Memorandum on the name of Caelestius (Latin version of the Greek Commonitorium) (complete)

[Heading in the collection:] Likewise, a copy of the memorandum concerning Caelestius, given in Greek by Mercator not only to the church of Constantinople but also to very many most religious men, and also presented to the most pious emperor Theodosius, ever Augustus; the same translated from Greek into Latin by the same Marius Mercator, servant of Christ, in the consulship of Florentius and Dionysius, most distinguished men (429). Through this memorandum the most deadly error was made known, and by imperial command both Julian, its defender and follower, with his other associates and partners, and afterwards Caelestius himself were driven out of the city of Constantinople; later they were also condemned in their presence at the synod of Ephesus by the sentence of two hundred and seventy-five bishops.

A certain Caelestius, a eunuch born so from his mother's womb, about twenty years ago a disciple and hearer of Pelagius, left the city of Rome and came to Carthage, the metropolis of all Africa. There he was accused, before Aurelius, bishop of that city, on the charges written below, in a written petition from a certain Paulinus, deacon of Ambrose of holy memory, bishop of Milan, as the record of the proceedings shows, in which the petition is inserted (we have copies of these proceedings in hand). He was accused not only of teaching these things himself, but also of having sent various people who agreed with him through the provinces to spread them among the peoples, namely: that Adam was made mortal and would have died whether he sinned or not; that Adam's sin harmed him alone and not the human race; that infants who are born are in the state in which Adam was before the transgression; that the whole human race neither dies through Adam's death or transgression nor rises through Christ's resurrection; that the law sends people to the kingdom of heaven as the gospel does; that even before the Lord's coming there were sinless people, that is, people without sin. On all these charges, [inserted] in the copies of the synodal proceedings mentioned above, the fathers and bishops of that region resisted Caelestius and ordered him to condemn them, since they were heretical views. But Caelestius in no way acquiesced, indeed he resisted, and by the same proceedings, at which he was frequently heard, he was deprived of church communion. From this sentence he thought he should appeal to the judgment of the bishop of Rome; but soon, neglecting his own appeal, he hastened to Ephesus, a city of Asia, and there dared by stealth to seek the rank of presbyter. Then, some years later, under Atticus of holy memory as bishop, he made for the city of Constantinople, where he was detected in similar views and, through the great zeal of that holy man, was driven out of that bountiful city; letters about him were sent to the bishops in Asia, Thessalonica and Carthage, and we have copies of them and are ready to produce them. Expelled from there too, the said Caelestius went in all haste to the city of Rome, under Zosimus of holy memory, bishop. There he was questioned in proceedings of which we have copies; and when he was somewhat alarmed by that judge, by his frequent answers and statements he sowed the hope in advance that he would condemn the charges on which he had been accused at Carthage, promising to do so. For this was being required of him most insistently, and it was expected of him most earnestly that he would do it; and for this very reason he was held worthy of some kindness from that holy bishop, and so obtained a letter full of benevolence to the African bishops, which he misused, and still misuses, to deceive many ignorant people. But when the bishops of Africa wrote back, setting out the whole case as it had been conducted before them and sending also the proceedings that had then been drawn up with him and about him, he was summoned to a fuller hearing, to hasten to fulfil what he had promised, that is, to condemn the said charges and so be absolved from the sentence of the African bishops by which he had been deprived of communion. Not only did he not appear, but he even fled from the city of Rome; and for this he was thoroughly condemned by the said Zosimus of blessed memory, bishop, in very full and very long writings. In these are contained both the very charges on which he had been accused and the whole case, narrated both of Caelestius, named above, and of Pelagius his master, who seems the worse. We too have copies of these writings here, and we inform you that similar and identical writings were sent to the bishops of the Eastern churches, the diocese of Egypt, Constantinople, Thessalonica and Jerusalem.

