For they, judging as it were about someone unknown—especially in the absence of those who had presented a document against him—were quite unable to examine the man more carefully; yet the heresy itself, if they follow the judgment of those who were contending on behalf of his perversity, they utterly destroyed. But those who know well what Pelagius was accustomed to teach—whether those who resisted his disputations, or those who congratulate themselves on being freed from that very error—how can they not hold him suspect, when they read not a straightforward confession of his condemning his past errors, but such a defence as if he had never held any view otherwise than what was approved in his responses by this judgment?
For, to speak above all of my own case: at first I came to know the name of Pelagius—while he was absent and settled at Rome—with much praise of him; afterward rumour began to bring to us the report that he was disputing against the grace of God. Though I grieved at this, and it was told me by those whom I could trust, I nevertheless desired to learn something of this kind from himself, or from some book of his, so that, if I should begin to refute it, he could not deny it. But after he came to Africa, in my absence he was received on our coast, that is, the shore of Hippo, where—as I have learned from our people—absolutely nothing of this sort was heard from him, because he departed thence sooner than was expected.
Afterward, as far as I recall, I saw his face at Carthage once or twice, at a time when I was fully occupied with the affair of the conference we were about to hold with the Donatist heretics; and he for his part hastened on from there to lands overseas. Meanwhile, through the mouths of those who were reputed to be his disciples, these dogmas were seething, so that Caelestius came before an ecclesiastical tribunal and carried off a sentence worthy of his perversity. We thought, indeed, that it was more wholesome to act against them by refuting and confuting the errors themselves while keeping men's names unspoken, so that men might be corrected rather by fear of ecclesiastical judgment than punished by the judgment itself. And so we ceased neither to argue against those evils in books nor in sermons to the people.
But when that book too was given to me by the servants of God, the good and honourable men Timasius and Iacobus—in which Pelagius, in answering the question about God's grace which he had raised against himself as though from an adversary (a question on account of which he was already labouring under great odium), was seen to resolve it for himself in no other way than by saying that God's grace was nature created together with free will, sometimes and only faintly and not openly joining to it either the aid of the law or even the remission of sins—then indeed it became clear to me beyond all doubt how great a poison to Christian salvation was that hostile perversity.
Yet not even so did I insert Pelagius's name into my work by which I refuted that same book, thinking I should more easily do good if, keeping our friendship intact, I still spared his sense of shame, though I ought no longer to spare his writings. Hence it is that I now take it ill that in this trial he said in a certain place: 'I anathematize those who so hold, or who at any time have held it.' It would have sufficed to say 'those who so hold,' for us to believe him corrected; but when he added 'or who at any time have held it,' first, how unjustly he dared to condemn men who did not deserve it, who were free of that error—which they had learned either from others or from him as their teacher?
Next, which of those who knew that he had not only at some time held these views but had even taught them, would not with good reason suspect that he anathematized in pretence those who hold these things, since he did not hesitate to anathematize in the same manner those who at any time held these things?—among whom they will remember that he himself was their master. Behold, to say nothing of others, with what eyes, with what countenance will he look upon Timasius and Iacobus, his admirers and once his disciples, to whom I wrote the book in which I answered his book? Their reply to me I did not think should be passed over in silence; rather I have appended below a copy of the letter. 'To the truly most blessed and deservedly venerable father, bishop Augustine, Timasius and Iacobus, greeting in the Lord.
So has the grace of God, ministered through your word, refreshed and revived us, that we may say quite fittingly: 'He sent his word and healed them,' most blessed and deservedly venerable father. Indeed, we have found that your holiness sifted the text of that same little book with such diligence that we are astonished at the answers rendered to each point—whether in those things which a Christian ought to refute, detest, and flee, or in those in which he is not sufficiently found to have erred, although by some cunning or other he believed that in these too the grace of God should be suppressed.
