On the Proceedings of Pelagius 51–65

In my own letter, which he produced, I not only refrained from praising him, but also, as far as I could without stirring up any question, urged him to think rightly about the grace of God. In the greeting I called him “lord,” which by the custom of letters we are accustomed to write even to some who are not Christians, and not falsely, since we owe to all a kind of free service for their attaining the salvation that is in Christ. I called him “most beloved,” which I say now too, and will still say if he is angry, since if I do not keep love toward him, I shall harm myself more by his anger. I called him “most longed for,” since I greatly wished to talk with him in person; for I had already heard that he was striving with open contention against the grace by which we are justified, whenever any mention of it was made. In fact, the brief text of the letter itself shows this. For after thanking him for having cheered me with his letter by assuring me of his health and that of his people (whom, if we want them corrected, we should also want to be well in bodily health), I at once wished that the Lord would repay him with good things, not things that concern the health of the body, but rather those which he thought, or perhaps still thinks, are placed in the choice of the will alone and in one's own power, wishing him at the same time eternal life on that account too. Then, since in his letter, which I was answering, he had praised certain such good things in me much and kindly, I also asked him there to pray for me, that I might rather be made by the Lord such as he already believed me to be, so as to remind him, against what he held, that even the righteousness he had thought praiseworthy in me is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. That is all that my brief letter contains, and it was dictated with that intention. It runs as follows.

To his most beloved lord and most longed-for brother Pelagius, Augustine sends greeting in the Lord. I thank you very much that you have deigned to cheer me with your letter and to assure me of your health. May the Lord repay you with good things, by which you may always be good, and may you live for ever with him who is eternal, most beloved lord and most longed-for brother. As for me, although I do not recognize in myself the praises of me that your kind letter contains, still I cannot be ungrateful for your good will toward my littleness; at the same time I urge you rather to pray for me, that I may be made by the Lord such as you think I already am. And in another hand: Mindful of us, may you be safe and please the Lord, most beloved lord and most longed-for brother.

In the subscription too, where I wrote “may you please the Lord,” I indicated that this lies more in his grace than in man's will alone, since I did not exhort, command, or teach it, but wished it. Just as, if I exhorted, commanded, or taught it, I would be showing that it belongs also to free choice, yet without detracting from God's grace, so, because I wished it, I commended God's grace, yet without extinguishing the choice of the will. Why, then, did he produce this letter at this trial? Had he held according to it from the beginning, he would perhaps in no way have been summoned to an episcopal trial by brothers who were good, but who were offended by the perversity of his arguments. And just as I have given an account of this letter of mine, so those whose letters he put in evidence would, if necessary, give an account of theirs, saying what they thought, or what they did not know, or for what reason they wrote. Therefore, whatever holy men's friendship Pelagius may boast of, whatever letters praising him he may read, whatever proceedings of his clearing he may produce, unless he confesses and anathematizes the things against the grace of God, by which we are called and justified, that he is proved by reliable witnesses to have put in his books, and then writes and argues against these very things, he will by no means seem corrected to those to whom he is more fully known.

For I will not keep silent about what followed after this trial, which increases this suspicion further. A certain letter has come into our hands, said to be by Pelagius himself, writing to a friend of his, a presbyter, who, as the same letter says, had kindly advised him by letter that no one should separate himself from the body of the church on his account. There, among other things which it would be long and needless to insert, Pelagius says: “By the sentence of fourteen bishops our definition was approved, in which we said that a man can be without sin and easily keep the commandments of God if he wishes. This sentence,” he says, “has covered the mouth of contradiction with confusion and has broken up the whole association conspiring for evil.” Whether Pelagius really wrote this letter or it was forged under his name by someone, who does not see how this error boasts even of the trial in which it was convicted and condemned, as of a victory? For he put these words as they are read in his book called the book of headings, not as they were objected at the trial or even repeated in his own answer. For those who objected them, through some carelessness or other, left out a word about which there is no small controversy. They stated that he had said that a man can, if he wishes, be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wishes; nothing was said about ease. Then he himself, answering, says: “We did say that a man can be without sin and keep the commandments of God if he wishes.” Nor did he himself say “easily keep,” but only “keep.” So too in another place, among the points on which Hilary consulted me and I replied, it was objected thus: “that a man can be without sin if he wishes.” To this he answered thus: “That a man can be without sin has been spoken of above.” Here too, then, neither those who objected nor he who answered added “easily.” Earlier also, in the account of the holy bishop John, it was related thus: “When they pressed and said, ‘He is a heretic, for he says that a man can be without sin if he wills,’ and we questioned him about this, he answered: ‘I did not say that man's nature is such as to be incapable of sin; but I said that one who is willing to labor and struggle for his own salvation, so as not to sin and to walk in God's commandments, has this possibility from God.’ Then, when certain people were whispering and saying that Pelagius said this could be accomplished without the grace of God,” he said, “I reproved him for this and added that even the apostle Paul, laboring much, but not according to his own power but according to the grace of God, said: ‘I labored more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God with me,’” and the rest that I have already mentioned.

