On the Proceedings of Pelagius

Now that the church's proceedings have come into our hands, holy Pope Aurelius, in which Pelagius was pronounced catholic by fourteen bishops of the province of Palestine, my hesitation has come to an end: I had hesitated to discuss his defense more fully and more confidently. I had indeed already read that defense in a short paper which he himself had sent me; but since I had received no letter of his along with it, I was afraid that something might be found in my words different from what would be read in the episcopal proceedings. And then, if Pelagius should deny that he had sent me that paper, since he could not easily be convicted by a single witness, I might instead be accused by those who favored his denial either of forgery or, to put it more mildly, of rash credulity. Now, therefore, since I am treating what the proceedings attest, the doubt whether he really pleaded his case in this way has been removed, as far as I could see; and Your Holiness and everyone who reads this will judge more easily and more surely both his defense and this work of ours.

First, then, I give inexpressible thanks to the Lord God, our ruler and guardian, that my opinion of our holy brothers and fellow bishops who sat as judges in that case has not deceived me. For they rightly approved his answers, not concerning themselves with how he had put the things objected to him in his writings, but with what he answered about them in the present examination. An unsound faith is one thing; an incautious expression is another. So, among the charges read to Pelagius from the document submitted by our holy brothers and fellow bishops from Gaul, Heros and Lazarus (who could not be present because of the serious illness of one of them, as we later learned on better evidence), the first is that he writes in one of his books “that no one can be without sin unless he has knowledge of the law.” When this had been read, the synod said: “Did you publish this, Pelagius?” And he answered: “I did say it, but not as they understand it. I did not say that one who has knowledge of the law cannot sin, but that he is helped by knowledge of the law not to sin, as it is written: ‘He gave them the law as a help.’” On hearing this the synod said: “What Pelagius has said is not foreign to the church.” Certainly what he answered is not foreign; but what was produced from his book sounds different. The bishops, however, being Greeks and hearing those words through an interpreter, did not trouble to examine this; they looked only at what the man under examination said he had meant, not at the words in which the same statement was said to be written in his book.

But it is one thing for a man to be helped by knowledge of the law not to sin, and another that no one can be without sin unless he has knowledge of the law. For we see, for example, that threshing floors are threshed even without threshing sledges, though these help if they are there; that boys can go to school without attendants, though the attendants' help is not useless for this; that many recover from illness without doctors, though the help of doctors is plain; that people live on other foods without bread, though no one denies that bread is a very great help; and many other things that easily occur to anyone who thinks, though we say nothing of them. From these we are surely taught that there are two kinds of help. Some are such that without them the thing they help toward cannot be done: no one sails without a ship, no one speaks without a voice, no one walks without feet, no one sees without light, and many things of this kind; to this kind belongs also the truth that no one lives rightly without the grace of God. Other helps are such that, even if they are missing, what we seek them for can be done in another way, like those I mentioned: the threshing sledge for threshing grain, the attendant for taking a boy to school, medicine made by human skill for regaining health, and the like. We must therefore ask to which of these two kinds knowledge of the law belongs, that is, how it helps us not to sin. If it helps in such a way that without it this cannot be accomplished, then Pelagius not only answered truly at the trial but also wrote truly in his book. But if it helps in such a way that it does help if it is present, yet what it helps toward can be done in another way even when it is absent, then he answered truly at the trial (and this rightly pleased the bishops) that a man is helped not to sin by knowledge of the law; but he did not write truly in his book that no one is without sin unless he has knowledge of the law. The judges left this unexamined, since they did not know Latin and were content with the confession of the man pleading his case, especially as no one stood there on the other side to force the interpreter to open up the words of his book by explaining them and to show why the brothers had been disturbed, not without reason. For very few are learned in the law; but the whole multitude of Christ's members spread everywhere, unskilled in a law so deep and manifold, is commended by the devotion of simple faith, by the firmest hope in God, and by sincere love; and endowed with these gifts, it trusts that by the grace of God it can be cleansed from sins through Jesus Christ our Lord.

To this Pelagius might perhaps reply that by knowledge of the law he meant the knowledge without which a man cannot be free from sins, which is handed on through the teaching of the faith to new converts and little ones in Christ, and in which those to be baptized are instructed so that they may know the creed. That is not, indeed, what is usually meant when someone is said to have knowledge of the law, but rather the knowledge by which men are called experts in the law. Still, suppose he called these words, few in number but great in weight, which by the custom of all churches are faithfully taught to those to be baptized, “knowledge of the law,” and asserted that he had said of this knowledge that no one is without sin unless he has knowledge of the law, which must be handed on to believers before they come to the forgiveness of sins itself. Even so, a countless multitude of baptized infants would surround him, not arguing but crying, and they would cry out, not in words but by the very truth of their innocence: “What is it, what is it that you have written, that no one can be without sin unless he has knowledge of the law? Look, we are a great flock of lambs without sin, and yet we have no knowledge of the law!” Surely these would compel him to be silent, even with their tongues silent; or perhaps even to confess either that he has now been corrected from that perversity, or at least that he had held before what he has now said in the church's examination, but had not chosen careful words for his view, so that his faith should be approved and his book corrected. For, as it is written, “There is one who slips with the tongue and not with the heart.” If he said this, or says it now, who would not very readily forgive words written somewhat incautiously and carelessly, since he does not defend the view those words contain, but states his own, which the truth approves? We must believe that the devout judges also had this in mind, if indeed they were able to understand well enough what is in his Latin book, supposing it was carefully interpreted, just as they judged that his answer, given in Greek and therefore easily understood, was not foreign to the church. But let us now look at the rest.

For the episcopal synod went on and said: “Let another heading also be read.” And it was read that Pelagius had written in the same book of his “that all are governed by their own will.” When this was read, Pelagius answered: “This too I said on account of free choice, of which God is the helper when it chooses good things; but a man who sins is himself at fault, as having free choice.” On hearing this the bishops said: “Neither is this foreign to the church's teaching.” For who would condemn free choice or deny it, when the help of God is proclaimed along with it? Therefore the view of the man answering rightly pleased the bishops; and yet what is written in his book, “that all are governed by their own will,” should without doubt have disturbed the brothers who knew what these people are accustomed to argue against the grace of God. For it is said that all are governed by their own will as though God governed no one, and as though it were written in vain: “Save your people and bless your inheritance, and govern them and lift them up for ever,” so that they should not be left, if they are governed by their own will without God, like sheep without a shepherd, which God forbid. For without doubt it is more to be led than to be governed: one who is governed does something himself, and is governed so that he may act rightly; but one who is led can hardly be understood to do anything himself. And yet the Savior's grace gives so much to our wills that the apostle does not hesitate to say: “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Nor can the free will in us do anything better than entrust itself to be led by him who cannot do wrong; and when it has done this, let it not doubt that it was helped to do so by him to whom it is said in the psalm: “My God, his mercy will go before me.”

Indeed, in the book in which Pelagius wrote those headings, he placed under this proposition, in which he said that all are governed by their own will and each is left to his own desire, some testimony from the Scriptures. From it, it is clear enough that a man ought not to entrust himself to his own governing. For he cites on this very point from the Wisdom of Solomon: “I too am a mortal man, like all, of the earthly race of him who was first formed,” and so on to the end of that chapter, where we read: “So there is one entrance into life for all, and a like departure. Therefore I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called, and the spirit of wisdom came into me.” Is it not clearer than daylight how this man, having considered the misery of human frailty, did not dare to entrust himself to his own governing, but prayed, and understanding was given him (of which the apostle says, “But we have the mind of the Lord”), and he called, and the spirit of wisdom came into him? For it is by this Spirit, not by the powers of their own will, that those who are sons of God are governed and led.