But there is one thing which affects us amid so great a benefit, namely that this so splendid gift of God's grace shone forth so late, since it has come to pass that certain persons have become absent—those to whose blindness this illumination of so clear a truth was owed; yet to them, even if more tardily, we do not doubt that by God's favour the same grace will reach, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. As for us, although we, taught long ago by the spirit of charity which is in you, cast off subjection to that error, in this too we now give thanks, that what we formerly believed we have now learned to open to others, your holiness's more copious discourse laying open the way of ease. And in another hand:
'May the mercy of our God glorify your blessedness, unharmed and mindful of us, for ever.' If, then, this man too had confessed that he had once been in this error like a man taken off guard, but that he now anathematized those who hold these things, whoever did not congratulate him, now that he held the way of truth, would himself lose the bowels of charity. But as it is, it is little that he did not confess himself freed from that plague; rather he anathematized besides those who have been freed—men who love him so as even to desire that he himself be freed. Among these are also those who signified their goodwill toward him in these letters of theirs sent to me; for they were thinking especially of him too when they said they were affected by this, that I wrote that book so late.
'For it has come to pass,' they say, 'that certain persons have become absent, to whose blindness this illumination of so clear a truth was owed; yet to them, even if more tardily,' they say, 'we do not doubt that by God's favour the same grace will reach.' Indeed, they too thought that his name, or names, should still be kept silent, so that, while friendship lived on, the error of friends might rather die.
But now, if Pelagius thinks of God, if he is not ungrateful for the mercy of Him who for this reason brought him before the judgment of the bishops—that he might not afterward dare to defend these anathematized positions, and might now recognize them as things to be detested and cast away—he will receive our letter more gladly, now that we openly, by naming the name, lay bare the ulcer to be healed, than those in which, while we feared to cause pain, we were increasing the swelling, of which we repent. But if he is angry with me, let him consider how unjustly he is angry, and, in order to conquer his anger, let him at length beg the grace of God, which in this trial he confessed to be necessary for each of our acts, that he may attain true victory with His help.
For what do all those great praises of him in the letters of the bishops profit him, which he thought should be recalled on his own behalf, or even read out and alleged?—as if all who heard his exhortations to a good life, vehement and in a manner burning, could easily have known that he held these perverse opinions. And I indeed, in my letter which he produced, not only refrained from praising him, but even, as far as I could, admonished him—without stirring up any controversy—to be rightly minded about the grace of God. Indeed, in the greeting I called him 'lord,' which by epistolary custom we are wont to write even to certain non-Christians, and that not falsely, since to all we owe, for the attaining of salvation which is in Christ, a kind of free servitude.
I called him 'most beloved,' which I still say and, even if he be angry, will still say, since unless I keep love toward him, while he is angry I shall harm myself the more. I called him 'most longed-for,' since I greatly desired to converse about something with him in person; for I had already heard that, whenever any mention of it was made here, he strove with open contention against the grace by which we are justified. In short, the brief text of the letter itself indicates this; for when I had given thanks that he had gladdened me by his writings, assuring me of his welfare and that of his people—
whom, if we wish them corrected, we ought also to wish safe with bodily health—I then wished for him from the Lord good things bestowed, not those pertaining to the health of the body, but rather those which he thought were, or perhaps still thinks are, placed in the will's choice alone and in its own power, at the same time wishing on this account eternal life too. Then, because in his letter, to which I was replying, he had praised in me certain such good things much and very kindly, there too I asked of him that he pray for me, so that I might rather be made by the Lord such as he already believed me to be, in order that I might thus admonish him—against what he supposed—that righteousness itself, which he had thought praiseworthy in me, is not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.
This is the whole of what that brief letter of mine contains, and it was dictated with this intention; for it runs thus: 'To the most beloved and most longed-for lord and brother Pelagius, Augustine, greeting in the Lord. I give you very great thanks that you have deigned to gladden me by your letter and to make me certain of your welfare. May the Lord repay you good things, by which you may always be good, and may you live with Him, the eternal one, for ever, most beloved and most longed-for lord and brother. As for me, although I do not recognize in myself the praises of me which your letter of kindness contains, yet I cannot be ungrateful for your kindly disposition toward my littleness; at the same time admonishing you that you rather pray for me, that I may be made by the Lord such as you already judge me to be.