What, then, is the meaning of their daring to boast in this letter that they persuaded the fourteen bishops sitting in judgment not only of the possibility of not sinning but also of its ease, as it is put in the book of headings of the same Pelagius, when, though these words are added to the proceedings and repeated so often, they are nowhere found to have this? How is this word not contrary even to Pelagius's own defense and answer, since both Bishop John said that he had answered before him in such a way that he wanted it understood that one who is willing to labor and struggle for his salvation can avoid sin, and he himself, pleading in the proceedings and defending himself, said that a man can be without sin by his own effort and the grace of God? How then does it come about easily, if there is labor to bring it about? For I think every human mind recognizes with us that where there is labor there is no ease. And yet a letter of carnal windiness and pride flies about, and, going ahead with a speed contrived by the slowness of the proceedings, flies ahead into people's hands, so that it is said to have pleased fourteen Eastern bishops not only that a man can be without sin and keep God's commandments, but that he can easily keep them, with no mention of God's help but only “if he wishes”: so that, of course, divine grace, for which the fight was so vehement, is left unmentioned, and in the letter only unhappy and self-deceiving human pride is read, as if victorious. As if Bishop John had not said that he reproved this and, with three strokes of divine testimonies as of lightning, cast down what were like giants' mountains built up against the transcendence of heavenly grace; or as if the other bishops, the judges, would have tolerated with him, in mind or even in their ears, Pelagius saying, “We did say that a man can be without sin and keep God's commandments if he wishes,” had he not at once gone on, “for God has given him this possibility” (they did not know that he said this of nature, not of the grace they knew from the apostolic preaching), and then added, “But we did not say that anyone is found who has never sinned from infancy to old age, but that, having turned from his sins, he can be without sin by his own effort and the grace of God.” They declared this also in their sentence, saying that he had rightly answered that a man with the help and grace of God can be without sin; fearing what else but that by denying this they would seem to do injury not to man's possibility but to the grace of God itself? Yet it was not defined when a man becomes without sin, which was judged possible with the help of God's grace. It was not defined, I say, whether in this flesh, which desires against the spirit, there has been, is, or will be anyone already using reason and choice of the will, whether amid the crowds of men or in the solitude of monks, for whom it is no longer necessary, not for others' sake but also for his own, to say in prayer, “Forgive us our debts”; or whether this gift will be perfected when we shall be like him, when we shall see him as he is, when it will be said, not by those who fight, “I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind,” but by those who triumph, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” This is perhaps to be inquired into peacefully, not between catholics and heretics, but among catholics themselves.

How, then, can it be believed that Pelagius (if this letter is really his) truly confessed the grace of God, which is neither nature with free choice, nor knowledge of the law, nor only the forgiveness of sins, but that which is necessary in each of our acts, and truly anathematized whoever held views against it, when in his letter he both put the ease of not sinning, about which there was no question at this trial, as if the judges had approved this word too, and did not put the grace of God, by confessing and adding which he escaped the penalty of the church's condemnation?

