the flesh, not as if it were an accidental vice, but as if it were a nature bad from eternity; the Pelagians approve it as if it were no vice, but even a natural good. The catholic faith condemns both, saymg to the Manicheans, " It is not nature, but it is vice; " saying to the Pelagians, " It is not of the Father, but it is of the world; " in order that both may allow it as an evil sickness to be cured — the former by ceasing to believe it, as it were, incurable, the latter by ceasing to proclaim it as laudable. The Manicheans deny that to a good man the beginning of evil came from free will; the Pelagians say that even a bad man has free will sufficiently to perform the good commandment. The catholic Church condemns both, saying to the former, " God made man upright," ' and saying to the latter, " If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." ^ The Manicheans say that the soul, as a particle of God, has sin by the commixture of an evil nature; the Pelagians say that the soul is upright, not indeed a particle, but a creature of God, and has not even in this corruptible life any sin. The catholic Church condemns both, saying to the Manicheans, " Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree evil and its fruit evil," ^ which would not be said to man who cannot make his own nature, unless because sin is not nature, but vice; and saying to the Pelagians, " If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." •♦ In these diseases, opposed as they are to one another, the Manicheans and the Pelagians are at issue, with dissimilar will but with similar vanity, separated by different opinions, but close together by a perverse mind.
CHAP. 3. HOW FAR THE MANICHEANS AND PELA- GL\NS ARE JOINED IN ERROR; HOW FAR THEY ARE SEPARATED.
Still, indeed, they alike oppose the grace of * John viii. 36.
3 Matt. xii. 33.
Christ, they alike make His baptism of no account, tliey alike dishonour His flesh; but, moreover, they do these things 'in different ways and for different reasons. For the Manicheans assert that divine assistance is given to the merits of a good nature, but the Pelagians, to the merits of a good will. The former say, God owes this to the labours of His members; the latter say, God owes this to the virtues of His servants. In both cases, therefore, the reward is not imputed according to grace, but according to debt. The Manicheans contend, with a profane heart, that the washing of regeneration — that is, the water itself — is superfluous, and is of no advantage.
But the Pelagians assert that what is said in iioly baptism for the putting away of sins is of no avail to infants, as they have no sin; and thus in the baptism of infants, as far as pertains to the remission of sins, the Manicheans destroy the visible element, but the Pelagians destroy even the invisible sacrament. The Manicheans dishonour Christ's flesh by blaspheming the birth from the Virgin; but the Pelagians by making the flesh of those to be redeemed equal to the flesh of the Redeemer. Since Christ was born, not of course in sinful flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh, while the flesh of the rest of mankind is born sinful. The Manicheans, therefore, who absolutely abominate all flesh, take away the manifest truth from the flesh of Christ; but the Pelagians, who maintain that no flesh is born sinful, take away from Christ's flesh its special and proper dignity.
CHAP. 4. — THE TWO CONTRARY ERRORS.
Let the Pelagians, then, cease to object to the catholics that which they are not, but let them rather hasten to amend what they themselves are; and let them not wish to be considered deserving of approval because they are opposed to the hateful error of the Manicheans, but let them acknowledge themselves to be deser\edly hateful because they do not put away their own error. For two errors may be opposed to one another, although both are to be reprobated because both are alike opposed to the truth. For if the Pelagians are to be loved because they hate the Manicheans, the Manicheans should also be loved because they hate the Pelagians. But be it far from our catholic mother to choose some to love on the ground that they hate others, when by the warning and help of the Lord she ought to avoid both, and should desire to heal both.
CHAP. 5 [ill.] — THE CALUMNY OF THE PELAGI- ANS AGAINST THE CLERGY OF THE ROMAN CHURCH.
