ON THE GRACE OF CHRIST AND ON ORIGINAL SIN, BOOK TWO. ON ORIGINAL SIN. Now then, attend diligently concerning the baptism of little ones, how cautiously you ought to listen to men of this sort, who neither openly dare to deny to that age the laver of regeneration and of the remission of sins — lest Christian ears cannot bear it — and yet persist in maintaining and defending their own opinion, by which they hold that carnal generation is not bound liable to the sin of the first man, although they seem to grant to them baptism unto the remission of sins.
Indeed, you yourselves wrote that, in the presence of Pelagius, you heard, as he read to you from his own booklet — which he also asserted that he had sent to Rome — that they say 'infants ought to be baptized with the same sacramental words as adults.' Who, after these words, would suppose that any question ought to be raised with them concerning this matter? Or, when he did raise it, to whom would he not seem most slanderous, were not their plain words read out, where they deny that little ones draw original sin and contend that all are born without any defect?
And Caelestius indeed stood forth in this error more unrestrainedly, to such a degree that not even in the episcopal trial at Carthage was he willing to condemn those who say 'that the sin of Adam injured him alone and not the human race, and that infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before the transgression.' And in the city of Rome, in his booklet which he gave to the most blessed pope Zosimus, he asserted this more expressly, 'that original sin binds none of the little ones'; for from the ecclesiastical proceedings at Carthage we have transcribed these his words: 'Aurelius the bishop said: Let the following be read. And there was read that the sin of Adam harmed himself alone and not the human race. And when it had been read, Caelestius said:
I said that I am in doubt about the transmission of sin, yet in such a way that I would assent to him to whom God has given the grace of expertise; for I have heard differing views from those who are, at any rate, appointed presbyters in the catholic Church. Paulinus the deacon said: Tell us their names. Caelestius said: The holy presbyter Rufinus at Rome, who stayed with the holy Pammachius; I heard him saying that there is no transmission of sin. Paulinus the deacon said: Is there any other? Caelestius said: I have heard several also say so. Paulinus the deacon said: Tell their names. Caelestius said: Does not one priest suffice for you? And after some things, in another place: Aurelius the bishop said: Let the rest of the booklet be read.
And there was read that infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before the transgression, right up to the end of the lesser booklet inserted above. Aurelius the bishop said: Did you at some time teach, Caelestius, as the deacon Paulinus says, that infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before the transgression? Caelestius said: Let him explain what he meant by 'before the transgression.' Paulinus the deacon said: Deny that you taught this. It is one of two things: either let him deny that he taught it, or let him now condemn it. Caelestius said: I have already said, let him explain how he meant 'before the transgression.' Paulinus the deacon said: Deny that you taught those things. Aurelius the bishop said:
I ask what I have gathered from this man's objection. I say: Adam, set in paradise, is said first to have been made imperishable, but afterwards, through the transgression of the precept, to have been made corruptible. Do you say this, brother Paulinus? Paulinus the deacon said: This, my lord. Aurelius the bishop said: The deacon Paulinus wishes to hear this — whether the condition of the infants to be baptized today is such as it was before Adam's transgression, or whether, rather, it draws the guilt of the transgression from that same origin of sin from which each is born. Paulinus the deacon said: Let him not deny whether he taught this or not. Caelestius said:
I have already spoken about the transmission of sin, that I have heard many within the catholic body demolish it, and also others uphold it, though this is a matter of question, not of heresy. I have always said that infants need baptism and ought to be baptized. What else does he seek? You surely perceive that Caelestius so granted baptism to little ones that he was unwilling to confess that the sin of the first man — which is washed away by the laver of regeneration — passes over into them, though he did not dare to deny it either, and on account of this doubt of his did not condemn those who say 'that the sin of Adam injured him alone and not the human race, and that infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before the transgression.'
But in the booklet which he published at Rome, which was there adduced in the ecclesiastical proceedings, he so speaks concerning this matter as to show that he believes that of which he had here said he was in doubt. For these are his words: 'But infants,' he says, 'ought to be baptized unto the remission of sins, according to the rule of the universal Church and according to the sentence of the Gospel, since the Lord has determined that the kingdom of heaven cannot be conferred except upon the baptized. Because they do not have the powers of nature, it is necessary that it be conferred through the liberty of grace.' If he said nothing further about this matter, who would not believe that he confessed that even in infants the original sins are remitted in baptism, by saying that they ought to be baptized unto the remission of sins?
