Epitaph of the Nestorian and Pelagian Heresies
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Chapter 1
1PL 51:155
Nestoriana lues successit Pelagianæ, / Quæ tamen est utero prægenerata meo. / Infelix miseræ genitrix et filia natæ, / Prodivi ex ipso germine quod peperi. / Nam fundare arcem meritis prior orsa superbis, / De capite ad corpus ducere opus volui. / Sed mea dum proles in summa armatur ab imis, / Congrua bellandi tempora non habui. Et consanguineæ post tristia vulnera fraudis, / Aspera conserui prælia fine pari. / Me tamen una dedit victam sententia letho: / Illa volens iterum surgere bis cecidit. / Mecum oritur, mecum moritur, mecumque sepulcrum / Intrat, et inferni carceris ima subit. / Quo nos præcipites insana superbia mersit, / Exutas donis, et tumidas meritis? / Nam Christum pietate operum et mercede volentes / Esse Deum, in capitis fœdere non stetimus; / Sperantesque animi de libertate coronam, / Perdidimus quam dat gratia justitiam. / Quique igitur geminæ miseraris busta ruinæ, / Ne nostro exilio consociare cave. / Nam si quæ Domini data munera sero fatemur, / Hæc homini credis debita, noster eris.
The Nestorian plague followed the Pelagian, but it was conceived beforehand in my womb. Unhappy mother of a wretched daughter, and daughter of my daughter, I came forth from the very offspring I bore. For, having first set out to found a citadel on proud merits, I wished to carry the work from the head to the body. But while my offspring armed itself from the lowest against the highest, I did not have the right season for war. And after the sad wounds of our kindred fraud, I joined in harsh battles with a like end. Yet one sentence gave me, conquered, to death: she, wishing to rise again, has fallen twice. She rises with me, dies with me, and with me enters the tomb, and goes down to the depths of the prison of hell. Whither has mad pride plunged us headlong, stripped of gifts and swollen with merits? For, wishing Christ to be God by the piety of his works and as a reward, we did not stand in the covenant of the head; and, hoping for a crown from the freedom of the soul, we lost the righteousness that grace gives. You, then, who pity the tombs of this twin ruin, take care not to share our exile. For if you believe that the gifts we confess, too late, to be given by the Lord are owed to man, you will be ours.