Moreover, they accuse the Roman clergy, writing, " That, driven by the fear of a command, they have not blushed to be guilty of the Chap. 6.]
crime of prevarication; so that, contrary to their previous judgment, wherein by their proceedings they had assented to the cathoHc dogma, they subsec^uently pronounced that the.
nature of men is evil." Nay, but the Pelagians | had conceived, with a false hope, that the new and execrable dogma of Pelagius or Ccelestius could be made acceptable to the catholic intelligences of certain Romans, when those crafty spirits — however perverted by a wicked error, yet not contemptible, since they appeared rather to be deserving of considerate correction than of easy condemnation — were treated with somewhat more of lenity than the stricter discipline of the Church required. For while so many and such important ecclesiastical documents were passing and repassing between the Apostolical See and the African bishops,' — and, moreover, when the proceedings in this matter in that see were completed, with Coelestius present and making answer, — what sort of a letter, what decree, is found of Pope Zosimus, of venerable memory, wherein he prescribed that it must be believed that man is born without any taint of original sin? Absolutely he never said this — never wrote it at all. But.since Coelestius had written this in his pamphlet, among those matters, merely, on which he confessed that he was still in doubt and desired to be instructed, the desire of amendment in a man of so acute an intellect, who, if he could be put right, would assuredly be of advantage to many, and not the falsehood of the doctrine, was approved. And therefore his pamphlet was called catholic, because this also is the part of a catholic disposition, — if by chance in any matters a man thinks differently from what the truth demands, not with the greatest accuracy to define those matters, but, if detected and demonstrated, to reject them. For it was not to heretics, but to catholics, that the apostle was speaking when he said, " Let us, therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded; and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you."^ This was thought to have been!
the case in him when he replied that he con- j sented to the letters of Pope Innocent of I blessed memory, in which all doubt about this! matter was removed. And in order that this j might be made fuller and more manifest in him, ' matters were delayed until letters should come ■ from Africa, in which province his craftiness had i in some sort become more evidently known. And afterwards these letters came to Rome j containing this, that it was not sufficient for men of more sluggish and anxious minds that he confessed his general consent to the letters of Bishop Innocent, but that he ought openly to ' See On Original Sin, 9, 5, 8.
2 Phil. iii. 15.
anathematize the mischievous statements which he had made in his pamphlet; lest if he did not do so, many people of l)etter intelligence should rather believe that in his pamj^hlct those poisons of the faith had been approved by the catholic see, because it had been affirmed by that see that that pamphlet was catholic, than that they had been amended because of his answer that he consented to the letters of Pope Innocent.
Then, therefore, when his presence was demanded, in order that by certain and clear answers either the craft of the man or his correction might plainly appear and remain doubtful to no one, he withdrew himself and refused the examination. Neither would the delay which had already been made for the advantage of others have taken place, if it could not be of advantage to the pertinacity and madness of those who were excessively perverse. But if, which be far from the case, it had so been judged in the Roman Church concerning Coelestius or Pelagius, that those dogmas of theirs, which in themselves and with themselves Pope Innocent had condemned, should be pronounced worthy of approval and maintenance, the mark of prevarication would rather have to be branded on the Roman clergy for this. But now, when the first letters of the most blessed Pope Innocent, in reply to the letters of the African bishops,^ would have equally condemned this error which these men are endeavouring to commend to us; and his successor, the holy Pope Zosimus, would never have said, never have written, that this dogma which these men think concerning infants is to be held; nay, would even have bound Coelestius by a repeated sentence, when he endeavoured to clear himself, to a consent to the above-mentioned letters of the Apostolic See; — assuredly, whatever in the meanwhile was done more leniently concerning Ccelestius, provided the stability of the most ancient and robust faith were maintained, was the most merciful persuasion of correction, not the most pernicious approval of wickedness; and that afterwards, by the same priesthood, Coelestius and Pelagius were condemned by repeated authority, was the proof of a severity, for a little while intermitted, at length of necessity to be carried out, not a denial of a previously-known truth or a new acknowledgment of truth.
CHAP. 6 [iV.] — WHAT WAS DONE IN THE CASE OF CCELESTIUS AND ZOSIMUS.
But what need is there for us to delay longer in speaking of this matter, when there are extant here and there proceedings and writings drawn up, where all those things just as they were [Book II.