So too with what he cited from the psalm in the same book of headings, as if to prove that all are governed by their own will: “He loved cursing, and it will come to him; he did not want blessing, and it will be far from him.” Who does not know that this is a fault not of nature as God created it, but of the human will, which has withdrawn from God? And yet, if he had not loved cursing and had wanted blessing, and in this very thing denied that his will was helped by divine grace, he would be left, ungrateful and ungodly, to govern himself, so that, cast headlong without God as his ruler, he might learn by his punishment that he could not be governed by himself. So also in the testimony he added under the same heading in the same book: “He has set before you water and fire; stretch out your hand to whichever you wish. Before man are good and evil, life and death; whatever pleases him will be given him.” It is plain that if he puts his hand to the fire, and evil and death please him, the man's will does this; but if he loves good and life, not only does the will do this, but it is helped by God. For the eye is sufficient for itself not to see, that is, for darkness; but for seeing it is not sufficient with its own light unless the help of clear light is given it from outside. But far be it that those who are called according to his purpose, whom he foreknew and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, should be left to their own desire to perish. That is what happens to the vessels of wrath, which are made for destruction, in whose very destruction God makes known the riches of his glory toward the vessels of his mercy. For this reason, after saying, “My God, his mercy will go before me,” he at once added: “My God will show me among my enemies.” To them, then, happens what is written: “God gave them up to the desires of their heart”; but it does not happen to the predestined, whom the Spirit of God governs, since their voice is not in vain: “Do not give me up, Lord, from my desire to the sinner.” Indeed, prayer is made even against those desires themselves, in the words: “Take from me the lusts of the belly, and let not the desire of intercourse lay hold of me.” God grants this to those whom he governs as his subjects, not to those who think themselves fit to govern themselves and, with the stiff neck of their own will's self-confidence, disdain to have him as their ruler.

This being so, how could the children of God, who know this and rejoice that they are governed and led by the Spirit of God, fail to be disturbed when they heard or read that Pelagius had written that all are governed by their own will and each is left to his own desire? And yet, since, when questioned by the bishops, he perceived what evil those words sounded, and answered that he had said this on account of free choice, adding at once, “of which God is the helper when it chooses good things; but a man who sins is himself at fault, as having free choice,” the devout judges approved this view too. They did not wish to consider or inquire how incautiously, or in what sense, those words had been put in his book, thinking it enough that he had so confessed free choice that God is its helper when it chooses good things, while one who sins is himself at fault, his own will being sufficient for him for this. And for this reason God governs those whose helper he is when they choose good things; and therefore they govern well whatever they govern, since they themselves are governed by the Good.

Next was read what Pelagius had written in his book: “that on the day of judgment the unrighteous and sinners are not to be spared, but are to be burned in eternal fires.” This had disturbed the brothers, so that they thought it should be objected, because it was said as though all sinners were to be punished with eternal punishment, not excepting those who have Christ as their foundation, even though they build on it wood, hay, and straw, of whom the apostle says: “If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” But when Pelagius answered that he had said this according to the gospel, where it is said of sinners: “These will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life,” a sentence of the gospel and of the Lord could in no way displease Christian judges. They did not know what in the words produced from Pelagius's book had disturbed the brothers who were used to hearing his arguments or his disciples'. For since those who had submitted the document against Pelagius to the holy bishop Eulogius were absent, no one pressed him to distinguish by some exception the sinners to be saved through fire from the sinners to be punished with eternal punishment; and so, had the judges understood why this was objected, he would rightly have been blamed if he refused to make the distinction.

As for what Pelagius added, “and if anyone believes otherwise, he is an Origenist,” the judges took it as referring to what the church most rightly detests in Origen: that even those whom the Lord says are to be punished with eternal punishment, and the devil himself and his angels, will after a time, however long, be purified and freed from their punishments and will join the saints reigning with God in the fellowship of blessedness. So the synod said that this was not foreign to the church, not according to Pelagius but rather according to the gospel: that such unrighteous and sinners as the gospel judges worthy of such punishment will be burned in eternal fires, and that whoever says that the punishment the Lord called eternal can ever come to an end holds a detestable opinion along with Origen. But about those sinners whom the apostle says will be saved as through fire when their work is burned up, they judged nothing, since nothing concerning them was plainly objected to Pelagius. Therefore one who says that the unrighteous and sinners whom the truth condemns to eternal punishment can some day be freed from it is not inappropriately called an Origenist by Pelagius. But again, let him who thinks that no sinner is worthy of mercy in God's judgment give him whatever name he likes, provided he understands that this error too is not received by the church's truth; for “judgment will be without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.”

How this judgment will take place is hard to grasp from the holy Scriptures, for what will happen in one way is signified in many ways. Sometimes the Lord says of those he does not receive into his kingdom that he will shut the door, and when they cry out and say, “Open to us; in your name we ate and drank,” and the rest that they are written to say, he will answer: “I do not know you, you who work iniquity.” Sometimes he mentions that he will order those who did not want him to reign to be brought to him and slain before him. Sometimes he says that he will come with his angels in his majesty, that all nations may be gathered before him, and he will divide them and set some at his right hand, whose good works he recounts and brings them into eternal life, and others at his left, whom he charges with barrenness of good works and condemns to eternal fire. Sometimes he orders the wicked and lazy servant who neglected to invest his money, or the man found at the banquet without a wedding garment, to be bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness. Sometimes, having received the five wise virgins, he shuts the door against the other five, the foolish ones. These things, and anything else that does not occur to me at present, are said of the future judgment, which is of course to be exercised not on one or on five, but on many. For if there were only one who was ordered to be cast from the banquet into darkness because he had no wedding garment, it would not follow at once, “For many are called, but few are chosen,” since, with one cast out and condemned, many appear to have remained in the house. But to discuss all these now as fully as would be enough would take very long. This much, however, I can say briefly, without prejudice (as is commonly said in money accounts) to a better discussion: that some single mode of judgment, which is unsearchable to us, is signified in many ways through the holy Scriptures, with the difference of merits in rewards and punishments preserved. What is enough for the case now in hand is this: if Pelagius had said that absolutely all sinners are to be punished with eternal fire and eternal punishment, whoever approved that verdict would first have pronounced sentence on himself; for who will boast that he is clean from sins? But since he said neither “all” nor “some,” but put it indefinitely, and answered that he had said it according to the gospel, the statement, being true, was confirmed by the bishops' judgment; but it is not yet clear whether Pelagius holds something else, and even after this episcopal judgment the question is not shamelessly asked.

It was also objected to Pelagius that he had written in his book that evil does not even come into one's thought. He answered: “We did not put it so, but we said that a Christian ought to strive not to think evil.” The bishops approved this, as was right. For who doubts that evil ought not to be thought? And in fact in his book, on evil, it reads more cautiously: “it is not even to be thought,” which is usually understood to mean that evil ought not even to be thought. Whoever denies this, what else does he say than that evil ought to be thought? If that were true, it would not be said in praise of love: “It does not think evil.” Yet it is not so improperly asserted that evil comes into the thought of the righteous and holy, because we usually call it thought even when something comes to mind, though consent does not follow. But the thought that incurs guilt and is rightly forbidden does not lack consent. It may be, then, that those who thought this should be objected in this form, as if Pelagius had said that evil does not even come into one's thought, that is, that what is evil does not come to the mind of the righteous and holy, were reading a faulty copy. That view would certainly be most absurd; for when we reprove evils, we cannot express them in words unless we have thought them. But, as we have said, the blameworthy thought of evil is the one that draws consent after it.

When the judges had approved this answer of Pelagius too, another statement was read, which he had written in his little book: “that the kingdom of heaven was promised even in the Old Testament.” To this Pelagius said: “This can also be proved from the Scriptures; but heretics deny it, to the injury of the Old Testament. I, however, following the authority of the Scriptures, said it because it is written in the prophet Daniel: ‘And the saints will receive the kingdom of the Most High.’” When his answer had been received, the synod said: “Neither is this foreign to the church's faith.”

