1. 1. After the ecclesiastical proceedings came into our hands, holy father Aurelius—the proceedings in which Pelagius was pronounced a Catholic by fourteen bishops of the province of Palestine—my hesitation came to an end, the hesitation that had made me reluctant to discuss his defense more fully and more confidently. For I had already read it in a certain document that he himself had sent me. But because I had received no letter from him accompanying that document, I was afraid that something might be found in my words other than what was read in the episcopal proceedings; and so perhaps, if Pelagius denied that he had sent me that document, since he could not easily be convicted by a single witness, I would instead be charged by those who favored his denial either with forged falsehood or, to put it more mildly, with rash credulity. Now, therefore, since I am examining what the proceedings attest, it seems to me, as far as I can see, that, with all doubt removed as to whether he really did plead his case in this way, your Holiness and everyone who reads it will judge more easily and more surely both about his defense and about this work of ours.

1. 2. First, then, I give ineffable thanks to the Lord God, our ruler and keeper, that my opinion of our holy brothers and fellow bishops, who sat as judges in that case, was not mistaken. For not without reason did they approve his answers, paying attention not to how he had stated in his own works the things charged against him, but to what he answered about them in the present examination. For unsound faith is one thing, incautious expression another. In short, regarding the matters that were read out as charges against Pelagius from the petition presented by our holy brothers and fellow bishops the Gauls, Heros and Lazarus—who, on account of the serious illness of one of them (as we have since learned with greater probability), were quite unable to be present—

the first is this, which he writes in a certain book of his: "No one can be without sin unless he has knowledge of the law." When this was read out, the synod said: "Did you publish this, Pelagius?" And he answered: "I did indeed say it, but not as they understand it. I did not say that one who has knowledge of the law cannot sin; but that one is helped toward not sinning through knowledge of the law, as it is written: He gave them the law for a help (Isa 8:20 (sec. LXX))." On hearing this, the synod said: "What Pelagius has said is not foreign to the Church."

Plainly, what he answered is not foreign to it; but what was brought forward from his book sounds otherwise. Yet the bishops, being Greeks and hearing those words through an interpreter, did not trouble to scrutinize the matter; they looked only at what the man being questioned said he had meant, not at the words in which the same opinion was said to be written in his book.

1. 3. Now it is one thing for a man to be helped toward not sinning through knowledge of the law, and another that no one can be without sin unless he has knowledge of the law. For when we see, for example, that threshing floors are threshed even without threshing sledges—though these help if they are at hand—and that boys can go to school without tutors, though the help of tutors is not useless for this, and that many recover from illness without physicians, though the help of physicians is plain, and that men live on other foods without bread, though it is not denied that the help of bread is of the greatest value, and many other such things that readily occur to anyone who reflects, even if we say nothing of them: surely we are reminded that there are two kinds of help. For some are such that, without them, the end they help toward cannot be brought about—as no one sails without a ship, no one speaks without a voice, no one walks without feet, no one sees without light, and many such things; among which is also this, that no one lives rightly without the grace of God. But other helps are such that we are helped by them in a way that, even if they are absent, the thing for which we require them can be done by another means—such as the ones I mentioned: the threshing sledge for crushing crops, the tutor for leading a boy, medicine compounded by human skill for recovering health, and the like.

We must therefore ask of which of these two kinds knowledge of the law is—that is, in what way it helps toward not sinning. If in such a way that without it this cannot be accomplished, then Pelagius answered truly in the judgment, and also wrote truly in his book. But if in such a way that it helps indeed if it is present, yet the end it helps toward can be brought about by another means even if it is absent, then he answered truly in the judgment—which rightly pleased the bishops—that "a man is helped toward not sinning by knowledge of the law"; but he did not write truly in his book that "a man is not without sin unless he has knowledge of the law." This the judges left undiscussed, being unacquainted with the Latin language and content with the confession of the one who was pleading his case—especially since no one stood opposite to compel the interpreter to lay open by explanation the words of his book and to show why the brothers were not moved without cause.

For very few are skilled in the law; but the multitude of the members of Christ, spread far and wide and untrained in a law so deep and manifold, is commended by the devotion of simple faith, by a most firm hope in God, and by sincere love, which, endowed with these gifts, trusts that by the grace of God it can be cleansed of its sins through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:25).

2. 4. To this, if Pelagius should perhaps answer that what he meant by knowledge of the law—without which a man cannot be free from sins—is the knowledge handed on through the teaching of the faith to the newly converted and to little ones in Christ, by which those to be baptized are also instructed, so that they may know the Creed: it is not this that is usually understood when anyone is said to have knowledge of the law, but rather that knowledge by which men are called experts in the law.

Yet if he were to call these words—few in number but great in weight, which after the manner of all the Churches are faithfully imparted to those to be baptized—the knowledge of the law, asserting that it was of this that he had said, "No one is without sin unless he has knowledge of the law," knowledge that must necessarily be handed on to believers before they come to the very forgiveness of sins: even so an innumerable multitude would surround him—not of disputants, but of crying baptized infants, who would cry out, not with words, but by the very truth of their innocence: What is this, what is this that you have written, "No one can be without sin unless he has knowledge of the law"?