transacted may be either learnt or recalled? For who does not see in what degree Coilestius was bound by the interrogations of your holy predecessor and by the answers of Ccelestius, whereby he professed that he consented to the letters of Pope Innocent, and fastened by a most wholesome chain, so as not to dare any further to maintain that the original sin of infants is not put away in baptism? Because these are the words of the venerable Bishop Innocent concerning this matter to the Carthaginian Council: " For once," he said, " he bore free will; but, using his advantage inconsiderately, and falling into the depths of apostasy, he was overwhelmed, and found no way whereby he could rise from thence; and, deceived for ever by his liberty, he would have lain under the oppression of this ruin, if the advent of Christ had not subsequently for his grace delivered him, and, by the purification of a new regeneration, purged all past sin by the washing of His baptism." ' What could be more clear or more manifest than that judgment of the Apostolical See? To this Ccelestius professed that he assented, when it was said to him by your holy predecessor, " Do you condemn all those things that are bandied about under your name? " and he himself replied, " I condemn them in accordance with the judgment of your predecessor Innocent, of blessed memory." But among other things which had been uttered under his name, the deacon Paulinus had objected to Ccelestius that he said " that the sin of Adam was prejudicial to himself alone, and not to the human race, and that infants newly born were in the same condition in which Adam was before his sin." ^ Accordingly, if he would condemn the views objected to by Paulinus with a truthful heart and tongue, according to the judgment of the blessed Pope Innocent, what could remain to him afterwards \vhence he could contend that there was no sin in infants resulting from the past transgression of the first man, which would be purged in holy baptism by the purification of the new regeneration? p]ut he showed that he had answered deceitfully by the final event, when he withdrew himself from the examination, lest he should be compelled, according to the African rescripts, absolutely to mention and anathematize the very words themselves concerning this question which he wrote in his tractate.
CHAP. 7. — HE SUGGESTS A DILEMMA TO CQELESTIUS.
What was that which the same pope replied to the bishops of Numidia concerning this very cause, because he had received letters from both Councils, as well from the Council of Carthage as from the Council of IMileve — does he not speak most plainly concerning infants? For these are his words: ^ " For what your Fraternity ■» asserts that they preach, that infants can I be endowed with the rewards of eternal life even without the grace of baptism, is excessively silly; for unless they shall eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, they shall not have life in themselves. 5 And they who maintain this as being theirs without regeneration, appear to me to wish to destroy baptism itself, since they l^roclaim that these have that which we believe is not to be conferred on them without baptism." ^Vhat does the ungrateful man say to this, when the Apostolic See had already spared him on his profession, as if he were corrected by its most benignant lenity? What does he say to this? Will infants after the end of their life, even if while they live they are not baptized in Christ, be in eternal life, or will they not? If he should say, " They will," how then did he answer that he had condemned what had been uttered under his name " according to the judgment of Innocent, of blessed memory "? Lo, Pope Innocent, of blessed memory, says that infants have not life without Christ's baptism, and without partaking of Christ's body and blood. If he should say, "They will not," how then, if they do not receive eternal life, are they certainly by consequence condemned in eternal death if they derive no original sin?
CHAP. 8. THE CATHOLIC FAITH CONCERNING What do they say to these things who dare also to write their mischievous impieties, and dare to send them to the Eastern bishops? Ccelestius is held to have given consent to the letters of the venerable Innocent; the letters themselves of the prelate mentioned are read, and he writes that infants who are not baptized cannot have life. And who will deny that, as a consequence, they have death, if they have not life? Whence, then, in infants, is so wretched a penalty as that, if there is no original fault? How, then, are the Roman clergy charged with prevarication by those forsakers of the faith and opponents of grace under Bishop Zosimus, as if they had had any other view in the subsequent condemnation of Ccelestius and Pelagius than that which they had in a former one under Innocent? Because, certainly, since by the letters of the venerable Innocent concerning the abode of infants in eternal death unless they were baptized in Christ, the antiquity of the catholic faith ' shone forth, assuredly he would rather be a prevaricator from the Roman Church who should * An address like " your Honour," " your Love," etc.
5 John vi. 54.
Chap, ii] AGAINST TWO LETTERS OF THE PELAGIANS.
deviate from that judgment; and since with God's blessing this did not happen, but that judgment itself was constantly maintained in the repeated condemnation of Cuelestius and Pelagius, let them understand that they themselves; are in the position wherein they accuse others of being, and let them hereafter be healed of their prevarication from the faith. Because the catholic faith does not say that the nature of man is bad in as far as he was made man at first by the Creator; nor now is what God creates in that nature when He makes men from men, his evil; but what he derives from that sin of the first man. \ CHAP. 9 [v.] HE REPLIES TO THE CALUMNIES OF THE PEL.\GIANS. ' And now we must look to those things which they objected to us in their letters, and briefly mentioned. And to these this is my answer. We do not say that by the sin of Adam free will perished out of the nature of men; but that it avails for sinning in men subjected to the devil; while it is not of avail for good and pious living, unless the will itself of man should be made free by God's grace, and assisted to every good movement of action, of speech, of thought. ^^'e say that no one but the Lord God is the i maker of those who are born, and that marriage! was ordained not by the devil, but by God Him- j self; yet that all are born under sin on account of the fault of propagation, and that, therefore, all are under the devil until they are born again in Christ. Nor are we maintaining fate under the name of grace, because we say that the grace of God is preceded by no merits of man. If, however, it is agreeable to any to call the will of the Almighty God by the name of fate, while we indeed shun profane novelties of words, we have no use for contending about words.