And in another hand: mindful of us and unharmed, may you please the Lord, most beloved and most longed-for lord and brother.' In this subscription too, in that I wrote 'may he please the Lord,' I signified rather that this is in His grace than in the will of man alone, since I neither exhorted, nor commanded, nor taught it, but wished it. Just as, however, if I were exhorting or commanding or teaching, I should show that this pertains also to free will and yet should not derogate from the grace of God, so, because I wished it, I have indeed commended the grace of God, and yet have not extinguished the choice of the will.
To what end, then, did he produce this letter in this trial? For according to it, if he had been of sound mind from the beginning, he would perhaps in no way—though by good brothers, yet offended by the perversity of his disputations—have been summoned to episcopal judgment. Moreover, just as I have given account of this letter of mine, so of theirs, if it were necessary, those would give account whom he alleged, stating either what they supposed, or what they were ignorant of, or by what reasoning they wrote.
Accordingly, however much Pelagius may boast of the friendship of any saints whatever, whatever letters of praise about himself he may read, whatever proceedings of his own acquittal he may produce, unless he has confessed and anathematized the things which he is proved, by the testimony of suitable witnesses, to have set down in his books against the grace of God by which we are called and justified, and has thereafter written and disputed against these very things, he will by no means seem, to those to whom he is more fully known, to have been corrected. For I shall now not keep silent about what followed after this trial, things which increase this suspicion the more.
There came into our hands a certain letter, said to be written by Pelagius himself to a certain friend of his, a presbyter, who—as that same letter reports—had kindly admonished him by letter that no one should, on his account, separate himself from the body of the Church. There, among other things which it would be tedious and needless to insert, Pelagius says: 'Our definition, by which we said that a man can be without sin and easily keep the commandments of God if he wills, has been approved by the sentence of fourteen bishops. And this sentence,' he says, 'has drenched the mouth of contradiction with confusion, and has separated from one another every fellowship conspiring for evil.'
Whether, then, Pelagius truly wrote this letter, or whether it was fabricated by someone under his name, who would not see how this error glories, as it were over a victory, even about the judgment where it was convicted and condemned? For he set down these words just as they are read in his book which is called 'Of the Chapters,' not as they were objected in the trial, or as repeated even in his own response. For those too who made the objections, by some carelessness or other, omitted a word about which there is no small controversy. For they set down that he had said a man can, if he wills, be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wills; about 'ease' nothing was said. Then he himself, answering, says:
'That a man can indeed be without sin and keep the commandments of God if he wills, we said.' Neither did he himself say 'easily keep,' but only 'keep.' Likewise, in another place, among those matters about which Hilarius consulted me and I wrote back, the objection was thus made: that a man can be without sin, if he wills. To which he himself thus answered: 'That a man can be without sin has been said above.' Neither here, therefore, whether by those who objected or by him who answered, was 'easily' added. Above too, in the narrative of the holy bishop John, it was thus recorded: 'When they,' he says, 'were insisting and saying that he is a heretic;
for he says that a man can, if he will, be without sin—and when we questioned him about this, he answered: I did not say that human nature receives the power to be incapable of sin; but I said that whoever is willing to labour and strive for his own salvation, so as not to sin and to walk in the precepts of God, has this possibility from God. Then, when certain were whispering and saying that Pelagius was asserting that this could be accomplished without the grace of God, blaming this,' he says, 'I also adduced that the apostle Paul too, labouring much, yet not according to his own power but according to the grace of God, said: I laboured more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me,' and the rest which I have already recalled.
What, then, does it mean that in this letter they dared so to glory as to boast that they had persuaded the fourteen judging bishops—not only of the possibility of not sinning, but even of the ease, as it is set down in the book of chapters of the same Pelagius—when, though the same thing was so often added to the proceedings and repeated, they are nowhere found to have it? For how is this word not contrary even to Pelagius's own defence and response, since bishop John too said that he had thus answered before him, so as to have it understood that he can avoid sin who is willing to labour and strive for his own salvation, and since he himself, now acting in the proceedings and defending himself, said that by his own labour and the grace of God a man can be without sin?