See, we, a great flock of lambs, are without sin, and yet we do not have knowledge of the law. Surely these would compel him at least to be silent, their tongues silent—or perhaps even to confess either that he was now corrected of that perversity, or at any rate that he had indeed thought even before what he now said in the ecclesiastical examination, but had not set down the words of that opinion with care, and that therefore his faith was to be approved and his book corrected. For, as it is written, there is one who slips with his tongue, but not with his heart (Sir 19:16).

And if he should say this, or now says it, who would not most readily forgive words written with too little care and too carelessly, when he does not defend the opinion that those words contain, but says that his own is the one that the truth approves? It must be believed that the devout judges thought of this too—if indeed they were able to understand well enough what is in his Latin book, once it had been carefully interpreted, just as they judged that his answer, delivered in Greek speech and for that reason easily understood, was not foreign to the Church. But let us now look at the rest.

3. 5. For the episcopal synod went on and said: "Let another chapter be read." And it was read that Pelagius had set down in this same book of his, "All are governed by their own will." When this was read, Pelagius answered: "I said this too on account of free choice, to which God is a helper when one chooses good things; but the man who sins is himself at fault, as it were of free choice." On hearing this the bishops said: "Neither is this foreign to the teaching of the Church." For who would condemn free choice, or deny it, when the help of God is proclaimed alongside it? Therefore the opinion of the one answering rightly pleased the bishops; and yet what was set down in his book, "All are governed by their own will," must without doubt have disturbed the brothers, who knew how these people are accustomed to argue against the grace of God. For it was so stated, "All are governed by their own will," as though God governs no one, and as though it were written in vain: Save your people and bless your inheritance, and rule them and exalt them forever (Ps 28:9 (27:9))—lest indeed, if they are governed by their own will without God, they remain like sheep without a shepherd (Mark 6:34); which God forbid for us.

For without doubt it is more to be led than to be governed; for one who is governed does something, and is governed in order that he may do it rightly, whereas one who is led is scarcely understood himself to do anything. And yet the grace of the Savior so prevails over our wills that the Apostle does not hesitate to say: As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God (Rom 8:14). Nor can free will do anything better in us than commit itself to be led by him who cannot do evil; and when it has done this, let it not doubt that it has been helped to do it by him to whom it is said in the Psalm: My God, his mercy will go before me (Ps 59:11 (58:11)).

3. 6. Finally, in the book where Pelagius wrote those chapters, to this proposition, in which he said, "All are governed by their own will, and each is left to his own desire," he subjoined something from the testimony of the Scriptures, from which it appears clearly enough that a man ought not to entrust himself to himself to be governed. For he says about this very thing, in the Wisdom of Solomon: I too am a mortal man, like all others, of the earthly race of him who was first formed (Wis 7:1); and the rest, down to the end of that chapter, where it is read: There is therefore one entrance for all into life, and a like departure; for this reason I prayed, and understanding was given to me; and I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me (Wis 7:6-7). Does it not appear clearer than light how this man, having considered the misery of human frailty, did not dare to entrust himself to himself to be governed, but prayed, and understanding was given to him—of which the Apostle says: But we have the mind of the Lord (1 Cor 2:16)—and called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to him? For by this Spirit, not by the strength of their own will, are governed and led those who are the sons of God (Rom 8:14).

3. 7. For as to what he set down from the Psalm in the same book of Chapters, as though to prove "All are governed by their own will": He loved cursing, and it will come to him; and he would not have blessing, and it will be put far from him (Ps 109:17 (108:17))—who does not know that this is a fault, not of nature as God established it, but of the human will, which has withdrawn from God? Yet if he had not loved cursing, and had willed blessing, and in this very thing denied that his will was helped by divine grace, then, ungrateful and impious, he would be left to govern himself, so that, cast headlong without God as ruler, he might learn by punishments that he could not have governed himself by himself.

So too in that testimony which 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 will. Before a man are good and evil, life and death; whatever pleases him will be given to him (Sir 15:16-17)—it is manifest that, if he puts his hand to the fire, and evil and death please him, this the will of man brings about; but if he loves good and life, not only does the will do it, but it is helped by God. For the eye suffices of itself for not seeing, that is, for darkness; but for seeing it does not suffice of itself by its own light, unless the help of clear light is supplied to it from without (See Aug., De nat. et gr. 48, 56). But God forbid that those who are called according to his purpose, whom he foreknew, and predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom 8:28-29), should be left to their own desire so that they perish. For this is suffered by the vessels of wrath, which are fitted for destruction; and in their very destruction God makes known the riches of his glory toward the vessels of his mercy (Rom 9:22-23).

For this reason, when he had said, My God, his mercy will go before me (Ps 59:11 (58:11)), he at once added: My God has shown me concerning my enemies (Ps 59:12 (58:12)). To those, then, happens what is written: God gave them up to the desires of their heart (Rom 1:24). But this does not happen to the predestined, whom the Spirit of God governs; for not in vain is their cry: Do not give me up, O Lord, from my desire to the sinner (Ps 140:9 (139:9)). Since indeed even against these very desires it is so prayed that it is said: Take from me the cravings of the belly, and let not the desire of lust seize me (Sir 23:6). This God grants to those whom he governs as subject to him; but not to those who think themselves fit to govern themselves, and with the over-presumptuous neck of their own will disdain to have him as their ruler.