The reason why Pelagius too was condemned with him is this. Before the sack of the city of Rome the said Pelagius dared to compose commentaries on the apostle Paul and to publish them to those of whose friendship he was confident; and he thought he was explaining the apostle's words and meanings one by one. In the letter to the Romans, then, when he came to the place where the vessel of election speaks thus, “Therefore, as through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so death passed to all men,” he thought it should be expounded as follows (we have this book of his and produce it to convict his hostile error). So, then, he says: “Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death. He used an example,” he says, “or image: as, when there was no sin, it entered through Adam, so also, when righteousness had not remained in anyone, life was restored through Christ. And death passed to all men: so,” he says, “those who sin likewise also die. For death did not pass to Abraham or Isaac or Jacob, of whom the Lord says, They all live. But here,” he says, “he says that all are dead because in the multitude of sinners the few righteous are not excepted, as he also says there, There is none who does good, not even one; and again, Every man is a liar. Or certainly it passed to all those,” he says, “who lived by human, not heavenly, custom.” And a little after: “But death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those who had not transgressed in the likeness of Adam's transgression: either,” he says, “because, when there was no one to distinguish between just and unjust, death thought itself lord of all; or over those who transgressed a command, like Adam, that is, of the sons of Noah, who were commanded not to eat the life in the blood, and of the sons of Abraham, who were commanded circumcision; and also over those who, besides a command, despised the natural law. Who is a figure of the one to come: because,” he says, “as Adam was formed by God without intercourse, so Christ came forth from a virgin, the Holy Spirit fashioning him; or, as some say, a figure by contrast, that is, that as the one is head of sin, so this one is head of righteousness. But not as the trespass, so also the gift, lest,” he says, “equality be supposed in the figure. For if by the transgression of one many died, much more has the gift and grace of God abounded to many through the one man Christ: grace,” the apostle says, according to him, “was more powerful in giving life than sin in killing, because Adam killed only himself and his descendants, but Christ freed both those who were then in the body and those who were to come afterwards.” Here let the careful catholic reader note what he says, that Adam harmed not himself alone but also his descendants. Keep in mind his earlier definition: for here by “descendants” he means not absolutely all people everywhere, harmed by Adam's sin, but only those who, by imitation, became guilty of transgression like Adam through their own proper sins; and these, without doubt, are found to be his descendants and posterity. “But those,” he says, “who reject the transmission of sin try to attack those who defend transmission in another way. If,” he says, “Adam's sin harmed even those who do not sin, then Christ's righteousness profits even those who do not believe; since the apostle says that people are freed through one in like manner, indeed more, than they perished before through one. Then they say,” he says: “if baptism cleanses that ancient and old sin, those born of two baptized parents ought to be free of this sin; for the parents could not transmit to their descendants what they themselves did not have at all. To this they add,” he says, “that if the soul is not by transmission, as it is not, but only the flesh has the transmission of sin, the flesh alone also deserves the punishment. For it is unjust that a soul born today, not from the mass of Adam, should carry so ancient a sin belonging to another; for neither is it reasonable that God, who forgives a person's own sins, should impute to him one belonging to another.” And again, in another discourse of his, the same Pelagius says: “If a sinner begot a sinner, so that his infant's original sin is loosed when he receives baptism, then a righteous man ought to beget a righteous one. If,” he says, “their own sins do not harm parents after their conversion, much less could their children be harmed through them. If it was the first man who caused death, then after Christ's coming it would no longer be necessary to die. If death had arisen through Adam's sin, we would never die after the forgiveness of sins that the Liberator has given us. Adam's sin, then, was more powerful in killing absolutely all people than Christ's grace in saving, since grace has profited not all but only believers; for not all who are born of Adam are also reborn in Christ,” and so on.