There is also something else about which I must not keep silent. In the paper of his defense, which he sent me through a certain Charus, a fellow citizen of ours from Hippo but a deacon in the East, he did something that differs from what is contained in the episcopal proceedings. What the proceedings contain is far better and firmer, and altogether clearer, for the catholic truth against the plague of that heresy. For when I read that paper, before the proceedings had reached us, I did not know that he had put in it the very words he used at the trial when defending himself; there are a few differences, and not great ones, about which I do not care much. But I was troubled that he could seem to have kept for himself the defense of some propositions of Caelestius which, it is plain from the proceedings, he anathematized. For some of them he only denied were his, saying that he was not bound to answer for them, but in that paper he would not anathematize them. These are they: “Adam was made mortal, and would have died whether he sinned or did not sin. Adam's sin harmed him alone and not the human race. The law leads to the kingdom of heaven just as the gospel does. Newborn infants are in the state in which Adam was before the transgression. The whole human race does not die through the death or transgression of Adam, nor does the whole human race rise again through the resurrection of Christ. Infants, even if they are not baptized, have eternal life. Rich men who are baptized, unless they renounce everything, have no credit for any good they seem to do, and will not have the kingdom of heaven.” To these in that paper he answered thus: “All these, even according to their own testimony, were not said by me, and I am not bound to answer for them.” But in the proceedings he spoke thus about the same points: “Even according to their own testimony, they were not said by me, and I am not bound to answer for them; but nevertheless, to satisfy the holy synod, I anathematize those who hold them or have ever held them.” Why, then, was it not written so in that paper too? Not much ink, I think, nor letters, nor time, nor paper itself would have been spent if it had been done so. But who would not believe that it was contrived that this paper should run about everywhere as a kind of abridgment of those proceedings, in which it would be thought that the freedom to defend any of those propositions had not been taken away, since they had merely been objected to him and not proved his, yet not anathematized and condemned?

Afterwards, in the same paper, he also gathered together many headings from Caelestius's book objected to him, and did not add two answers, at the intervals the proceedings contain, by which he anathematized those headings, but one answer to all of them together. I would think this was done for the sake of brevity, did I not see that it makes a great difference to what concerns us. For he ended thus: “I say again that these, even according to their testimony, are not mine, and, as I said, I am not bound to answer for them. What I have confessed to be mine I affirm that I say rightly; but what I have said is not mine I reject according to the judgment of the holy church, saying anathema to everyone who opposes the teachings of the holy and catholic church, and likewise to those who by inventing falsehoods have stirred up calumny against us.” The proceedings do not have this last line; but it is nothing to the matter about which we should be anxious. By all means let them be anathema who by inventing falsehoods have stirred up calumny against them. But when I first read, “what I have said is not mine I reject according to the judgment of the holy church,” not knowing that that judgment of the church had been made, since it is passed over in silence here and I had not read the proceedings, I thought only that he had promised he would hold about these headings what the church had not yet judged but would some day judge, and would reject what she had not yet rejected but would some day reject; so that this was also the point of what he added, “saying anathema to everyone who opposes or contradicts the teachings of the holy catholic church.” But in truth, as the proceedings attest, a church judgment had already been made about them by fourteen bishops, according to which judgment he said that he rejected all these and said anathema to those who, holding such views, go against the judgment, which the proceedings show had already been made. For the judges had already said: “What does the monk Pelagius, here present, say to these headings that have been read? For the holy synod and the holy catholic church of God reject these.” But those who do not know this and read this paper think that something of those things can lawfully be defended, as though it had not been judged contrary to catholic teaching, and as though Pelagius had said he was ready to hold about these matters what the church had not judged but would judge. So he did not write in the paper we are now discussing in such a way that what the faithful record of the proceedings contains would be known: namely, that all those dogmas, by which this heresy was creeping forward and growing strong with contentious boldness, were condemned by a church judgment at which fourteen bishops presided. If he feared that this should become known, as it is, let him correct himself rather than be angry at our vigilance, however late and whatever it is worth. But if it is false that he feared this, and we suspect it as men, let him forgive us, provided that from now on he fights against the things that were anathematized and rejected in the proceedings at which he was heard, lest by sparing them he seem not only to have believed them before but to believe them still.