3. 8. Since this is so, how could the sons 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 written by Pelagius, "All are governed by their own will, and each is left to his own desire"? And yet, because when he was questioned by the bishops he perceived what evil those words sounded, and answered, "he had said this on account of free choice," at once adding, "to which God is a helper when one chooses good things; but the man who sins is himself at fault, as it were of free choice": the devout judges, approving this opinion too, were unwilling to consider or to ask how incautiously, or in what sense, those words were set down in his book; they thought it enough that he had so confessed free choice that God was a helper to one choosing good things, while the one who sinned was himself at fault, his own will sufficing him for this. And so God governs those to whom he is a helper as they choose good things. And therefore they govern well whatever they govern, since they themselves are governed by the Good.

3. 9. Likewise there was read out what Pelagius had set down in his book, "On the day of judgment no sparing is to be shown to the wicked and to sinners, but they are to be burned in eternal fires." This had disturbed the brothers, so that it was thought worth charging, because it was so stated as though all sinners were to be punished with eternal torment, not excepting those who have Christ for their foundation (See 1 Cor 3:11-12), even though they build upon it wood, hay, straw, of which 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 (1 Cor 3:15).

But when Pelagius had answered, "he had said this according to the Gospel, where it is said of sinners: They will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matt 25:46): in no way could a sentence that was evangelical and the Lord's displease Christian judges, who did not know what, in the words brought forward from the book of Pelagius, had disturbed the brothers who had been accustomed to hear his disputations or those of his disciples; since, in the absence of those who had presented the petition against Pelagius to the holy bishop Eulogius, no one was pressing him to distinguish by some exception the sinners to be saved through fire from the sinners to be punished with eternal torment, and, the judges thus understanding why that had been charged, he would deservedly be blamed if he refused to make the distinction.

3. 10. As to what Pelagius added, "And if anyone believes otherwise, he is an Origenist": the judges understood this in the sense in which the Church most worthily detests it in Origen—namely, that even those whom the Lord says are to be punished with eternal torment, and the devil himself and his angels, will, after a time however long, be purified and set free from their punishments, and will cleave in the fellowship of blessedness to the saints reigning with God. This, then, the synod said was "not foreign to the Church"—not according to Pelagius, but rather according to the Gospel: that such wicked ones and sinners will be burned with eternal fires as the Gospel judges worthy of such torment; and that whoever says that the torment which the Lord called eternal can at some time be brought to an end thinks detestably, with Origen. But concerning those sinners of whom the Apostle said that, their work being burned up, they will be as it were saved through fire (1 Cor 3:15), since nothing was clearly charged against Pelagius about them, the judges decided nothing. Therefore he who says that the wicked and sinners whom the truth condemns to eternal torment can at some time be freed from it is not unfittingly called an Origenist by Pelagius; but again, he who thinks no sinner worthy of mercy in the judgment of God may impose on him whatever name he pleases, provided he understands that this error too is not received by the truth of the Church. For judgment will be without mercy to him who has not shown mercy (Jas 2:13).

3. 11. But how this judgment will take place can be grasped in the holy Scriptures only with difficulty; for it is signified in many ways, though it will come about in one way. For sometimes the Lord says, against those whom he does not receive into his kingdom, that he will shut the door, and that when they cry out and say, Open to us; in your name we have eaten and drunk (Luke 13:25-26), and the rest that they are written to say, he will answer: I do not know you, you who work iniquity (Luke 13:27). Sometimes he relates that he will command those who did not want him to reign to be brought to him and slain before him (See Luke 19:27). Sometimes he says he will come with his angels in his majesty, so that all the nations are gathered before him, and he divides them, and sets some on his right hand, whose good works he recalls and brings them back into eternal life, and others on his left, to whom, charging them with barrenness of good works, he condemns them to eternal fire (See Matt 25:31-46). Sometimes he orders that the wicked and slothful servant, who neglected to invest his money (See Luke 19:22-24), or even the man found at the banquet not having a wedding garment, be bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness (See Matt 22:11-13). Sometimes, having taken in the five prudent virgins, he shuts the door against the other five foolish ones (See Matt 25:10-12). These things, and anything else of the kind that does not at present occur to me, are said about the judgment to come—a judgment certainly to be carried out not on one or five, but on many. For if there were only one who was ordered to be cast into the darkness from the banquet because he did not have a wedding garment, it would not immediately follow that he should say: For many are called, but few are chosen (Matt 22:14)—since rather, with one cast out and condemned, many would seem to have remained in the house.

But to discuss all these things now, as fully as would suffice, would take too long. This, however, I can say briefly, without prejudice (as is usually said in money matters) to a better discussion: that some one mode of judgment, which is inscrutable to us, is signified in many ways through the holy Scriptures, with the diversity of merits in rewards and punishments at least being preserved. But what is enough for the case now under discussion is this: if Pelagius had said that absolutely all sinners are to be punished with eternal fire and eternal torment, whoever approved that judgment would first of all have passed sentence against himself. For who will boast that he is clean from sins? (Prov 20:9) But because he said neither "all" nor "some," but stated it indefinitely, and answered that he had said this according to the Gospel: the opinion, true indeed, was confirmed by the episcopal judgment; yet it still does not appear whether Pelagius thinks something else, and even after this episcopal judgment it is not impudent to inquire.