Hence, then, comes also that which you wrote — that Pelagius thus answered you 'that infants are baptized with the same sacramental words as adults,' and that you were glad to have heard what you desired, and yet still preferred to consult us about his words. Attend, therefore, to what Caelestius said most openly, and there you will see what Pelagius concealed from you. For Caelestius adds and says: 'But we have not said that infants are to be baptized unto the remission of sins, in order that we should seem to affirm sin by transmission; for that is far removed from the catholic sense, since sin is not born with man, which afterwards is practised by man, because it is shown to be a fault not of nature but of the will.'
'And so it is fitting to confess that too, lest we seem to make diverse kinds of baptism; and this it is necessary to safeguard beforehand, lest, through the occasion of the mystery, to the injury of the Creator, evil be said to be transmitted to man through nature before it is done by man.' This sense of his Pelagius either feared or blushed to disclose to you — the very thing which his disciple neither feared nor blushed to profess openly, without any obscurity of ambiguities, before the apostolic see.
But the prelate of that see, very merciful, when he saw the man borne headlong with such great presumption as though raving, preferred — until, if it could be brought about, he might come to his senses — to bind him gradually by his own questions and the other's answers, rather than, by striking with a severe sentence, to drive him into that precipice toward which he already seemed to be inclining. And for this reason I did not say 'he had openly fallen,' but 'he seemed to be inclining,' because earlier in the same booklet of his, when about to speak of questions of this kind, he had said beforehand: 'If perchance, as happens to men, some error of ignorance has crept in, let it be corrected by your judgment.'
Holding fast to this preliminary statement of his, the venerable pope Zosimus dealt with the man whom the wind of false doctrine had puffed up, that he should condemn those things which had been objected against him by the deacon Paulinus, and that he should give his assent to the letters of the apostolic see which had proceeded from his predecessor of holy memory. But he was indeed unwilling to condemn the deacon's objections, yet he did not dare to withstand the letters of the blessed pope Innocent; nay, he promised that he would condemn all things which that see should condemn. And thus, like a frenzied man who, that he might rest, was as it were gently soothed, he was nevertheless not yet believed to be loosed from the bonds of excommunication.
But with an interval of two months' time interposed, until a reply should be written back from Africa, a place for coming to his senses was granted him under a certain medicinal leniency of the sentence, since in truth, if — having laid aside the vanity of his obstinacy — he were willing to attend to what he had promised, and diligently to read those very letters to which he had answered that he would consent, he would be healed. But after replies had been sent from the African council of bishops, what followed — so that most justly a sentence was pronounced against him — read the whole, for we have transmitted the whole. Whence Pelagius too, if he considers himself and his writings without guile, does not rightly say that he ought not to have been detained by the same sentence. For he deceived the Palestinian judgment, and for that reason he seems there to have been cleared;
but he was in no way able altogether to deceive the Roman Church, where you know that he is very well known, although in this too he made some attempt; yet, as I have said, he by no means prevailed. For the most blessed pope Zosimus recalled what his predecessor, worthy to be imitated, had judged concerning those very proceedings. He attended also to what the faith of the Romans, to be proclaimed in the Lord, felt concerning him — the faith whose harmonious zeal for the catholic truth he saw burning concordantly against Pelagius's error; among whom that man had long lived, and from whom his dogmas could not lie hidden, who knew Caelestius to be his disciple in such a way that they could bear most faithful and most firm testimony concerning this matter.
What, then, holy pope Innocent judged concerning the proceedings of the Palestinian synod — by which Pelagius boasts that he was absolved — although you can read it also in his letters which he wrote back to us, and it was recalled, when the African synod replied to the venerable pope Zosimus (which, together with the other instructions, we have sent to your charity) — nevertheless it seems that it ought not to be passed over even in this work.
For when we, in the epistle which we five bishops wrote to him, had made mention of those same Palestinian proceedings — the report of which had already reached us — saying that in the East, where he dwells, ecclesiastical proceedings had been held by which he is thought to have been cleared, and when to this, among other things, he wrote back, he said: 'Since there are certain things set down in those very proceedings, some of which he suppressed by evading the objections, while others he confused with total obscurity by twisting many words about himself, some things he cleared away by a reasoning more false than true, as could at the time appear — denying some things, turning others by a false interpretation.