Were our brothers, then, disturbed by these words without cause, so as to object this too among the rest? Certainly not. The name “Old Testament” is used in two ways: in one according to the authority of the divine Scriptures, in the other according to the most common custom of speech. For the apostle Paul says to the Galatians: “Tell me, you who want to be under the law, have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. These things are an allegory: for these are the two testaments, one bearing children for slavery, which is Hagar. Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is joined to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother.” Since, then, the Old Testament belongs to slavery (hence it was also said, “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac”), while the kingdom of heaven belongs to freedom, how can the kingdom of heaven belong to the Old Testament? But since, as I said, we are also accustomed to speak in such a way as to call by the name “Old Testament” all the Scriptures of the law and the prophets, which were ministered before the Lord's incarnation and are held by canonical authority, who that is even moderately instructed in the church's writings does not know that the kingdom of heaven could be promised in those Scriptures, just as that new testament to which the kingdom of heaven belongs was also promised there? For in those writings it is certainly written most plainly: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete for the house of Israel and the house of Jacob a new testament, not according to the testament that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.” This was done on Mount Sinai. But at that time the prophet Daniel, who had said, “The saints will receive the kingdom of the Most High,” did not yet exist. For by these words he was prophesying the reward not of the old but of the new testament, just as the same prophets also foretold the coming of Christ himself, by whose blood the new testament was dedicated, of which testament the apostles were made ministers, as the most blessed Paul says: “Who has also made us fit ministers of a new testament, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” But in the testament that is properly called old and was given on Mount Sinai, nothing is found promised in plain terms except earthly happiness. Hence the land into which the people were brought after being led through the desert is called the land of promise; in it peace and kingdom, victories won over enemies, abundance of children and of the fruits of the earth, and anything of this kind: these are the promises of the Old Testament. Although spiritual things belonging to the New Testament are prefigured by them, yet whoever takes up the law of God for the sake of those earthly things is himself an heir of the Old Testament. For what is promised and given according to the Old Testament is what is desired according to the old man; but what is prefigured there as belonging to the New Testament seeks new men. So great an apostle knew what he was saying when he said that the two testaments were distinguished, in an allegorical meaning, in the slave woman and the free, assigning children of the flesh to the old and children of the promise to the new. “It is not the children of the flesh,” he says, “who are children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.” The children of the flesh, then, belong to the earthly Jerusalem, which is in slavery with her children; but the children of the promise to the Jerusalem above, our free mother, eternal in the heavens. From this it is seen who belong to the earthly kingdom and who to the kingdom of heaven. Those who even at that time understood this distinction by the grace of God and were made children of the promise were counted in God's hidden counsel as heirs of the New Testament, even though they ministered fittingly to the old people the Old Testament given by God according to the ordering of the times.

How, then, could the children of the promise, children of the free Jerusalem eternal in the heavens, fail to be rightly disturbed, when this apostolic and catholic distinction seemed to be taken away by Pelagius's words, and Hagar was in a way believed to be made equal to Sarah? He, then, does injury to the Scripture of the Old Testament with heretical impiety who, with the brazenness of sacrilegious impiety, denies that it is from the good, supreme, and true God, as Marcion does, as Manichaeus does, and any other plague that holds this view. Therefore, to sum up my view of this matter as briefly as I can: just as injury is done to the Old Testament if it is denied to be from the good and supreme God, so injury is done to the New if it is made equal to the Old. But when Pelagius had answered why he said that the kingdom of heaven is promised even in the Old Testament, citing the testimony of the prophet Daniel, who most plainly prophesied that the saints would receive the kingdom of the Most High, it was rightly judged that this was not foreign to the catholic faith: not according to the distinction by which the earthly promises made on Mount Sinai are shown to belong properly to the Old Testament, yet not improperly according to the custom of speech by which all the canonical Scriptures ministered before the Lord's incarnation are counted under the name of the Old Testament. For the kingdom of the Most High is nothing other than the kingdom of God. Or will anyone dare to contend that the kingdom of God is one thing and the kingdom of heaven another?

After this it was objected that Pelagius had said in the same book of his that a man can be without sin if he wishes; and that, writing to a widow, he had said flatteringly: “May godliness, which finds a place nowhere, find a place with you; may righteousness, a stranger everywhere, find a home in you; may truth, which no one now knows, become your familiar friend; and may the law of God, which is despised by almost all men, be honored by you alone.” And again to her: “O happy and blessed are you, if righteousness, which must be believed to exist only in heaven, is found on earth with you alone!” And in another book to her, after the prayer of our Lord and Savior, teaching how the saints ought to pray, he says: “He lifts up his hands worthily to God, he pours out prayer with a good conscience, who can say: ‘You know, Lord, how holy and innocent and clean from all harm, iniquity, and plunder are the hands I stretch out to you; how righteous and clean and free from every lie are the lips with which I offer you my supplication, that you may have mercy on me.’” To this Pelagius answered: “We did say that a man can be without sin and keep God's commandments if he wishes, for God has given him this possibility. 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, and yet is not thereby unchangeable for the future. The rest that they have added is neither in our books, nor have we ever said such things.” When they had heard this, the synod said: “Since you deny having written such things, do you anathematize those who hold them?” Pelagius answered: “I anathematize them as fools, not as heretics, since it is not a dogma.” Then the bishops gave judgment, saying: “Now, since Pelagius has with his own voice anathematized this inserted foolish talk, rightly answering that a man with the help and grace of God can be without sin, let him answer the other headings also.”

Could the judges here, or should they, condemn things unknown and uncertain, when no one was present on the other side to prove that Pelagius had written the blameworthy things said to have been written to the widow? In such a case it would certainly not be enough to bring a book and read these things from his writings, unless witnesses were also produced, if he denied that the writings were his even when they were read aloud. Yet in these matters too the judges did what they could: they asked Pelagius whether he anathematized those who hold such views as he denied having written or said. When he answered that he anathematized them as fools, what more should the judges have asked on this matter in the absence of the accusers?

Or should we perhaps also consider whether it was rightly said that those who held such views were to be anathematized not as heretics but as fools, since it was not a dogma? But the judges rightly refrained for the present from this weighty question, in which one asks how a heretic is to be defined. For if someone says, for example, that eagle chicks are held up in their father's talon and exposed to the sun's rays, and if they blink their eyes they are dropped to the ground as bastards, the light in a way convicting them, he is not to be judged a heretic if this happens to be false. Indeed, since this is found in the writings of learned men and is spread about by report, it should not even be thought foolishly said, even if it is not true; nor does it either harm, if believed, or help, if believed, our faith, on account of which we are called faithful. But if someone should argue from this that rational souls are in birds, on the ground that human souls pass back into them, then it must be driven from our ears and minds as a heretical plague; and it must be argued and shown that, even if this is true of eagles (just as many marvelous things about bees are true before our very eyes), still reason, which is common not to men and cattle but to men and angels, is far removed from the sense of irrational animals of this kind, however marvelous. Many foolish things are also said by the unskilled and vain who are not heretics, such as the things said by those who rashly judge other men's arts that they have not learned, or who with immoderate and blind feeling praise those they love or blame those they hate, and whatever else in the custom of human speech is uttered by the mouth or even committed to pen and writing, not as a settled dogma but at random, as it occurs at the moment, through the levity of foolishness. In fact, many who have been admonished a little about such things soon regret having said them; so they did not hold them fixed by some settled opinion, but had poured them out as if snatched from anywhere and unconsidered. It is hard to be free from these faults: “And who is there who does not slip with the tongue and stumble in word?” But it matters how much, it matters from what source, and finally it matters whether, when admonished, he corrects it, or by obstinately defending it even makes a dogma of what he had said out of levity, not as dogma. Since, then, every heretic is consequently also a fool, but not every fool is at once to be called a heretic, the judges rightly said that Pelagius had with his own voice anathematized the inserted foolish talk, because even if it were heresy, it is without doubt foolish talk. So, whatever it may be, they called it by the name of the general fault. But whether these things were said from some dogma, or not from a fixed and settled opinion but from an easily corrected vanity, they did not think needed to be discussed at present, since the man being heard had denied that the statements, however made, were his.