4. 12. This too was charged against Pelagius, as though he had written in his book: "Evil does not even come into thought." But he answered: "We did not put it that way; rather, we said that a Christian ought to take care not to think evil"—which, as was fitting, the bishops approved. For who doubts that one ought not to think evil? And in fact in his book it is more precisely read with respect to "evil": "nor is it to be thought," which is usually understood in this sense, that evil ought not even to be thought. But whoever denies this, what else does he say than that evil ought to be thought? And if that were true, it would not be said in praise of love: It does not think evil (1 Cor 13:5). To say, however, that it "does not come into the thought" of the righteous and the holy is not so properly asserted, because "thought" is also usually so called even when something comes into the mind, though no consent follows. But the thought that incurs blame, and is rightly forbidden, is not without consent. It could therefore have happened that those who judged that this was to be charged read a faulty manuscript, as though Pelagius had said: "Evil does not even come into thought," that is, that what is evil does not come into the mind of the righteous and the holy. And this opinion is surely most absurd; for when we reprove evils, we cannot put them into words unless they are thought of. But that, as we have said, is called the blameworthy thought of evil which draws consent with it.

5. 13. When, therefore, the judges had approved this answer of Pelagius too, another thing was read out that he had written in his petition: "The kingdom of heaven was promised even in the Old Testament." To which Pelagius said: "This too it is possible to prove through the Scriptures; but heretics, to the injury of the Old Testament, deny it. 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 (Dan 7:18)." When his answer had been received, the synod said: "Neither is this foreign to the faith of the Church."

5. 14. Was it then without cause that those words moved our brothers to charge this too among the rest? Not at all. Rather, the name "Old Testament" is usually said in two ways: one according to the authority of the divine Scriptures, the other according to the most common usage of speech. For Paul the apostle says to the Galatians: Tell me, he says, you who desire to be under the law, have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman, the other by a free woman; which things are an allegory. For these are the two Testaments: the one indeed from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, which is Hagar. Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is joined to her who is now Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children; but the Jerusalem that is above is free, who is our mother (Gal 4:21-22. 24-26). Since, then, the Old Testament pertains to slavery (whence it is also said: Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not be heir with my son Isaac (Gen 21:10)), but the kingdom of heaven pertains to freedom: how does the kingdom of heaven also pertain to the Old Testament?

But since, as I said, we are also accustomed to speak in such a way that we call all the Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets, which were administered before the incarnation of the Lord and are contained under canonical authority, by the name of the Old Testament: who, even moderately learned in ecclesiastical literature, does not know that the kingdom of heaven could be promised in those Scriptures, just as that New Testament also could, to which the kingdom of heaven pertains? For certainly in those writings it is most plainly written: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will make 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 their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt (Jer 31:31-32). For this took place on Mount Sinai. But then the prophet Daniel did not yet exist, who had said: The saints will receive the kingdom of the Most High (Dan 7:18). For by these words he was prophesying the reward, not of the Old, but of the New Testament: just as those same Prophets certainly announced that Christ himself would come, by whose blood the New Testament was dedicated, and of which Testament the apostles were made ministers, as the most blessed Paul says: Who also made us fit to be ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6).

But in that Testament which is properly called old, and was given on Mount Sinai, nothing is found to be most plainly promised except earthly happiness. Hence that land into which the people was led, and through which they were brought through the desert, is called the land of promise; in which peace and kingship, and the carrying back of victories over enemies, and an abundance of children and of earthly fruits, and any such things—these are the promises of the Old Testament. And although by these are figured the spiritual things that pertain to the New Testament, yet whoever takes up the law of God for the sake of those earthly things is himself an heir of the Old Testament. For those things are promised and bestowed according to the Old Testament that are desired according to the old man. But the things there figured as pertaining to the New Testament seek new men. For so great an Apostle did not fail to know what he was saying, when he said that the two Testaments were distinguished, in an allegorical signification, in the slave woman and the free woman (See Gal 4:23), assigning to the old the sons of the flesh, to the new the sons of the promise: It is not the children of the flesh, he says, who are the children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants (Rom 9:8). The children of the flesh, therefore, pertain to the earthly Jerusalem, which is in slavery with her children; but the children of the promise pertain to her who is above, our free mother, eternal in heaven (See Gal 4:26). From this it is seen who pertain to the earthly kingdom and who to the kingdom of heaven. Those who, even at that time, understanding this distinction through the grace of God, were made children of the promise, were reckoned heirs of the New Testament in the hidden counsel of God, even if they fittingly administered to the old people the Old Testament, divinely given in the apportionment of the ages.

5. 15. How, then, would the children of the promise, the children of the free Jerusalem eternal in heaven, not be rightly disturbed, when this apostolic and catholic distinction seemed to be taken away by the words of Pelagius, and Hagar was in a way believed to be made equal to Sarah? He, therefore, does the Scripture of the Old Testament an injury by heretical impiety no less than one who, with the brow of sacrilegious impiety, denies that it comes from the good, supreme, and true God—as Marcion did, as Manichaeus did, and as any other such pest holds. Therefore, to embrace what I think on this matter with what brevity I can: just as an injury is done to the Old Testament if it is denied to come from the good and supreme God, so too an injury is done to the New if it is made equal to the old.