All the charges written above, as was said already, are contained in that letter of Zosimus, bishop of blessed memory, which is called the Tractoria, by which Caelestius and Pelagius were condemned; it was sent to Constantinople and through the whole world and confirmed by the signatures of the holy fathers. Julian and the rest of his accomplices refused to sign it and would not agree with the same fathers, and so, deposed and dismissed not only by imperial laws but also by episcopal decrees, they were driven out of all Italy. Very many of them came to their senses and, corrected from that error, returned as suppliants to the apostolic see, were received, and recovered their churches. The said Caelestius and Pelagius, indeed, seem not to have been condemned then for the first time by Zosimus of holy memory, but by his predecessor Innocent of holy remembrance, by whom Julian too had been ordained. Julian, after their condemnation, remained in Innocent's communion until the death of the said bishop Innocent, persevering in the right opinion and in communion with the one who condemned them, and so he too, without doubt, condemned Pelagius and Caelestius; what he now wants, or what he complains of, we do not know. The cause of their condemnation by Innocent of holy remembrance was this. After the sack of the city of Rome, Pelagius was living in Palestine. Books of his were found [by] certain zealous bishops, in which many and various things seem to have been written against the catholic faith. These were sent with letters to the fathers and bishops in Africa, where three councils were assembled and the said books were read. Then reports were sent to Rome, with the books themselves, and the apostolic sentence of [Innocent], writing back to the said councils, was issued, which deprived these same Caelestius and Pelagius of church communion; we have copies of these writings in hand. Moreover, while Pelagius was still in Jerusalem, he [was] accused before a synod; at first, by evasion, covering himself with certain ambiguous professions and pursuing doubtful points or answering them, he seems to have deluded that hearing of the bishops; but afterwards, when his accusers pressed him, he was clearly caught and exposed by a later synod, over which Theodotus of holy memory, bishop of Antioch, presided, and he was driven out of the holy and venerable places of Jerusalem. The writings of the same holy Theodotus to the most reverend bishop of the city of Rome, and those of Praylius of holy remembrance, bishop of Jerusalem, testify to this; we have copies of them in hand as evidence.

In the very charges that were then brought against Pelagius, this too is contained, among other execrable things that Caelestius, as his disciple, holds: [that] infants, even if they are not baptized, have eternal life. And the charge set down above, which we said is held by Caelestius and agrees with his master's doctrine, namely that the law sends people to the kingdom of heaven as the gospel does, Pelagius openly confirms and proclaims in some of his writings. There is, finally, a little book of his, which we have in hand, addressed to a certain widow Livania, containing a discourse of exhortation, in which we find: “It befits a handmaid of Christ,” he says, “to follow simplicity: not the kind that is folly rather than simplicity, but the kind of which Scripture says, Every simple soul is blessed; while Scripture says elsewhere, Cursed is every man who does not continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them. Hence,” he says, “it is shown that true simplicity is [not] the kind that despises God's commandments with senseless carelessness, but the kind that keeps the precepts of the law with wise fear. For when it says that he is cursed who does not continue in what is written, it means conversely that one who has not kept all the precepts is not blessed; and if every simple one is blessed, then the simple one is the one who has fulfilled all the precepts of the law.” That he asserts here what has been said so many times above, that the books of Moses send people to the kingdom of heaven as the gospel does, no catholic who reads this passage doubts, nor will he find any difficulty in understanding it. And because he named the law without distinction in this same most impious passage, if he means the law of Moses, whose testimony about the curse he quoted, he is plainly trying to draw us into Judaism; but if, to cover himself by deceit, he says that by the name of law he meant the gospel, he does not err in calling the gospel a law, but he is impious in this, that he does not fear to put us, who are under the gospel, under a similar and equal curse, making the grace of the gospel equal to the circumcision of the law and to all Judaism. Hence his disciple Caelestius too dared to proclaim openly that the law sends people to the kingdoms of heaven as the gospel does. For it is plain, according to Pelagius, that if we are still under the same or a similar bond, even in the times of the gospel, then if we err in anything, as human beings, or fail to fulfil one of the precepts of the gospel, we are cursed. If this is so (far be it; but let it be granted, as he wishes), the gospel has been made equal to the old law; and where will be the saying of Paul the apostle, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every man who does not continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them? Indeed, going further, he pursues this same view more fully in the same discourse of this little book and commends it more widely. For after much else he says there: “To hate, to curse and to envy, to lie, to slander and to believe slanderers is thought to be a light sin or none at all; but those who think this have forgotten that we read that those guilty of breaking even a light commandment are to be handed over to Gehenna. For,” he says, “the Lord said …”

Let Julian and the rest of his partners, then, at least now condemn these men caught in such most impious errors, namely Pelagius and Caelestius, to satisfy the church; and if they are confident that anyone thinks wrongly against the catholic faith, let them not hesitate to name him by name, and they will receive an answer in church order from us, as far as we are able, or certainly from the one whom they say departs from the catholic sense. For, as we said above, many who had followed Caelestius and Pelagius along with him, and had become partners and associates of Julian too, have abandoned him, condemned Pelagius, submitted themselves to the apostolic see and professed repentance for what they had wrongly thought, and have been held worthy of mercy by the holy fathers and received.