How, then, does it come about easily, if it is a matter of labour that it should come about? For I think that the whole understanding of men agrees with us that where there is labour, there is no ease. And yet a letter of carnal windiness and vanity flits about, and, outstripping the tardiness of the proceedings by a procured swiftness, flies ahead into men's hands, so that it may be said to have pleased the fourteen eastern bishops that a man not only can be without sin and keep the commandments of God, but even keep them easily, and with no naming of God as helper, but only 'if he wills'—
so that, forsooth, the divine grace—for which the fiercest fight was being waged—being kept silent, should remain unmentioned, so that in the letter there should be read only unhappy human pride, deceiving itself, as though victorious; as though bishop John had not said that he had blamed this, and had, as it were, cast down the giant mountains built up against the pre-eminence of heavenly grace with three testimonies of divine authority, like thunderbolts' strokes; or as though the other bishops too, judges together with him, would have borne, whether in mind or in their very ears, Pelagius saying, 'That a man can indeed be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wills, we said,' unless there immediately followed:
'for this possibility God gave to him'—which they did not know he was saying of nature, not of that grace which they knew in the apostolic preaching—and then joined on: 'yet we did not say that anyone is found who from infancy to old age has never sinned, but that, being converted from sins, by his own labour and the grace of God he can be without sin.' This too they declared by their own sentence, saying that he had rightly answered that with the help of God and grace a man can be without sin—fearing what else, save lest by denying this they should seem to do injury not to man's possibility, but to the very grace of God?
Yet it was not defined when a man becomes without sin—which was judged to be possible with the help of God's grace; it was not, I say, defined whether, in this flesh that lusts against the spirit, there has been, or is, or will be anyone, already using reason and the choice of the will—whether in this throng of men or in the solitude of monks—for whom it is not already necessary, not on account of others but even on account of himself, to say in prayer: 'Forgive us our debts'; or whether rather this gift is perfected at the time when we shall be like Him, when we shall see Him as He is, when it shall be said, not by those still fighting: 'I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind,' but by those triumphing: 'Where, O death, is thy victory?
Where, O death, is thy sting?'—a matter which perhaps is to be inquired into peaceably, not between catholics and heretics, but among catholics themselves.
How, then, can it be believed that Pelagius—if indeed this letter is his—truly confessed the grace of God (which is neither nature with free will, nor the knowledge of the law, nor merely the remission of sins, but that which is necessary in each of our acts) and truly anathematized whoever should hold views against these things, when in his letter he set down even the ease of not sinning—about which there was no question in this trial, as though the judges too had been pleased about this word—and did not set down the grace of God, by confessing and adding which he escaped the penalty of ecclesiastical condemnation? There is also another thing which I ought not to keep silent.
In the little document of his defence, which he sent to me through a certain Charus, a fellow citizen of ours from Hippo but an eastern deacon, he did something that stands otherwise than is contained in the episcopal proceedings. But what the proceedings have is far better and firmer and altogether more clearly unravelled for catholic truth against the plague of that heresy. For when I read that same document, before the proceedings had come to us, I did not know that he had set down those very words which, when they were of use to him, he employed in the trial; for they are few and do not stand much otherwise, about which I do not care too greatly. But I took it ill that he can be seen to have reserved to himself a defence of certain propositions of Caelestius, which it is clear he anathematized in the proceedings.
For some of them he denied to be his, saying only that he owed no satisfaction for them, but he refused in that same document to anathematize them. These are they: that Adam was made mortal, who whether he sinned or did not sin was going to die; that Adam's sin harmed himself alone and not the human race; that the law brings to the kingdom of heaven just as the gospel does; that infants newly born are in that state in which Adam was before the transgression; that neither through the death or transgression of Adam does the whole human race die, nor through the resurrection of Christ does the whole human race rise; that infants, even if they are not baptized, have eternal life;
that baptized rich men, unless they renounce all things, even if they seem to do some good, it is not reckoned to them, nor will they have the kingdom of heaven.' To these indeed in that document he thus answered: 'All these, according to their own testimony, were not said by me, nor do I owe satisfaction for them.' But in the proceedings he spoke thus about these very same things: 'According to their own testimony they were not said by me. For these I ought not to make satisfaction; but nevertheless, for the satisfaction of the holy synod, I anathematize those who so hold, or who at any time have held.' Why, then, was it not so written in that document also? Not much, I think—of ink, nor of letters, nor of delay, nor of the document itself—would have been expended, had it been so done.