But would that — which is rather to be wished — that man might now turn himself from that error of his to the true way of the catholic faith, and might desire and be willing to be cleared, considering the daily grace of God and acknowledging His help, so that he might be seen truly, and be approved by all, to have been corrected by manifest reason, not by the judgment of the proceedings, but by a heart converted to the catholic faith. Whence we can neither approve nor blame their judgment, since we do not know whether the proceedings are true, or, if they are true, whether it is rather established that he escaped by evasion than that he cleared himself with the whole truth.' You certainly see in these words how the most blessed pope Innocent seems to speak, as it were, not of an unknown matter; you see what a sentence he passed concerning his acquittal;
you see what his successor, holy pope Zosimus, ought to have recalled, as indeed he did recall, so that in him he might, with all hesitation removed, confirm the judgment of his predecessor. Now then, attend diligently to that from which it is shown that Pelagius deceived the Palestinian judges — to pass over other matters — in this very question concerning the baptism of little ones, lest perchance to anyone we should seem, in what we said (that he had concealed from you that sense in which Caelestius was more unrestrained, since he himself feels no otherwise), rather to be slandering or suspecting than to have grasped anything certain.
For surely it has already been made sufficiently clear above that Caelestius was unwilling to condemn what is said — 'that Adam's sin harmed himself alone, not the human race, and that infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before the transgression' — because he saw that, if he condemned these things, he would confirm the passing-over of sin from Adam into infants. But when these things had been objected to Pelagius — namely, that he too, along with Caelestius, held them — he condemned them without any retraction. And although I know that you have read this, yet, because this is written not for you alone, that it may not irk the reader to have recourse to the proceedings themselves, or, if he does not have them, even with labour to search them out, we transcribe from thence the very words which are written below. 'The synod said:
Now, since Pelagius has anathematized the inserted foolish talk, rightly answering that a man, with the help and grace of God, can be without sin, let him answer to the other chapters also. Another chapter in the teaching of Caelestius, disciple of Pelagius, from those things which were heard and recorded at Carthage by the holy Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, together with other bishops: That Adam was made mortal, who, whether he sinned or did not sin, was going to die. That the sin of Adam injured himself alone, and not the human race. That the law sends to the kingdom just as also the Gospel does. That before the coming of Christ there were men without sin. That infants newly born are in that state in which Adam was before the transgression.
That neither through the death nor through the transgression of Adam does the whole race of men die, nor through the resurrection of Christ does the whole race of men rise again. That the holy bishop Augustine, against the disciples of that man in Sicily, replied to Hilary, writing to him on the appended chapters a book in which these things are contained: that a man can be without sin, if he wills; that infants, even if they are not baptized, have eternal life; that baptized rich men, unless they renounce all things, if they seem to do any good, it is not reckoned to them, nor can they have the kingdom of God. Pelagius said: Concerning a man's being able to be without sin, it has been said above;
but concerning this — that there were men before the coming of the Lord without sin — we too say that before the coming of Christ certain men lived in holiness and righteousness according to the tradition of the holy Scriptures. But the rest of the things, even according to their own testimony, were not said by me, on behalf of which I ought not to give satisfaction; yet nevertheless, for the satisfaction of the holy synod, I anathematize those who so hold or ever have held these things.' Behold — to omit other matters — you see that Pelagius anathematized those who hold 'that Adam's sin injured himself alone and not the human race, and that infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before the transgression.'
What else, then, could the episcopal judges here understand, save that he confessed that sin passes over from Adam into little ones? Which, lest he confess it, Caelestius was unwilling to condemn those things which this man condemned. Accordingly, if I shall have shown that he too feels nothing else concerning little ones save that they are born without any contagion of anyone's defect, what will stand between this man and Caelestius in this question, save that the one was more open, the other more concealed; the one more obstinate, the other more mendacious; or at any rate the one more unrestrained, this one more crafty? For the one was unwilling, even in the Church of Carthage, to condemn what he afterwards, in the Roman Church, confessed that he held, and professed himself ready to be corrected, if error had crept upon him as upon a man.