When we were reading this defense of Pelagius in the paper we received earlier, certain holy brothers were present who said that they had books of Pelagius, of exhortation or consolation, written to a certain widow whose name was not given; and they advised that we should look whether the things he disowned were perhaps written there, since they said that they themselves did not know. Then, when those books were read from the beginning, the passages were looked for and found. Those who had brought the volume declared that they had begun to have these books as Pelagius's almost four years before, and had never heard anyone doubt whether they were his. Considering, therefore, that the good faith of these servants of God, very well known to us, could not lie in this matter, it seemed to remain that we should rather believe Pelagius had lied at the episcopal trial, unless we considered it possible that even so many years before something had been written under his name, yet not by him; for these men did not say that they had received these books from him or had heard from him that they were his. For certain brothers of ours also told me that some little works had reached Spain under my name, which were not recognized as ours by those who had read our other works, though others believed them to be ours.

What Pelagius did confess to be his is still obscure; but I think it will be made clear in the following parts of these proceedings. For he says: “We did say that a man can be without sin and keep God's commandments if he wishes, for God has given him this possibility. 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, and yet is not thereby unchangeable for the future.” In these words, what he calls the grace of God is completely hidden; and the catholic judges could understand no other grace than the one that the apostolic teaching most commends to us. This is the grace by which we hope we can be freed from the body of this death through Jesus Christ our Lord, and for obtaining which we pray that we may not enter into temptation. This grace is not nature, but that by which weak and damaged nature is helped. This grace is not knowledge of the law, but the grace of which the apostle says: “I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing”; and therefore it is not the letter that kills but the Spirit that gives life. For knowledge of the law without the grace of the Spirit works in a man every kind of covetous desire. “I did not know sin,” he says, “except through the law; for I would not have known covetous desire if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, worked in me every kind of covetous desire.” Nor does he blame the law by saying this; on the contrary, he praises it when he says: “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did what is good, then, become death to me? By no means; but sin, that it might be shown to be sin, worked death in me through what is good.” And again he praises the law, saying: “For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For I do not understand what I do; for I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. But if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.” See, he already knows the law, praises it, and agrees with it, that is, agrees that it is good, since what it commands he too wants, and what it forbids and condemns he too hates; and yet what he hates, he does. There is knowledge of the holy law in him, and yet corrupt desire is not healed; there is good will in him, and evil action prevails. Hence, as the two laws struggle with each other, while the law in the members fights against the law of the mind and takes it captive under the law of sin, the one who confesses cries out and says: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

It is not, then, nature, which, sold under sin and wounded by corruption, longs for a redeemer and savior; nor knowledge of the law, through which comes recognition of covetous desire, not its overthrow, that frees from the body of this death; but the grace of the Lord through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is not dying nature, nor the letter that kills, but the Spirit that gives life. For this man already had nature with choice of the will (for he said, “To will is present with me”), but he did not have nature in health without corruption (for he said, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh”). He already had knowledge of the holy law (for he said, “I did not know sin except through the law”), but he did not have the strength to do and complete righteousness (for he said, “I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate,” and, “to accomplish the good I do not find”). So he did not ask for choice of the will, nor for the commandment of the law, to be freed from the body of this death, since he already had both, the one in his nature, the other in teaching; but he begged for the help of the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The bishops, therefore, believed that Pelagius confessed this grace, which they knew to be very well known in the catholic church, when they heard him say that a man who has turned from his sins can be without sin by his own effort and the grace of God. But I, because of that book which servants of God gave me to refute (they had been his disciples, and though they loved Pelagius very much, they said it was his), in which, having put this question to himself, since he had already offended very many by speaking against the grace of God, he stated most plainly that he calls the grace of God the fact that our nature, when it was created, received the possibility of not sinning, because it was created with free choice: because of this book, I say, I, and very many brothers because of his discussions, which they say are very well known to them, are still anxious about the ambiguity of these words of his. We fear that something may be hidden in it, and that he may afterwards explain to his disciples that he said this without prejudice to his dogma, arguing thus: “I did say that a man can be without sin by his own effort and the grace of God; but you know very well what grace I mean, and you can recall it by reading: it is the grace in which we were created by God with free choice.” And so, while the bishops believe that he meant the grace not by which we were created men, but by which we were adopted into a new creation (for it is this grace that the divine Scripture most plainly commends), they unknowingly acquitted a heretic as a catholic. What also makes me suspicious is this: in the same book to which I replied he said most plainly that righteous Abel never sinned at all, yet now he says: “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.” For he did not say that righteous Abel, having turned from sins, became without sin for the rest of his life, but that he never committed any sin at all. So if that book is his, it must certainly be corrected by this very answer. For I do not want to say that he lied now, in case he should say he had forgotten what he wrote in that book. So let us look at the rest. For what follows in the church's proceedings enables us, with the Lord's help, to show that, even if Pelagius was cleared in that examination, as some think, and was certainly acquitted at least before human judges, this heresy, which we do not want to advance further and grow worse, was without doubt condemned.

For next were objected to Pelagius the following propositions, which are reported to have been found in the teaching of his disciple Caelestius: “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. Before Christ's coming there were men without sin. 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.” These were objected in such a way that they were said to have been heard and condemned also at Carthage by Your Holiness and other bishops with you. I was not there, as you remember; but afterwards, when I had come to Carthage, I read over those proceedings, some of which I remember, though I do not know whether all these points are contained in them. But what does it matter whether some were perhaps not mentioned there and so not condemned, since it is certain that they must be condemned? Then certain other headings were also objected, with my name brought in: they had been sent to me from Sicily, when catholic brothers there were troubled by questions of this kind, and I answered them sufficiently, as it seems to me, in a book written to Hilary, who had sent them to me in his letter asking my advice. They are these: “A man can be without sin if he wishes. 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 possess the kingdom of God.”

To these charges, as the proceedings attest, Pelagius answered thus: “That a man can be without sin,” he said, “has been spoken of above. As to there having been men without sin before the Lord's coming, we too say that before Christ's coming some lived holy and righteous lives, according to the tradition of the holy Scriptures. The rest, even according to their own testimony, were not said by me, and I am not bound to answer for them; nevertheless, to satisfy the holy synod, I anathematize those who hold them or have ever held them.” After this answer of his, the synod said: “To these aforesaid headings Pelagius, here present, has answered sufficiently and rightly, anathematizing what was not his.” We see, therefore, and hold that the most pernicious evils of this kind of heresy were condemned not only by Pelagius but also by the holy bishops who presided at that trial: that Adam was made mortal (and, to explain more fully in what sense this was said, it was added: “and would have died whether he sinned or did not sin”); that his sin harmed him alone and not the human race; that the law leads to the kingdom just as the gospel does; that newborn infants are in the state in which Adam was before the transgression; that 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; that infants, even if they are not baptized, have eternal life; that rich men who are baptized, unless they renounce everything, have no credit for any good they may seem to do, and cannot possess the kingdom of God. All these, it is certain, were condemned in that church judgment, with Pelagius anathematizing them and the bishops pronouncing.

