On the Proceedings of Pelagius 18–31

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.”