It is a keen but not always fair criticism of the Pelagian position from that of Augustine.
The year before he had published his valuable history of Pelagian controversies, which his enemies considered favoured the views of the Arminians or Remonstrants.
He engaged in the Pelagian controversy with more than even his usual bitterness (Dialogi contra pelagianos); and it is said that the violence of his invective so provoked his opponents that an armed mob attacked the monastery, and that Jerome was forced to flee and to remain in concealment for nearly two years.
He taught quietly at Leiden till 1603, when Jakobus Arminius came to be one of his colleagues in the theological faculty, and began to teach Pelagian doctrines and to create a new party in the university.
Once begun the breach widened, until Luther could contrast "our theology" with what was taught at Erfurt, and by September he began to write against the scholastic theology, to declare that it was Pelagian at heart, that it repudiated the Augustinian doctrines of grace, and neglected to teach the supreme value of that faith "which throws itself upon God."