Now as these questions and the most contentious assertions of these views were already seething everywhere, the weakness of many brothers was being disturbed. So we were compelled, by the concern of love that we ought to have toward the church of Christ through the grace of Christ, to write also to Marcellinus of blessed memory, who suffered these most troublesome disputers daily and consulted me by letter, about some of these questions, and especially about the baptism of infants. On this subject, afterwards, at your bidding, in the Basilica of the Ancestors, holding in my hands a letter of the most glorious martyr Cyprian and reading out and expounding his words on this matter, I labored as much as I could, helped by your prayers, to remove this wicked error from the hearts of certain people who had been persuaded of the things we see condemned in these proceedings. These are the things that certain people holding such views were trying to press on some brothers, threatening them, in the name of the Eastern churches, that anyone who did not hold them could be condemned by the judgment of those churches. See: fourteen bishops of the Eastern church, in the land where the Lord showed the presence of his incarnation, would not acquit Pelagius unless he condemned these things as contrary to the catholic faith. So if he was acquitted because he anathematized such things, they were without doubt condemned; and this will appear much more fully and clearly in what follows.

So now let us look at those two points which Pelagius would not anathematize, because he acknowledged them as his own, but explained how he held them, so as to remove what was offensive in them. “That a man can be without sin,” he says, “has been spoken of above.” Spoken of indeed, and we remember it; but it was softened, and approved by the judges, because the grace of God was added, which was passed over in silence in those headings. But how he answered about the other point must be looked at more carefully. “As to there having been men without sin before the Lord's coming,” he says, “we too say that before Christ's coming some lived holy and righteous lives, according to the tradition of the holy Scriptures.” He did not dare to say, “We too say that before Christ's coming there were men without sin,” though this had been objected to him from the sayings of Caelestius (for he sensed how dangerous and troublesome it was); but he said, “We too say that before Christ's coming some lived holy and righteous lives.” Who would deny this? But this is one thing, and to have been without sin is another; for they too lived holy and righteous lives who nevertheless said truly: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” And today many live righteous and holy lives, and yet they do not lie in their prayer when they say: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” This, then, pleased the judges in the sense in which Pelagius himself asserted that he said it, not in the sense in which Caelestius was charged with saying it. Now let us treat the remaining points as best we can.

It was objected to Pelagius that he said “that the church here is without spot or wrinkle.” On this point the Donatists too had a long struggle with us in our conference; but with them we pressed rather the mixture of bad men, like chaff with the grain, because of the likeness of the threshing floor. With this likeness we can answer these people too, unless perhaps they want the church to be understood as consisting only of the good, whom they assert to have no sin at all, so that the church can be here without spot or wrinkle. If so, I repeat what I mentioned a little earlier: how are they members of the church of whom truthful humility cries out, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”? Or how will the church pray what the Lord taught her, “Forgive us our debts,” if in this age the church is without spot or wrinkle? Finally, they must be questioned about themselves, whether or not they admit that they have some sins. If they deny it, they must be told that they deceive themselves and the truth is not in them; but if they admit that they have sin, what else will they be admitting but their own wrinkle or spot? Then they are not members of the church, since she is without spot or wrinkle, but they are with spot and wrinkle.

But to this objection he answered with watchful caution, which the catholic judges without doubt approved. “It was said by us,” he said, “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.” To this the synod said: “This pleases us too.” For which of us denies that the sins of all are forgiven in baptism, and that all the faithful come up from the washing of regeneration without spot or wrinkle? Or what catholic Christian is not pleased by what pleases the Lord and what will come to be, that the church should remain without spot or wrinkle, since this is now being done by God's mercy and truth, that the holy church may be brought to that perfection where she will remain without spot or wrinkle for ever? But between the washing, where all past spots and wrinkles are removed, and the kingdom, where the church will remain for ever without spot or wrinkle, there is this intermediate time of prayer, in which she must say, “Forgive us our debts.” That is why it was objected that they say the church here is without spot or wrinkle: to find out whether by this view they dared to forbid the prayer by which the church, already baptized, asks day and night for the pardon of her sins. About this intermediate time, between the forgiveness of sins that takes place in the washing and the permanence without sins that will be in the kingdom, nothing was dealt with in Pelagius's case, and nothing was pronounced by the bishops; only this, which he thought he should indicate briefly, that he had not said it in the way it seemed to be charged. For when he says, “It was said by us, but in this sense,” what did he want to be understood but that it was not in the sense in which those who had objected believed he had said it? Yet what the judges had in view in saying that this pleased them, namely baptism, by which the church is washed from sins, and the kingdom, where the holy church, now being cleansed, will remain without sins, is clear enough, as far as I can judge.

Next were objected statements from the book of Caelestius, giving what each chapter contains, more according to sense than to words. He sets them out more fully, but those who had submitted the document against Pelagius said that they had not been able to add everything at that time. So they stated that in the first chapter of Caelestius's book this was written: “that we do more than is commanded in the law and the gospel.” To this Pelagius answered: “They have put this down as ours; but it was said by us according to the apostle about virginity, of which Paul says, ‘I have no command of the Lord.’” The synod said: “This the church also receives.” I have read in what sense Caelestius put this in his book, if indeed he does not deny that it is his. He said it, of course, to persuade us that through the nature of free choice we have so great a possibility of not sinning that we even do more than is commanded, since lifelong virginity, which is not commanded, is kept by many, while fulfilling the commandments is enough for not sinning. But Pelagius's answer the judges did not take, in approving it, as meaning that those who also keep virginity, which is not commanded, keep all the commandments of the law and the gospel; but only as meaning that virginity, which is not commanded, is more than conjugal chastity, which is commanded, and that to keep the one is certainly more than to keep the other, though neither is had without the grace of God. For the apostle, speaking of this matter, says: “I wish that all men were as I myself am; but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.” And when the disciples had said to the Lord himself, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry” (or, as it is better said in Latin, “to take a wife”), he said: “Not all receive this word, but those to whom it is given.” This, then, is what the bishops declared the church receives: that persevering virginity, which is not commanded, is more than the chastity of marriage, which is commanded. But in what sense Pelagius or Caelestius said it, the judges did not know.

From here on other headings of Caelestius are objected to Pelagius, capital ones and without doubt to be condemned; had he not anathematized them, he would without doubt have been condemned along with them. In the third chapter Caelestius wrote: “that the grace and help of God is not given for individual acts, but consists in free choice or in the law and teaching”; and again: “that the grace of God is given according to our merits, because if he gave it to sinners he would seem to be unjust”; and he went on in these words: “therefore grace itself has been placed in my will, whether I am worthy or unworthy. For if we do everything through grace, then when we are overcome by sin it is not we who are overcome but the grace of God, which wished to help us in every way and could not.” And again he says: “If it is the grace of God when we overcome sins, then he himself is at fault when we are overcome by sin, because he was either entirely unable or unwilling to guard us.” To these Pelagius answered: “Whether these are Caelestius's is for those who say they are Caelestius's to see; I have never held such views, and I anathematize anyone who holds them.” The synod said: “The holy synod receives you, since you thus condemn these reprobate words.” About all these, certainly, both Pelagius's answer anathematizing them is plain and the bishops' judgment condemning them is absolutely clear. Whether Pelagius held them, or Caelestius, or both, or neither of them, or others, either with them or under their name, or whether they still hold them, may be doubtful or hidden; but it has been sufficiently declared by this judgment that they are condemned, and that Pelagius would have been condemned with them had he not himself condemned them. Now certainly, after this judgment, when we argue against views of this kind, we are arguing against a condemned heresy.