But this man both condemned that dogma as contrary to the truth, lest he himself should be condemned by the catholic judges, and afterwards reserved it to himself to be defended — either mendaciously condemning it or craftily interpreting it. But I see that it is now most justly demanded of me that I not defer to demonstrate what I promised — namely, whether he too feels the same as Caelestius. In the first book of his more recent work, which he wrote 'on free will,' of which work he made mention in the letter which he sent to Rome, he says: 'Every good and evil, by which we are either praiseworthy or blameworthy, does not arise with us, but is done by us;
for we are born capable of either, not full of either, and just as we are procreated without virtue, so also without vice; and before the action of one's own will, that alone is in a man which God has fashioned.' You surely perceive that in these words of Pelagius there is contained the dogma of both concerning little ones being born without the contagion of any defect from Adam. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that Caelestius was unwilling to condemn those who say 'that Adam's sin harmed himself alone and not the human race, and that infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before the transgression'; but it is much to be wondered at with what face Pelagius condemned these things.
For if, as he says, 'evil does not arise with us, and we are procreated without vice, and before the action of one's own will that alone is in a man which God has fashioned,' then assuredly Adam's sin harmed himself alone, since it made no passing-over into his offspring. For either sin is not an evil, or sin is not a vice, or God fashioned sin. But this man says: 'Evil does not arise with us, and we are procreated without vice, and this alone is in those being born which God has fashioned.' And through this, since — according to this his own opinion — he deems it most true that Adam's sin harmed himself alone, not the human race, why did Pelagius condemn this, save that the catholic judges might be deceived? Similarly, that too can be said:
If evil does not arise together with us and we are begotten without fault, and if that alone is in a man being born which God created, then beyond doubt the infants who are born are in that same state in which Adam was before his transgression, in whom there was no evil or fault whatsoever, and in whom there was that alone which God had created. And yet Pelagius pronounced anathema against those who 'hold, or once held, that infants newly born are in that state in which Adam was before his transgression' — that is, without any evil, without any fault, having only that which God created. Why then did Pelagius condemn even this, unless it was that the catholic synod might be deceived, and the new heretic might not be condemned?
But as you know, and as I set down in that book too which I wrote about the proceedings in Palestine to our venerable elder Aurelius, I was rejoicing that by that reply of Pelagius this whole question had been settled, and it seemed to me that he had most openly confessed that there is original sin in little ones, since he pronounced anathema against those who believed that by Adam's sin he alone, and not the human race as well, had been harmed, and who supposed that little ones are in that state in which that first man was before his transgression.
But afterwards, when I had read his four books — from the first of which I copied out the words mentioned a little earlier — and had found the man still thinking against the catholic faith concerning little ones, I first began to marvel at so shameless a lie in an ecclesiastical trial and on so great a question. For if he had already written those same books beforehand, how did he say that he pronounced anathema against those who once held such a view? But if he promised that work only afterwards, how did he pronounce anathema against those who hold such a view now?
Unless perhaps he means to say, absurdly, that he condemned those who once held such a view and those who hold it now, but that concerning future time — that is, those who were going to hold such a view hereafter — he could not prejudge either himself or others, and that therefore he had not lied, because it was only afterwards that he was caught holding such a view. But he does not say this — not only because it is absurd, but because it cannot be true. For in those very books he both speaks against the passing of sin from Adam into little ones, and boasts of the proceedings of the Palestinian synod, where he was thought to have truly condemned those who hold such a view, and where by deception he stole his own acquittal.
For what does it bear on the matter now under discussion, that he answers his disciples that he condemned those objections for this reason: because he himself also says that not only the first man but the human race too was harmed by that first sin — not by propagation but by example; that is, not that those propagated from him drew any fault from him, but that all who sinned afterward imitated him who sinned first? Or that he says infants are not in that state in which Adam was before his transgression, for this reason: because these cannot yet grasp a commandment, whereas he could, and they do not yet use the choice of a rational will, which unless he had used it, no commandment would have been given him?
What does this bear on the matter — that by thus explaining the words objected against him he thinks he rightly condemned the statement that Adam's sin harmed him alone and not the human race, and that infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before his sin — and yet, though these were condemned, he does not without lying hold what is afterward found in the little works he composed: that little ones are born without any evil, without any fault, and that there is in them only that which God created, not the wound which the enemy inflicted? Does he then, by saying these words, achieve — through explaining in one way objections that were meant in another — the demonstration that he did not deceive his judges? By no means does he accomplish this; for the more cunningly he explains these things, the more secretly he deceived the judges.