But when Pelagius had answered why he had even said that the kingdom of heaven is promised in the Old Testament, recalling 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 is not foreign to the catholic faith—not according to that distinction by which the earthly things promised on Mount Sinai are shown to pertain properly to the Old Testament, nor yet improperly, according to this usage of speech by which all the canonical Scriptures administered before the incarnation of the Lord are reckoned under the name of the Old Testament. For the kingdom of the Most High is nothing other than the kingdom of God; nor will anyone dare to contend that the kingdom of God is one thing and the kingdom of heaven another.

6. 16. After this it was charged that Pelagius had said in this same book of his, "A man can, if he wills, be without sin"; and that, writing to a widow, he had said flatteringly: "Let devotion find in you the place that it finds nowhere; let justice, everywhere a stranger, find a seat in you everywhere; let truth, which now no one knows, become familiar to you and your friend; and let the law of God, which is despised by almost all men, be honored by you alone." And again to her: "O happy and blessed you, if justice, which is to be believed to be only in heaven, were found in you alone upon earth!" And in another book to her, after the prayer of our Lord and Savior, teaching how the saints ought to pray, he says: "He worthily lifts his hands to God, he pours out prayer with a good conscience, who can say: You know, Lord, how holy and innocent and clean from all trouble and iniquity and rapine are the hands that I stretch out to you; how just and clean and free from all falsehood the lips with which I offer you my supplication, that you may have mercy on me." But Pelagius, answering to this, said: "We did say that a man can be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wills; for God gave him this possibility.

We did not, however, say that anyone is found who, from infancy to old age, has never sinned; but that, having turned from his sins, he can by his own labor and the grace of God be without sin—yet not thereby unable to turn back hereafter. But the rest of what they have alleged is neither in our books nor have we ever said such things." When this had been heard, the synod said: "Since you deny that you wrote such things, do you anathematize those who hold them so?" Pelagius answered: "I anathematize them as fools, not as heretics; for it is not a teaching." Then the bishops gave judgment, saying: "Now, since Pelagius has with his own voice anathematized that uncertain foolish talk, rightly answering that a man can, with the help and grace of God, be without sin, let him answer to the other chapters as well."

6. 17. Could the judges here, or ought they, to have condemned things unknown and uncertain, when no one was present on the other side to convict Pelagius of having written what was said to be reprehensibly written to the widow? Here surely it would have been too little to produce a manuscript and read these things from his writings, unless witnesses too were brought forward, in case he should deny that those writings were his, even when they were read out. Nevertheless, in these matters too the judges did what they could, asking Pelagius whether he anathematized those who hold such views as he denied having written or said; and when he answered that he anathematized them as fools, what more, in the absence of his adversaries, ought the judges to have inquired about this matter?

6. 18. Or is this too perhaps to be discussed—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 teaching"? But from this question, no light one, where it is asked to what extent a heretic is to be defined, the judges rightly refrained for the present. For if someone, for instance, were to say that eaglets are suspended by the parent's talon and held up to the rays of the sun, and that, if they blink their eyes, they are dropped to the earth as illegitimate, the light as it were convicting them—if perhaps this is false, he is not to be judged a heretic. And this, because it is found in the writings of learned men and is spread abroad by report, is not to be thought foolishly said, even if it is not true; nor does it harm or help the faith for which we are called faithful, whether it is believed or not. But further, if from this notion someone were to contend that rational souls are in birds, on the ground that human souls pass over into them: then indeed, as a heretical pest, it is to be driven from ears and mind; and it must be argued and shown that, even if this about eagles is true—as many marvelous things about bees are true before our eyes—yet reason is far removed from such irrational living creatures, however marvelous their sense, since reason is common not to men and beasts, but to men and angels.

But many foolish things too are said by the unskilled and the vain, and yet not by heretics—such as the things said by those who rashly judge of arts not their own, which they have not learned, or who with immoderate and blind feeling either praise those they love or revile those they hate; and whatever else, in the custom of human speech, is uttered by mouth, or even committed to pen and writing, not as a settled teaching but here and there, as it happens to occur for the moment, through the lightness of folly.

In short, many, when they have been admonished a little about such things, soon repent of having said them; so that they held them not as something fixed by a settled opinion, but had poured them out as if snatched from anywhere and not considered. But it is hard to be free of these evils; and who is there who does not slip with his tongue and offend in a word (See Sir 19:16; Jas 3:2)? But it matters how much, it matters whence, it matters finally whether, when admonished, one corrects it, or by pertinaciously defending it even makes a teaching of what he had said through lightness, not as a teaching.

Since, then, every heretic is consequently a fool too, but not every fool is at once to be called a heretic, the judges rightly said that Pelagius had with his own voice anathematized uncertain foolish talk; for even if it were not a heresy, it is without doubt foolish talk. Accordingly, whatever it was, they called it by the name of a general fault. But whether these things were said from some teaching, or rather not from a fixed and settled opinion, but from an easily correctable vanity, they did not think it necessary to examine for the present, since the man who was being heard had denied that they were his own, in whatever way they had been said.