I will say something more at length. Earlier I was afraid, when Pelagius said that a man can be without sin with the help of God's grace, that he might mean by this grace the possibility of nature created by God with free choice, as in that book I received as his and answered, and so deceive the judges in their ignorance. But now, since he anathematizes those who say that the grace and help of God is not given for individual acts, but consists in free choice or in the law and teaching, it appears clearly enough that he means the grace that is preached in the church of Christ, which is given by the supply of the Holy Spirit so that we are helped in our individual acts. That is why we always pray for timely help, that we may not be brought into temptation. Nor am I any longer afraid that, where he said that no one can be without sin unless he has knowledge of the law, and explained it so as to place the help for not sinning in knowledge of the law, he may want this knowledge of the law to be understood as the grace of God. See, he anathematizes those who hold this; see, he does not want either the nature of free choice or the law and teaching to be understood as the grace by which we are helped in individual acts. What remains, then, but that he understands the grace that the apostle says is given by the supply of the Holy Spirit? Of it the Lord says: “Do not think how or what you are to speak; for what you are to speak will be given you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” Nor need we fear that, where he said that all are governed by their own will, and explained that he said it on account of free choice, of which God is the helper when it chooses good things, he meant here too a helper through the nature of free choice and through the teaching of the law. For since he rightly anathematized those who say that the grace and help of God is not given for individual acts, but consists in free choice or in the law and teaching, God's grace or help is certainly given for individual acts, apart from free choice or the law and teaching; and so we are governed by God in individual acts when we act rightly, and it is not in vain that we pray, saying: “Direct my steps according to your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me.”

But what follows troubles me again. When it had been objected to him from the fifth chapter of Caelestius's book that they affirm that every man can have all virtues and graces, and that they abolish the diversity of graces which the apostle teaches, Pelagius answered: “It was said by us, but they have criticized it maliciously and ignorantly. For we do not abolish the diversity of graces, but we say that God gives all graces to one who is worthy to receive them, as he gave them to the apostle Paul.” To this the synod said: “You too have thought consistently and in the church's sense about the gift of graces contained in the holy apostle.” Here someone will say: “What, then, troubles you? Will you deny that all virtues and graces were in the apostle?” For my part, if all those are meant which the apostle himself listed in one place, and which I think the bishops also had in mind in approving this and declaring it said in the church's sense, I do not doubt that the apostle Paul had them. For he says: “And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then powers, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, kinds of tongues.” What then? Shall we say that the apostle Paul did not have all these? Who would dare say that? For by the very fact that he was an apostle, he certainly had the apostleship. But he also had prophecy. Is it not his prophecy: “For the Spirit says expressly that in the last times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, to doctrines of demons,” and so on? He was also the teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth, and he worked powers and healings; for he shook off the biting viper from his hand unharmed, and a paralytic, restored to health at once at his word, stood up. What he means by “helps” is obscure, since the meaning of this word extends widely; yet who would say that this grace too was lacking to him, through whose labor, as is well known, the salvation of men was so greatly helped? And what is more outstanding than his governing, since through him the Lord then governed so many churches, and through his letters governs them now? As for kinds of tongues, which of them could he have lacked, when he himself says, “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you”? Since, then, we must believe that the apostle Paul lacked none of all these, the judges approved Pelagius's answer saying that all graces were given to him. But there are also other graces, which are not mentioned here. For although the apostle Paul was a very excellent member of Christ's body, he did not receive more and greater graces than the head of the whole body himself, whether in the flesh or in the human soul, the creature that the Word of God took up into the unity of his person, so that he might be our head and we his body. And indeed, if all things could be in each individual, the likeness given for this matter from the members of our body would seem pointless. For some things are common to all the members, like health, like life; but others are proper to individual members, so that the ear does not perceive colors nor the eye sounds. That is why it is said: “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the smell be?” This is not said as though it were impossible for God to give the ears the sense of sight and the eyes that of hearing. Yet it is certain what he does in the body of Christ, which is the church, and what diversity the apostle signified in the churches, as through different members, so that there should be gifts proper to individuals. It is now clear, therefore, both why those who objected this did not want the difference of graces abolished, and why the bishops could approve Pelagius's answer on account of the apostle Paul, in whom we recognize all the gifts that he listed in one place.

What, then, is it about this heading that I said had made me anxious? This: that Pelagius said that God gives all graces to one who is worthy to receive them, as he gave them to the apostle Paul. I would not be at all anxious about this answer of his, were it not for what concerns this case, which must be given the greatest care: namely, that the grace of God should not be attacked while we keep silent and pretend not to see so great an evil. Since, then, he does not say that God gives to whom he wills, but says that God gives all graces to one who is worthy to receive them, I could not help being suspicious when I read it. For the very name of grace, and the meaning of that name, is taken away if it is not given freely but received by one who is worthy of it. Will someone perhaps say that I do the apostle an injury because I do not say he was worthy of grace? On the contrary, I would do him an injury, and bring punishment on myself, if I did not believe what he himself says. Did he not define grace in such a way as to show that it is called grace because it is given freely? He himself said: “But if it is by grace, it is no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace.” Hence he also says: “Now to one who works, the wage is not reckoned as grace but as debt.” Whoever is worthy, then, is owed it; and if it is owed, it is not grace, for grace is given, a debt is paid. Grace, therefore, is given to the unworthy, so that the debt may be paid to the worthy; and he who gave to the unworthy what they did not have himself brings it about that they have whatever he will pay to the worthy.

Here he may say: “I said that the apostle was worthy to be given those great graces not from works but from faith; for it was not works, which he did not have as good works before, but his faith that merited this.” What then? Do we think that faith does not work? On the contrary, it truly works, the faith that works through love. But however much the works of unbelievers are praised, we know that the same apostle's sentence is true and unassailable: “Whatever is not from faith is sin.” He often says that righteousness is reckoned to us not from works but from faith, though faith rather works through love, so that no one should think that faith itself is reached by the merits of works, since it is itself the beginning from which good works begin; for, as has been said, what is not from it is sin. Hence it is also said to the church in the Song of Songs: “You will come and pass on from the beginning of faith.” Therefore, although faith obtains the grace of doing good, we certainly did not merit by any faith to have faith itself; but in giving it to us, that in it we might follow the Lord, his mercy went before us. Or did we give it to ourselves, and did we make ourselves faithful? Here too I will cry out with full voice: “He made us, and not we ourselves”; unless the apostolic teaching commends something else when it says: “For I say, through the grace of God that has been given me, to all who are among you, not to think more highly than one ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, as God has assigned to each a measure of faith.” From here also comes this: “What do you have that you did not receive?” For we have received this too, from which everything good that we have in our actions begins.

What, then, of what the same apostle says: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will pay me on that day,” if these things are not paid to the worthy but given to the unworthy? Whoever says this does not consider enough that the crown could not have been paid to the worthy if grace had not been given to the unworthy. For he says, “I have fought the good fight”; but the same man says, “Thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He says, “I have finished the course”; but the same man says, “It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” He says, “I have kept the faith”; but the same man says, “For I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard my deposit until that day,” that is, what I have entrusted to him; for some copies do not have “deposit” but, what is plainer, “what I have entrusted.” And what do we entrust to God but the things we pray him to keep, among which is our faith itself? For what else did the Lord entrust to the apostle Peter by praying, when he said to him, “I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail,” but that God should keep his faith, so that it would not fail by yielding to temptation? Therefore, O blessed Paul, great preacher of grace, I will say it and not fear (for who will be less angry with me for saying these things than you, who have said what was to be said and taught what was to be taught?): I will say it, I say, and not fear: your crown is indeed paid to your merits, but your merits are the gifts of God.