For when the catholic bishops heard the man pronouncing anathema against those who say that Adam's sin harmed him alone and not the human race, they supposed that he held nothing other than what the catholic Church is accustomed to preach — on which account she truly baptizes little ones for the remission of sins: not the sins they committed by imitating, on account of the first sinner's example, but the sins they drew by being born, on account of the fault of their origin. And when they heard him pronouncing anathema against those who say that infants who are born are in that state in which Adam was before his transgression, they believed he was saying nothing other than that he condemned those who think that little ones have drawn no sin from Adam and are, accordingly, in that state in which he was before his sin.
For this indeed was what was objected against him, and nothing else, since it was on this that the question turned. Accordingly, when this man so explains it as to say that infants are not in the state in which Adam was before his sin because they are not yet in the same firmness of mind or body — not because any guilt of propagation has passed into them — let this be answered to him: When those things to be condemned were objected against you, the catholic bishops did not so understand them; therefore, when you condemned them, they believed you to be a catholic. For that reason, then, what they supposed you to hold had to be acquitted; but what you really held had to be condemned. You, then, were not acquitted, who held things that deserved condemnation; rather, that was acquitted which you ought to have held.
But in order that you might be thought acquitted, you were believed to hold praiseworthy views, since the judges did not perceive that you were concealing what deserved condemnation. Rightly were you judged the associate of Caelestius, whose partner you are manifestly shown to be; for although in the trial you covered up your books, yet after the trial you published them. Since these things are so, you surely perceive that, against the authors of so wicked an error, the episcopal councils and the Apostolic See and the whole Roman Church and the Roman Empire — which, by God's favor, is Christian — were most rightly moved, until such men come to their senses out of the devil's snares. For who knows whether God may perhaps grant them repentance, that they may acknowledge and confess and even proclaim the truth, and truly condemn the damnable falsehood?
But in whatever way these men wish to conduct themselves, we cannot doubt that the Lord's mercy has taken care of many who were following them for this reason: because they saw them united to catholic communion. But diligently attend to how Pelagius attempted to creep in so as to deceive even the episcopal judgment of the Apostolic See on this very question of the baptism of little ones. For in the letters which he sent to Rome to Pope Innocent of blessed memory — since they did not find him alive but were delivered to the holy Pope Zosimus, and from there forwarded to us — he says that he is being defamed by men as though he denies to little ones the sacrament of baptism, and promises the kingdom of heaven to some apart from the redemption of Christ.
But these things are not objected against them in the way he has stated. For they neither deny to little ones the sacrament of baptism, nor promise to any the kingdom of heaven apart from the redemption of Christ. And so the thing about which he complains of being defamed he has set forth in such a way that he could easily answer the charge objected while keeping his own doctrine safe. But what is objected against them is that they are unwilling to confess that unbaptized little ones are liable to the condemnation of the first man, and that original sin, to be purged by regeneration, has passed into them — since they contend that these are to be baptized only for the sake of receiving the kingdom of heaven: as though, apart from the kingdom of heaven, those could have anything but eternal death who, without partaking of the body and blood of the Lord, cannot have eternal life.
Behold what is objected against them concerning the baptism of little ones — not what he himself has stated in such a way that he could answer his own proposition according to his doctrines, as though it were the objection of an opponent. Finally, observe how he answers, and see that he prepares hiding-places of ambiguity as refuges for falsehood, pouring darkness over the truth, so that even we, when we first read them, rejoiced as though at things right or nearly corrected. But his more extensive disputations in his books — where, however much he covers himself, he is for the most part compelled to reveal himself — made even these things suspect to us, so that, looking more attentively, we found them ambiguous. For when he had said that he had never heard even any impious heretic say what he had propounded about little ones, he then added and said:
'For who is so ignorant of the reading of the Gospel that he would try not only to affirm this, but could even lightly say or so much as think it? And then, who is so impious as to wish little ones to be excluded from the kingdom of heaven, by forbidding them to be baptized and reborn in Christ?' In vain does he say these things; he does not thereby clear himself. That little ones cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven without baptism, not even they themselves have ever denied. But that is not the question; the question is about the purging of original sin in little ones. Let him clear himself of this, who is unwilling to confess that in little ones the laver of regeneration has something to purge. And therefore let us attend to the rest of what he is about to say.