6. 19. When we were indeed reading this defense of Pelagius in the document we had received earlier, certain holy brothers were present who said that they had books of Pelagius, written to exhort or console a certain widow whose name was not given; and they advised that it be looked into whether perhaps those things he denied to be his were written there—for they themselves asserted that they did not know this. Then indeed, when those same books were read from the beginning, the things were sought and found. Now those who had produced the manuscript affirmed that about four years earlier they had begun to have these as books of Pelagius, and that they had never heard anyone doubt whether they were his. Considering, then, that the faith of the servants of God, very well known to us, could not lie about this matter, it seemed to remain that we should believe Pelagius rather to have lied in the episcopal judgment—unless we considered that it could have happened that, even so many years before, something was written under his name yet not by him. For these men did not say that they had received those books from him, or that they had heard from him that they were his. For some of our brothers told me that certain little works had come into Spain under my name, which indeed would not be recognized by those who had read other works of mine, but were nevertheless believed by others to be mine.

6. 20. That, indeed, which Pelagius confessed to be his own is still obscure; but I think it will come to light in the following parts of these proceedings. For he says: "We did say that a man can be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wills; for God gave him this possibility. We did not, however, say that anyone is found who, from infancy to old age, has never sinned; but that, having turned from his sins, he can by his own labor and the grace of God be without sin—yet not thereby unable to turn back hereafter." In these words, what grace of God he means lies entirely hidden; and the catholic judges, indeed, could understand no other than the grace that the apostolic teaching commends to us most highly. For this is the grace by which we hope we can be freed from the body of this death through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25).

7. 20. And for the obtaining of which we pray that we may not enter into temptation (See Matt 6:13). This grace is not nature, but that by which aid is brought to frail and corrupted nature. This grace is not knowledge of the law, but it is that of which the Apostle says: I do not make void the grace of God; for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing (Gal 2:21); and therefore it is not the letter that kills, but the spirit that gives life (See 2 Cor 3:6). For knowledge of the law without the grace of the spirit works in a man every desire. For, he says, I did not know sin except through the law; for I would not have known desire, had not the law said: You shall not desire. But sin, taking the occasion, worked in me through the commandment every desire (Rom 7:7-8). Nor in saying these things does he find fault with the law; rather, he even praises it, when he says: The law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Did then that which is good, he says, become death to me? God forbid; but sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me through what is good (Rom 7:12-13). 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 will, but what I hate, that I do. But if I do what I do not will, I agree with the law, that it is good (Rom 7:14-16). Behold, he now knows the law and praises it and agrees with it—that is, he agrees that it is good; for what it commands, this he too wills; and what it forbids and condemns, this he too hates; and yet what he hates, this he does. There is present, then, knowledge of the holy law, and yet the corrupt desire is not healed; there is present a good will, and an evil action prevails. Hence it is that, while two laws struggle against each other, since the law in the members fights against the law of the mind and takes it captive under the law of sin (See Rom 7:23), the man who confesses cries out and says: Wretched man that I am, who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25).

8. 21. It is not, therefore, nature—which, sold under sin and wounded by corruption, longs for a redeemer and savior—nor knowledge of the law, by which there comes about a knowledge of desire, not a conquest of it, that frees from the body of this death; but the grace of the Lord through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25).

9. 21. This is not dying nature, nor the letter that kills, but the spirit that gives life. For this man already had nature with the choice of the will (for he said: To will lies near at hand for me (Rom 7:18)), but he did not have nature with health, without corruption (for he said: I know that there does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, what is good (Rom 7:18)). He already had knowledge of the holy law; for he said: I did not know sin except through the law (Rom 7:7); but he did not have the strength to do and accomplish righteousness (for he said: I do not do what I will, but what I hate, this I do; and: I find not how to accomplish the good (Rom 7:15. 18)). Therefore neither the choice of the will nor the precept of the law was that by which he might be freed from the body of this death (Rom 7:24); for he already had both, the one in nature, the other in teaching: but he was begging for the help of the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25).

10. 22. This grace, then, which they knew to be most familiar in the catholic Church, the bishops believed Pelagius to be confessing, when they heard him say that "a man, having turned from his sins, can by his own labor and the grace of God be without sin." But I, on account of that book which the servants of God gave me to refute—men who had been his disciples and who, since they greatly loved this same Pelagius, said it was his—where, this question having been set before him (because in this matter he had by now offended very many, in that he spoke against the grace of God),

he expressed most plainly that "what he meant by the grace of God was this, that our nature, when it was created, received the possibility of not sinning, since it was created with free choice": on account of this book, then, I—and very many brothers on account of his disputations, which they say are most familiar to them—are still anxious about the ambiguity of these words of his, lest perhaps something lie hidden in them, and he afterward explain to his disciples that he had said this without prejudice to his own teaching, arguing thus: "I did indeed say that a man can by his own labor and the grace of God be without sin; but what grace I mean you know very well, and by reading you can recall, that it is that grace in which we were created by God with free choice."

And thus, while the bishops believe that he meant the grace not by which we men are created, but by which we are adopted into a new creature (for it is this grace that the divine Scripture most plainly commends), being unaware that he was a heretic, they acquitted him as a catholic.