The reward that is owed is paid, then, to the worthy apostle; but grace gave the apostleship itself, which was not owed, to the unworthy man. Shall I regret having said this? Far from it; I shall be defended from this ill will by his testimony, and no one will call me bold unless he has dared to call him a liar. He himself cries out, he himself testifies, he himself, in order to commend God's gifts in himself and to glory not in himself but in the Lord, not only says that he had no good merits to become an apostle, but even speaks of his evil merits, to show and proclaim the grace of God. “I am not fit,” he says, “to be called an apostle.” What else is this but “I am not worthy”? For so most Latin copies have it. This is precisely what we are asking about; for all those graces are contained in this gift of the apostleship. It was not fitting or proper for an apostle not to have prophecy, or not to be a teacher, or not to be distinguished by powers and gifts of healing, or not to give help, or not to govern churches, or not to excel in kinds of tongues: the one name of apostleship embraces all these. Let us consult him, then; let us rather hear him. Let us say to him: “Holy apostle Paul, the monk Pelagius says that you were worthy to receive all the graces of your apostleship. What do you yourself say?” “I am not worthy,” he says, “to be called an apostle.” Shall I then, to do honor to Paul, dare to believe Pelagius about Paul rather than Paul? I will not; for if I did, I would burden myself more than I honored him. Let us hear also why he is not worthy to be called an apostle: “Because I persecuted the church of God,” he says. If we followed human sense, who would not judge that he should be condemned by Christ rather than called? Who loves the preacher so much that he does not detest the persecutor? Most rightly and truly, then, he says, “I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Doing so much evil, then, how did you merit so much good? Let all nations hear him answer: “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” Is grace commended in any other way than because it is given to the unworthy? “And his grace toward me,” he says, “was not in vain.” He enjoins this on others too, so as to show also the choice of the will, when he says: “We urge and entreat you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” And how does he prove that his grace in him was not in vain, except by what follows: “But I labored more than all of them”? So he did not labor to receive grace, but received it in order to labor; and thus, unworthy, he received grace freely, by which he might become worthy to receive the rewards that are owed. Nor did he dare to claim even the labor for himself. For when he had said, “I labored more than all of them,” he at once added: “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” O great teacher, confessor, and preacher of grace! What is this: “I labored more, yet not I”? Where the will lifted itself up a little, there at once godliness kept watch and humility trembled, because weakness recognized itself.

Rightly, as the proceedings show, the holy John, bishop of the church of Jerusalem, also used this testimony, as he himself related when asked by our fellow bishops who presided with him at that trial what had been done before him prior to the trial. He said that when certain people were then whispering and saying that Pelagius said that this could be accomplished without the grace of God (that is, what he had said above, that a man can be without sin), “I reproved him for this,” he said, “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 again: ‘It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy’; and this: ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain’; and we cited,” he said, “many other similar passages from the holy Scriptures. But when they did not accept what we said from the holy Scriptures, but went on whispering, Pelagius said: ‘I too believe so: let him be anathema who says that a man can come to progress in all virtues without the help of God.’”

Bishop John related this in the hearing of Pelagius, who could certainly have said respectfully: “Your Holiness is mistaken; you do not remember rightly. I did not say ‘I too believe so’ to those testimonies you cited from the Scriptures, since I do not understand them to mean that the grace of God so labors with a man that his not sinning is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.”

For there are certain expositions of Paul's letter to the Romans, said to be Pelagius's own, in which he asserts that the words “It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy” were not said in Paul's own person, but that Paul used the voice of one questioning and refuting when he said this, as though this ought certainly not to be said. Since, then, Bishop John plainly recognized this sentence as the apostle's, and cited it so that Pelagius should not think anyone avoids sin without the grace of God, and said that Pelagius had answered, “I too believe so,” and since Pelagius, hearing this in person, did not answer, “I do not believe so,” he must either disown that perverse exposition, in which he wanted it understood that the apostle did not hold this but rather refuted it, or not hesitate to correct and amend it. As for whatever Bishop John said about our absent brothers, whether our fellow bishops Heros and Lazarus, or the presbyter Orosius, or others whose names are not given there, I believe he understands that it does not count to their prejudice. For if they had been present, they could perhaps (far be it from me to say they could convict him of lying) have reminded him of what he had perhaps forgotten, or of where the Latin interpreter had misled him, if not from a wish to lie, then certainly through some difficulty with a foreign language imperfectly understood; especially since the matter was not being conducted with an official record, which has usefully been instituted so that the wicked may not lie and the good may not forget anything. But if anyone raises some question against our brothers on this account and summons them to an episcopal trial, they will defend themselves as best they can. What need is there for us to labor over it here, when not even the judges themselves wished to pronounce anything about it after our fellow bishop's account?

Since, then, Pelagius, being present, silently acknowledged that he had said he believed so in response to those testimonies of Scripture, how is it that, recalling a little earlier that testimony of the apostle and finding that he had said, “I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God; but by the grace of God I am what I am,” he did not see that he ought not to have said, when the abundance of graces received by the same apostle was in question, that he was worthy to receive them, since the apostle himself not only said, but proved by giving the reason, that he was unworthy, and by this very fact commended grace as truly grace? But if perhaps he could not think of or remember what holy John had related a while before, he should have looked at his own very recent answer and noticed what he had anathematized a little before among the things objected to him from Caelestius. For among them is the charge that Caelestius said “that the grace of God is given according to our merits.” If, then, Pelagius truly anathematized this, what does he mean by saying that all graces were given to the apostle according to merit? Or is it one thing to be worthy to receive, and another to receive according to merit? And can he show by some subtlety of argument that someone is worthy but does not merit? Yet Caelestius, or whoever else it was whose preceding views he all anathematized, does not allow him to spread a fog over this word and hide in it. For he presses and says: “And grace itself has been placed in my will, whether I am worthy or unworthy.” If, then, this was rightly and truly condemned by Pelagius, where it is said that the grace of God is given according to merits and to the worthy, with what heart did he think, or with what mouth did he utter, what he said: “We say that God gives all graces to one who is worthy to receive them”? Who, if he considers these things carefully, would not become anxious about his answer or defense?

“Why, then,” someone says, “did the judges approve this?” I confess that I myself am now in doubt about it. But no doubt either the brief phrase easily escaped their hearing and attention, or, thinking that it could in some way be rightly understood, since they seemed to have clear confessions from him on this matter, they thought no controversy should be raised with him over what was almost a single word. That might perhaps have happened to us too, had we sat with them at that trial. For if in place of the word “worthy” the word “predestined” or something of that kind had been put, no scruple would touch or torment the mind. And yet, if one who is justified through the election of grace, with no preceding good merits, is said to be called worthy by destination, as he is called elect, it is hard to judge whether this could be said with certainty, or at least with the least offense to understanding. For my part, I would easily pass over this word, were it not that the book I answered, in which he says there is no grace of God at all except our nature with free choice, created grace, makes me anxious about Pelagius's own meaning, in case he took care to insert this word not from carelessness of speech but from diligence in his dogma. The last points that remain disturbed the judges so much that they judged them worthy of condemnation even before Pelagius answered.

For it was objected that in the sixth chapter of Caelestius's book it is stated: “that men cannot be called sons of God unless they have become entirely without sin”; according to which even the apostle Paul would not be a son of God, since he said, “Not that I have already received, or am already perfect.” In the seventh chapter: “that forgetfulness and ignorance are not subject to sin, since they happen not according to the will but according to necessity”; though David says, “Remember not the sins of my youth and of my ignorance,” and though in the law sacrifices are offered for ignorance as for sin. In the tenth chapter: “that there is no free choice if it needs God's help, since each has it in his own will either to do something or not to do it.” In the twelfth chapter: “that our victory is not from God's help but from free choice”; which he was said to infer in these words: “The victory is ours, since we took up arms by our own will; just as, on the other hand, it is ours when we are overcome, since we scorned to arm ourselves by our own will.” And he put forward the testimony of the apostle Peter, “that we are partakers of the divine nature,” and he is said to form a syllogism: “that if the soul cannot be without sin, then God too is subject to sin, since part of him, that is, the soul, is liable to sin.” In the thirteenth chapter he says: “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.”

