Calvinism = semi-Gnostic/semi-Pagan

It's a toss up - What influenced Augustine more to abandon the Apostolic understanding of Original Sin, Predestination, and Grace (Augustine being the first to teach its irresistability)? Was it Gnostic Manichaeism or was it the pagan Stoicism and Neoplatonism? The former leading to the semi-Gnostic label. The latter two leading to the semi-Pagan one. 

The irony of ironies is the charges of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism that Augustinian-Calvinists level at anyone and everyone who disagrees with them are mythological. Pelagius didn't believe any of the 14 charges Augustine leveled against him - he believe 1/2 of one of them. And Semi-Pelagianism is an a term invented in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, which again has NOTHING to do with Pelagius at all.

But don't confuse Calvinists with the historical facts. Not a single Calvinist I have known has ever read a word of Pelagius' writings - most of them are largely unfamiliar with Augustine and his work. And like Calvin, when they discover things about Augustine's life and theology, they often will quickly distance themselves from him as well.

What we do know for sure is that Augustine had BOTH Gnostic and Pagan ideas that radically influenced his theology which has been both thoroughly documented and thoroughly ignored. 

Which is why when anybody begins the read the Early Christian writers before Augustine, they realize that there wasn't a Calvinist in sight (except ironically amongst heretics and pagans).

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