For this too makes me suspicious: that whereas in the same book to which I replied he had said most plainly, "Abel the righteous never sinned at all," he now says, "We did not, however, say that anyone is found, from infancy to old age, who has never sinned; but that, having turned from his sins, he can by his own labor and the grace of God be without sin." For he said that Abel the righteous was made without sin, not as one turned from his sins in the rest of his life, but "in that he never committed any sin." Hence, if that book is his, it must surely be corrected on the basis of this very answer. For I do not wish to say that he has now lied, lest perhaps he say that he had forgotten what he wrote in that book.

Accordingly, let us look at the rest. For there follow in the ecclesiastical proceedings the matters by which, with the Lord's help, we can show that, even though Pelagius—as it seems to some—was cleared in that examination, and certainly was acquitted before judges who were after all only men, this heresy of such a kind, which we would not have go further or advance for the worse, was without doubt condemned.

11. 23. For there follow these charges against Pelagius, which are reported to have been found in the teaching of Caelestius, his disciple: "That Adam was made mortal, who would have died whether he sinned or did not sin. That Adam's sin harmed himself alone, and not the human race. That the Law sends to the kingdom just as the Gospel does. That before the coming of Christ there were men without sin. That newly born infants are in the state in which Adam was before his transgression. That neither does the whole human race die through the death or transgression of Adam, nor does the whole human race rise again through the resurrection of Christ." These were so charged that they were said to have been heard and condemned even at Carthage by your Holiness and by other bishops with you. There indeed, as you recall, I myself was not present; but afterward, when I had come to Carthage, I went over those same proceedings, of which I remember some things—but I do not know whether all these are contained in them. Yet what does it matter whether perhaps some of these were not recorded there, and therefore not condemned, when it is agreed that they are to be condemned?

Then certain other chapters too were charged, with a mention of my name interposed, which had been sent to me from Sicily, when the catholic brothers there were troubled by questions of this kind; to which, through a book written to Hilary—who had sent them to me, consulting me about them in his letter (See Hilary, Ep. 156 (among Augustine's letters): NBA 22, 580)—I replied, as it seems to me, sufficiently enough. These are they: "That a man can, if he wills, be without sin. That infants, even if they are not baptized, have eternal life. That baptized rich men, unless they renounce all things, even if they seem to do some good, it is not reckoned to them, nor can they have the kingdom of God."

11. 24. To these charges against him, as the proceedings attest, Pelagius answered thus: "As to a man's being able to be without sin," he says, "it has been said above; but as to there having been men without sin before the coming of the Lord, we too say that before the coming of Christ certain men lived holily and justly, according to the tradition of the holy Scriptures. But the rest, even according to their own testimony, were not said by me, and for them I ought not to make satisfaction; nevertheless, for the satisfaction of the holy synod, I anathematize those who hold them so, or have ever held them." After this answer of his, the synod said: "To these aforesaid chapters Pelagius here present has made satisfaction sufficiently and rightly, anathematizing the things that were not his."

We see, then, and we hold, that not only by Pelagius but also by the holy bishops who presided over that judgment the most pernicious evils of this kind of heresy were condemned: "That Adam was made mortal"—and so that it might be more fully explained in what sense it was said, there was added, "who would have died whether he sinned or did not sin. That his sin harmed himself alone, and not the human race. That the Law sends to the kingdom just as the Gospel does. That newly born infants are in the state in which Adam was before his transgression. That neither does the whole human race 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 baptized rich men, unless they renounce all things, even if they seem to do some good, it is not reckoned to them, nor can they have the kingdom of God." All these things, certainly, it is agreed were condemned by that ecclesiastical judgment, Pelagius anathematizing them and the bishops giving their verdict (See De gr. Chr. et de p. o. 2, 11, 12 ff).

11. 25. But while these questions, and the most contentious assertions of these opinions, were now everywhere boiling, the weakness of many brothers was being disturbed. Hence we were compelled, by the solicitude of love which it is fitting for us to have toward the Church of Christ through the grace of Christ, to write—even to Marcellinus of blessed memory, who daily endured those most troublesome disputants and consulted me by letter—about some of these questions, and especially about the baptism of little ones. About which also afterward, at your bidding, in the basilica of the Ancestors, carrying too in my hands a letter of the most glorious martyr Cyprian (See Cyprian, Ep. ad Fid), and reciting and treating his words on this matter, so that this wicked error might be removed from the hearts of certain people, to whom the things we see condemned in these proceedings had been urged as persuasive, I labored, aided by your prayers, as much as I could. These are the things that certain people, holding such views, were trying so to persuade some brothers of, that they made threats from the eastern Churches, that those who did not hold these things could be condemned by their judgment. Behold, fourteen prelates of the eastern Church, in that land in which the Lord displayed the presence of his incarnation, would not have acquitted Pelagius unless he condemned these things as opposed to the catholic faith. Hence, if he was acquitted for the reason that he anathematized such things, then without doubt those things were condemned: which will appear much more abundantly and clearly in what follows.