When these had been read, the synod 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 this.” Pelagius answered: “I say again that these, even according to their own 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 to be right; but what I have said is not mine I reject according to the judgment of the holy church, saying anathema to everyone who opposes and contradicts the teachings of the holy catholic church. For I believe in the Trinity of one substance, and all things according to the teaching of the holy catholic church; and if anyone thinks anything foreign to this, let him be anathema.”

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.”

If these are the proceedings in which Pelagius's friends rejoice that he was cleared, then we, since he took care to prove sufficiently his friendship toward us too by producing our private letters and having them read at this trial (the proceedings contain them), do indeed desire and wish his salvation in Christ; but we ought not to rejoice rashly over this clearing of his, which is believed rather than clearly demonstrated. In saying this I do not accuse the judges of carelessness or connivance or (what is most certainly far from them) of complicity in ungodly doctrines. Their judgment is deservedly approved and praised; yet Pelagius does not seem to me to have been cleared among those to whom he is more fully and certainly known. For they, judging as it were an unknown man, especially in the absence of those who had submitted the document against him, could not examine the man very carefully; yet the heresy itself, if those who fought for its perversity follow their judgment, they destroyed completely. But those who know well what Pelagius used to teach, whether those who resisted his arguments or those who rejoice that they have been freed from that very error, how can they not hold him suspect, when they read, not a simple confession of his condemning past errors, but a defense as if he had never held any other view than what was approved in his answers at this trial?

For, to speak especially of myself, I first came to know the name of Pelagius, when he was absent and living in Rome, with great praise of him. Afterwards report began to bring us word that he argued against the grace of God. Though this grieved me, and I was told it by people I believed, I still wanted to learn something of the kind from him or from some book of his, so that if I began to refute him he could not deny it. After he came to Africa, he was received on our shore, that is, at Hippo, in my absence; there, as I learned from our people, nothing of this kind at all was heard from him, because he also left sooner than expected. Later I saw his face at Carthage once or twice, as far as I remember, when I was very busy with preparations for the conference we were about to hold with the Donatist heretics; and he hurried from there overseas. Meanwhile these doctrines were seething in the mouths of those who were said to be his disciples, so that Caelestius came before a church court and received a sentence worthy of his perversity. We thought it more wholesome to deal with them by refuting and exposing the errors themselves without naming the persons, so that the men might be corrected by fear of a church judgment rather than punished by the judgment itself. So we did not cease to argue against those evils, both in books and in sermons to the people.

But when that book was given me by the servants of God Timasius and James, good and honorable men, in which Pelagius most plainly, putting to himself as if from an opponent the question about the grace of God, over which he was already suffering great ill will, seemed to resolve it only by calling nature created with free choice the grace of God, sometimes, and faintly and not openly, joining to it either the help of the law or even the forgiveness of sins: then indeed it became clear to me beyond any doubt how hostile to Christian salvation the poison of that perversity was. Even so I did not put Pelagius's name into my work refuting that book, thinking I would do more good if, keeping our friendship, I still spared his modesty, though I ought no longer to spare his writings. That is why I am now vexed that at this trial he said in one place: “I anathematize those who hold such views or have ever held them.” It would have been enough to say “who hold such views,” for us to believe that he had been corrected. But when he added “or have ever held them,” first, how unjustly he dared to condemn the undeserving who are free from that error, which they had learned either from others or from him as teacher! Then, which of those who know that he not only once held these things but also taught them would not with reason suspect that he anathematized those who hold them insincerely, since he did not hesitate in the same way to anathematize those who once held them, among whom they will remember him as their teacher? Look, to say nothing of others: with what eyes, with what face will he look at Timasius and James, his friends and once his disciples, to whom I wrote the book in which I answered his? How they wrote back to me, I did not think should be passed over in silence; I have appended a copy of their letter below.

To the truly most blessed lord and deservedly venerable father, Bishop Augustine, Timasius and James send greeting in the Lord. The grace of God ministered through your word has so refreshed and restored us that we may say in all sincerity: “He sent his word and healed them,” most blessed lord and deservedly venerable father. We find that Your Holiness has sifted the text of that little book with such care that we are astonished that answers are given to every single point, whether in the things a Christian ought to refute, detest, and shun, or in those in which he is not found to have erred much, though by some cunning or other he thought that the grace of God should be suppressed even in them. But there is one thing that affects us in so great a benefit: that this so splendid gift of God's grace has shone forth late, since it has happened that some are absent to whose blindness this illumination of so evident a truth was owed. Yet we do not doubt that the same grace will reach them, even if later, by the favor of God, “who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” As for us, although long ago, taught by the spirit of love that is in you, we cast off subjection to that error, we give thanks even now for this, that we have learned to open to others what we believed before, since the fuller discourse of Your Holiness has laid open a way of ease. And in another hand: May the mercy of our God glorify your blessedness for ever, safe and mindful of us.

If, then, he too confessed that he had once been in this error, as a man taken by surprise, but that he now anathematizes those who hold these things, anyone who did not congratulate him, now that he holds to the way of truth, would himself lose the heart of love. But as it is, it is not enough that he did not confess he had been freed from that plague; he even anathematized those who have been freed, who love him so much that they want him too to be freed. Among them are these men, who showed their good will toward him in this letter they gave me; for they were thinking especially of him when they said they were affected by the lateness with which I wrote that book. “It has happened,” they say, “that some are absent to whose blindness this illumination of so evident a truth was owed; yet we do not doubt,” they say, “that the same grace will reach them, even if later, by the favor of God.” For they too thought that the name or names should still be kept silent, so that, while friendship lived, the friends' error might rather die.

But now, if Pelagius thinks of God, if he is not ungrateful for the mercy of him who brought him before the bishops' judgment precisely so that he would not afterwards dare to defend these anathematized things, and would now recognize that they are to be detested and cast away, he will receive our letter, in which we name him and open the sore to be healed, more gratefully than that earlier one, in which, fearing to cause pain, we increased the swelling, as we now regret. But if he is angry with me, let him consider how unjustly he is angry, and, to overcome his anger, let him at last ask for the grace of God, which he confessed at this trial to be necessary for each of our acts, so that with its help he may win a true victory. For what good to him are the great praises of him in the bishops' letters, which he thought should be mentioned, or even read and put in evidence, on his behalf? As if all who heard his vehement and in a way burning exhortations to a good life could easily have known that he held these perverse views!

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.

As for what is said to have been perpetrated there after this trial with incredible audacity by some gang or other of lost men, who are said to support Pelagius in a very perverse way (that servants and handmaids of God under the care of the holy presbyter Jerome were attacked with most wicked slaughter, a deacon was killed, the buildings of the monasteries were set on fire, and he himself was barely protected from this assault and attack of the ungodly, by God's mercy, in a well-fortified tower), I think we should rather keep silent and wait to see what our brothers the bishops there think should be done about such great evils; who could believe that they can pretend not to see them? For the ungodly dogmas of men of this kind are to be refuted by any catholics whatever, even those who are far from those lands, so that they may not do harm wherever they can reach; but ungodly deeds, whose restraint belongs to episcopal discipline, are to be punished with pastoral diligence and godly severity where they are committed, above all by those who are present or nearby. We, therefore, placed so far away, should wish that such an end may be given to these cases there that there is no need to judge them further anywhere, but rather an end that it befits us to proclaim, so that the minds of all who have been gravely wounded by the report of those crimes, flying about everywhere, may be healed by the mercy of God that follows. Let this, then, be the end of this book, which, I hope, if it has deserved to please your judgment, will with the Lord's help be useful to its readers, better commended by your name than by mine, and better known to very many through your care.