CHAP. lO. WHY THE PELAGIANS FALSELY ACCUSE CATHOLICS OF MAINTAINING FATE UNDER THE NAME OF GRACE.
But, as I was somewhat more attentively considering for what reason they should think it well to object this to us, that we assert fate under the name of grace, I first of all looked into those words of theirs which follow. For thus they have thought that this was to be objected to us: " Under the name," say they, " of grace, they so assert fate as to say that unless God inspired unwilling and resisting man with the desire of good, and that good imperfect, he would neither be able to decline from evil nor to lay hold of good." Then a little after, where they mention what they maintain, I gave heed to what was said by them about this matter. " We confess," say they, " that baptism is necessary for all ages, and that grace, moreover, assists the good purpose of everybody; but yet that jt does not infuse the love of virtue into a reluctant one, because there is no acceptance of persons with God." ' From these words of theirs, I perceived that for this reason they either think, or wish it to be thought, that we assert fate under the name of grace, because we say that God's grace is not given in respect of our merits, but according to His own most merciful will, in that He said, " I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." ^ Where, by way of conseciuence, it is added, " Therefore it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." •' Here any one might be equally foolish in thinking or saying that the apostle is an assertor of fate. But here these people sufficiently lay themselves open; for when they malign us by saying that we maintain fate under the name of grace, because we say that God's grace is not given on account of our merits, beyond a doubt they confess that they themselves say that it is given on account of our merits; thus their blindness could not conceal and dissimulate that they believe and think thus, although, when this view was objected to him, Pelagius, in the episcopal judgment of Palestine, with crafty fear condemned it. For it was objected to him from the words of his own disciple Coelestius, indeed, that he himself also was in the habit of saying that God's grace is given on account of our merits. And he in abhorrence, or in pretended abhorrence, of this, did not delay, with his lips at least, to anathematize it; ■* but, as his later writings indicate, and the assertion of those followers of his makes evident, he kept it in his deceitful heart, until afterwards his boldness might put forth in letters 5 what the cunning of a denier had then hidden for fear.
And Still the Pelagian bishops do not dread, and at least are not ashamed, to send their letters to the catholic Eastern bishops, in which they charge us with being assertors of fate because we do not say that even grace is given according to our merits; although Pelagius, fearing the Eastern bishops, did not dare to -say this, and so was compelled to condemn it.
CHAP. I I [VI.] THE ACCUSATION OF FATE IS THROWN BACK UPON THE ADVERSARIES.
But is it true, O children of pride, enemies of God's grace, new Pelagian heretics, that whoever says that all man's good deservings are ])receded by God's grace, and that God's grace is not given to merits, lest it should not be grace if it is not given freely but be repaid as due to those who deserve it, seems to jou to assert fate?
' Rom. ii. II; Col. iii. 25. * Ex. xxxiii. 19; Rom. ix. 15.
3 Rom. ix. 16.
* Sec On the Proceediiif^s of Pelagius, 30.
S See 0?i the Proceediugs of Pela^us, 34.
[Book II.
Do not you yourselves also say, whatever be your purpose, that baptism is necessary for all ages? Have you not written in this very letter of yours that opinion concerning baptism, and that concerning grace, side by side? Why did not baptism, which is given to infants, by that very juxtaposition admonish you what you ought to think concerning grace? For these are your words: " We confess that baptism is necessary for all ages, and that grace, moreover, assists the good purpose of everybody; but yet that it does not infuse the love of virtue into a reluctant one, because there is no acceptance of persons with God." In all these words of yours, I for the meanwhile say nothing of what you have said concerning grace. But giv-e a reason concerning baptism, why you should say that it is necessary for all ages; say why it is necessary for infants. Assuredly because it confers some good upon