pegs out before it can receive absolution, I don’t believe God would take that tiny soul and chuck it into Hell’s furnace- well not the God I worship, any road up”.
Well that really put the heretic among the parsimonious. If they didn’t give him the barbecue treatment, they must have kicked him out of the monks, at least. I don’t know, because the next few pages had gone out of my book. I’d given them to the geezer sharing my cell because the screws had him on ‘privileges withdrawn’- no snout, no mattress, so I let him have a go at the book, and a handful of coir out
of my mattress. It’s easier to roll than tea leaves. Well you’ve got to be charitable, on occasion, haven’t you? And we’re living in much more enlightened times, now:
I mean, they’ve left out the bonfires.