Therefore I have chosen to write this book, which in so serious and great a case is perhaps not pointlessly long, to Your Reverence, so that, if it does not displease your judgment, it may become known, by your authority, which is far greater than the efforts of our littleness, to those to whom you think it necessary, to crush the vanities and contentions of those who think that, because Pelagius was acquitted, the Eastern bishops who judged him approved those dogmas which, springing up most perniciously against the Christian faith and the grace of God by which we are called and justified, Christian truth always condemns and has condemned also by the authority of these fourteen bishops, and which would have condemned Pelagius too had he not anathematized them. Now, since we have rendered the man the care of brotherly love and have faithfully expressed our concern about him and for him, let us see how it can briefly be shown that, even though he was, as is clear, acquitted before men, the heresy itself, always damnable by divine judgment, was condemned also by the judgment of fourteen Eastern bishops.

This is the final sentence of that trial. The synod said: “Now, since we are satisfied by the statements of the monk Pelagius, here present, who agrees with godly teachings and rejects and anathematizes what is contrary to the church's faith, we confess that he is in the communion of the church and catholic.” In the brevity of their sentence the holy bishops who judged embraced two points about the monk Pelagius that are clear enough: one, that he agrees with godly teachings; the other, that he rejects and anathematizes what is contrary to the church's faith. On account of these two Pelagius was pronounced to be in the communion of the church and catholic. Let us then see, by briefly recapitulating everything, by what words of his each became clear, for the time being, as far as men could judge at the moment from what was plain. For in the charges he answered were not his, he was said to reject and anathematize what was contrary. So let us gather up the whole case briefly, if we can, as follows.

Since it was necessary that what the apostle Paul foretold should be fulfilled, “There must also be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest among you,” after the old heresies there has now been brought in a heresy, not by bishops or presbyters or any clergy, but by certain men who pass for monks. It argues against the grace of God which is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord, as if defending free choice, and tries to overturn the foundation of the Christian faith, of which it is written: “Through one man death, and through one man the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” And it denies God's help in our acts, saying that for us not to sin and to fulfil righteousness, human nature, which was created with free choice, can suffice; and that this is the grace of God, that we were so created that we can do this by our will, and that he gave the help of the law and his commandments, and that he pardons past sins to those who turn to him. In these alone is the grace of God to be reckoned, not in help for our individual acts; for a man can be without sin and easily keep God's commandments if he wishes.

When this heresy had deceived very many and was disturbing the brothers it had not deceived, a certain Caelestius, holding such views, was brought before the judgment of the church of Carthage and condemned by the sentence of the bishops. Then, some years later, when this heresy had been objected to Pelagius, who was said to be his teacher, he too came before an episcopal trial. All that the Gallic bishops Heros and Lazarus had put in the document submitted against him was read out (they themselves being absent, and excused on account of the illness of one of them), and Pelagius answered everything. Fourteen bishops of the province of Palestine, according to his answers, pronounced him free of the perversity of this heresy, while condemning that heresy without any doubt. For they approved, according to what he answered to the charges, that a man is helped not to sin by knowledge of the law, as it is written, “He gave them the law as a help”; yet they did not judge from this that the knowledge of the law is that grace of God of which it is written, “Who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Nor did they judge that Pelagius had said that all are governed by their own will in such a way that God does not govern them; for he answered that he said this on account of free choice, of which God is the helper when it chooses good things, while a man who sins is himself at fault, as having free choice. They also approved “that the unrighteous and sinners are not to be spared on the day of judgment, but punished in eternal fires,” since he answered that he said this according to the gospel, where it is written, “These will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life”; but he had not said that all sinners belong to eternal punishment, so that he might rightly seem to have spoken against the apostle, who says that some will be saved, yet so as through fire. They approved that the kingdom of heaven was promised even in the Old Testament, because he gave a testimony from the prophet Daniel, where it is said, “And the saints will receive the kingdom of the Most High,” understanding that he called “Old Testament” in this place not only what was made on Mount Sinai but all the canonical Scriptures ministered before the Lord's coming. But that a man can be without sin if he wishes was not approved as it seemed to be put by him in his book, as though this were in man's power alone through free choice (for that is what he was charged with holding, by saying “if he wishes”), but as he himself now answered, or rather as the bishops who judged recalled it more briefly and plainly in their pronouncement: that a man with the help and grace of God can be without sin. Yet it was not defined when the saints will attain this perfection, whether in the body of this death or when death shall be swallowed up in victory.