But who would not believe that this was contrived, so that this document might circulate everywhere as though a summary of those proceedings?—where it might be thought that the liberty of defending any one of those propositions had not been taken away, in that they had only been objected to him and not proved against him, yet had not been anathematized and condemned. Afterward too, from the book of Caelestius, he heaped together in that same document many chapters objected to him, and did not, with those intervals which the proceedings contain, add two responses by which he anathematized those same chapters, but appended a single one to all of them at once. This I would think was done for the sake of brevity, did I not perceive that it makes very much difference to that which moves us. For thus he closed:
'Again I say that these things, even according to their own testimony, are not mine. For these, as I have said, I owe no satisfaction; but those which I have confessed to be mine, these I affirm that I rightly say; but those which I have said are not mine, according to the judgment of the holy Church I condemn, pronouncing anathema upon everyone who contravenes the doctrines of the holy and catholic Church, and likewise upon those who, feigning falsehoods, have stirred up calumny against us.' This last line the proceedings do not have; but it is nothing to the matter about which we ought to be concerned. For let those too be utterly anathema who, feigning falsehoods, have stirred up calumny against them. But when I first read:
'but those which I have said are not mine, according to the judgment of the holy Church I condemn'—not knowing that that judgment of the Church had already taken place, since here it is left unsaid and I had not read the proceedings—I supposed nothing else than that he had promised that he would think about these chapters what the Church had not yet judged, but should at some time judge, and that he would condemn those things which she had not yet condemned, but should at some time condemn; so that to this there should pertain also what he added: 'pronouncing anathema upon everyone who contravenes or contradicts the doctrines of the holy catholic Church.'
But in truth, as the proceedings testify, an ecclesiastical judgment concerning these things had already been made by the fourteen bishops, according to which judgment he said that he condemned all these things and pronounced anathema upon those who, by holding such views, go against the judgment which the proceedings indicate had already been made. For the judges had already said: 'What does the monk Pelagius, here present, say to these chapters that have been read? For the holy synod and the holy catholic Church of God condemns this.' But those who do not know this, and read that document, think that some of those propositions can lawfully be defended, as though it had not been judged that they were contrary to catholic doctrine, and as though Pelagius had declared himself ready to think about these matters what the Church had not judged, but should judge.
He did not, therefore, write in the little document with which we are now dealing in such a way that what the trustworthiness of the acts contains should be recognized—namely, all those doctrines by which the same heresy was creeping onward and gaining strength through its contentious boldness—that these had been condemned by ecclesiastical judgment, with fourteen bishops presiding. If he was afraid to make this matter known, as it truly stands, let him rather correct himself than be angry at our vigilance, however tardy and of whatever quality it may be. But if it is false that he feared this, and, as we men suppose, let him be pardoned—provided nevertheless that henceforth he attacks those things which by the acts, in which he was heard, were anathematized and reproved, lest by sparing them he should seem not only to have believed these things before, but to believe them still.
Accordingly, in so grave and great a cause, it was perhaps not in vain that I wished to write this book, though it be lengthy on this account, to your Reverence, so that, if it does not displease your judgment, it may by your authority rather—which is far greater than the diligence of our littleness—become known to those whom you deem it necessary, for the crushing of the vanities and contentions of those who think that, Pelagius having been acquitted by the Eastern bishops as judges, those doctrines were approved which the ever-Christian truth condemns as sprouting most perniciously against the Christian faith and the grace of God, by which we are called and justified; and which truth has condemned by the authority of these very fourteen bishops as well—an authority which would at the same time have condemned Pelagius too, had these doctrines not been anathematized by him.
Now then, since we have rendered to the man the care of brotherly charity, and have faithfully set forth our solicitude concerning him and on his behalf, let us see how it may briefly be observed that, although in the eyes of men he was acquitted, yet the heresy itself—ever damnable by divine judgment—was condemned also by the judgment of the fourteen Eastern bishops. This is the final sentence of that judgment. The synod said: «Now, since we have been satisfied by the declarations of the present monk Pelagius, who indeed assents to pious teachings, but reproves and anathematizes those contrary to the faith of the Church, we confess that he belongs to ecclesiastical and catholic communion.»