Of the things that Caelestius was said to have said or written, which were objected to Pelagius as the dogmas of his disciple, he himself also acknowledged some as his, but answered that he had held them otherwise than they were objected. Hence the statement that before Christ's coming some lived holy and righteous lives, whereas Caelestius was said to have said that they were without sin. Again, it was objected that Caelestius said the church is without spot or wrinkle; but Pelagius said that it was said by him, but in this sense: that the church is cleansed from every spot and wrinkle by the washing, and the Lord wishes her to remain so. Again, Caelestius's saying that we do more than is commanded in the law and the gospel; but Pelagius answered that he said this of virginity, of which Paul says, “I have no command of the Lord.” Again, it was objected that Caelestius affirms that every man can have all virtues and graces, and so the diversity of graces that the apostle teaches is abolished; but Pelagius answered that he does not abolish the diversity of graces, but says that God gives all graces to one who is worthy to receive them, as he gave them to the apostle Paul.

The bishops who judged approved these four propositions under Caelestius's name not in the sense in which Caelestius was said to have held them, but as Pelagius answered about them. For they saw that it is one thing to be without sin and another to live holy and righteous lives, as Scripture testifies that some lived even before Christ's coming; that although the church here is not without spot or wrinkle, yet she is cleansed from every spot and wrinkle by the washing of regeneration, and the Lord wishes her to remain so (and so she will remain, for she will certainly reign without spot or wrinkle in eternal happiness); that perpetual virginity, which is not commanded, is without doubt more than conjugal chastity, which is commanded, though virginity perseveres in many who are nevertheless not without sin; and that the apostle Paul had all the graces that he lists in one place. That he was worthy to receive them they could either understand in some way as not according to merits but rather according to predestination (for he himself says, “I am not worthy,” or, “I am not fit, to be called an apostle”), or else the word escaped their attention; how Pelagius put it is for him to see. These are the points in which the bishops pronounced that Pelagius agrees with godly teachings.

Now let us likewise recapitulate, a little more attentively, the things which they said he rejects and anathematizes as contrary; for it is in these rather that this whole heresy consists. Apart, then, from the things he was said to have put in his books in flattery of some widow or other, which he answered were neither in his books nor ever said by him, and whose holders he anathematized not as heretics but as fools, these are the things with which we grieved that the thickets of that heresy were sprouting daily, indeed already growing into a forest: “Adam was made mortal, and would have died whether he sinned or did not sin. Adam's sin harmed him alone and not the human race. The law leads to the kingdom just as the gospel does. Newborn infants are in the state in which Adam was before the transgression. The whole human race does not die through the death or transgression of Adam, nor does the whole human race rise again through the resurrection of Christ. Infants, even if they are not baptized, have eternal life. Rich men who are baptized, unless they renounce everything, have no credit for any good they may seem to do, and cannot have the kingdom of God. The grace and help of God is not given for individual acts, but consists in free choice and in the law and teaching. The grace of God is given according to our merits, and therefore grace itself is placed in man's will, whether he becomes worthy or unworthy. Men cannot be called sons of God unless they have become entirely without sin. Forgetfulness and ignorance are not subject to sin, since they happen not according to the will but according to necessity. There is no free choice if it needs God's help, since each has his own will either to do something or not to do it. Our victory is not from God's help but from free choice. From Peter's saying that we are partakers of the divine nature, it follows that the soul can be without sin just as God is.” For I myself read this put in these words in the eleventh chapter of a book which does not bear its author's name but is said to be Caelestius's: “How,” he says, “does anyone take up fellowship in a thing from whose state and power he is defined as a stranger?” So the brothers who objected these things understood him as if he had said that the soul and God are of the same nature and that the soul is part of God; for so they took it, that he held the soul to be of the same state and power as God. At the end of the charges was put: “that pardon is given to penitents not according to the grace and mercy of God but according to the merit and labor of those who through repentance have become worthy of mercy.” All these, and whatever arguments were inserted to confirm them, the judges approved Pelagius's denying to be his and anathematizing; and therefore they pronounced that by rejecting and anathematizing them he had condemned what is contrary to the church's faith. And so, however Caelestius may or may not have put them, or Pelagius may or may not have held them, let us rejoice that such great evils of this so new heresy were condemned by that church judgment, and let us give thanks and praise to God.