11. 26. Hence let us now look at those two things which Pelagius was unwilling to anathematize, because he recognized them as his own; but, to remove what gave offense in them, he explained how he understood them. "That a man can be without sin," he says, "has been said above." Said indeed, and we remember it; but it was mitigated and approved by the judges for this reason, that the grace of God was added, which in those chapters was passed over in silence. But as to how he answered concerning this other point, it must be looked at more carefully. "As to that," he says, "that there were men without sin before the coming of the Lord, we too say that before the coming of Christ certain men lived holily and justly, according to the tradition of the holy Scriptures."

He did not dare to say: We too say that before the coming of Christ there were men without sin—when this had been charged against him from the sayings of Caelestius; for he felt how dangerous and troublesome it was. But he said, "We too say that before the coming of Christ certain men lived holily and justly." Who would deny this? But this is one thing, and to have been without sin is another; for those too lived holily and justly who nevertheless said truly: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). And today many live justly and holily, and yet do not lie in prayer when they say: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt 6:12). This, then, pleased the judges, in the way Pelagius asserted that he himself meant it, not in the way Caelestius was charged with having said it. Now let us treat, as we can, of what remains.

12. 27. It was charged against Pelagius that he said, "The Church here is without spot or wrinkle." On which point the Donatists too had a long conflict with us in our Conference (See Breviculus collationis cum Donatistis); but we pressed them rather about the mingling of evil men, like chaff with the grain, on account of the likeness of the threshing floor—by which likeness we can answer these people too, unless perhaps they would have the Church understood to consist only of the good, whom they assert to have no sin at all, so that the Church can be here without spot or wrinkle. But if it is so, I repeat the same things I mentioned a little before: 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 (1 John 1:8); or how will the Church pray what the Lord taught it: Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12)—if in this world the Church is without spot or wrinkle? Finally, they themselves are to be questioned about themselves, whether or not they confess that they have any sins. And if they will deny it, it must be said to them that they deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them. But if they will confess that they have sin, what else will they confess but their own wrinkle or spot? These, then, are not members of the Church; for the Church is without spot or wrinkle, but these are with spot and wrinkle.

12. 28. But to this charge he answered with vigilant circumspection, which the catholic judges without doubt approved. "It was said by us," he says, "but in this way, that the Church is purged by the washing from every spot and wrinkle, and that the Lord wills it to remain so." To which the synod said: "This pleases us too." For who 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 too, and what is to be, that the Church may remain without spot or wrinkle? Since indeed this is now being brought about by the mercy and truth of God, that the holy Church may be led to that perfection where it will remain without spot or wrinkle forever.

But between the washing, where all past spots and wrinkles are taken away, and the kingdom, where the Church will remain forever without spot or wrinkle, there is this middle time of prayer, where it is necessary that it say: Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12). For this reason it was charged that they say "the Church here is without spot or wrinkle": namely, whether by this opinion they dared to forbid the prayer by which the already baptized Church, day and night, asks for itself the pardon of sins.

About this middle time, between the forgiveness of sins that takes place in the washing and the abiding without sins that is to be in the kingdom, nothing was done with Pelagius, nothing pronounced by the bishops; but only this, which he thought he should briefly indicate, 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 way," what did he wish to be seen, except that it was not in the way he was believed by those who had charged it to have said? Yet what the judges had in view, in saying that this pleased them—that is, baptism, by which it is washed from sins, and the kingdom, where the holy Church, which is now being cleansed, will remain without sins—appears, as I judge, plainly enough.

13. 29. Then charges were made from the book of Caelestius—what each chapter contains, according to the sense rather than the words; which he indeed treats more at length, but those who presented the petition against Pelagius said that they were unable at the time to set down everything. So in the first chapter of the book of Caelestius they alleged this to be written: "That we do more than is commanded in the Law and the Gospel." To which Pelagius answered: "They set this down as though it were ours; but it was said by us, according to the Apostle, concerning virginity, of which Paul says: I have no commandment of the Lord (1 Cor 7:25)." The synod said: "This too the Church receives."

I have read in what sense Caelestius set this down in his book—if indeed he does not deny that it is his. For he said this in order, namely, to persuade that we have so great a possibility of not sinning through the nature of free choice that we do even more than is commanded, since perpetual virginity, which is not commanded, is kept by very many, whereas to fulfill the commandments suffices for not sinning.

But what was answered by Pelagius, for the judges to approve, they did not so understand as though those who keep virginity, which is not commanded, over and above keep all the precepts of the Law and the Gospel; but only to this extent, that virginity, which is not commanded, is more than conjugal chastity, which is commanded, and to keep the former is certainly more than to keep the latter—since, however, neither of them is had without the grace of God; for the Apostle, speaking of this matter, says: I wish that all men were as I myself; but each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that (1 Cor 7:7). 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, it is not expedient to take a wife—he said: Not all receive this word, but those to whom it is given (Matt 19:10-11). This, then, the bishops pronounced that the Church receives: that perpetual 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.

14. 30. From here now there are charged against Pelagius other capital chapters of Caelestius, to be condemned without hesitation, which, had he not anathematized them, he would without doubt have been condemned together with them. That Caelestius wrote in his third chapter: "That the grace of God and his help are not given for individual acts, but consist 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 gives it to sinners, he would seem to be unjust" (See Aug., Contra Iul. 3, 21, 48; Opus imp. c. Iul. 1, 133-135; 2, 166); and that by these words he had inferred: "Therefore grace itself too is placed in my will, whether I be worthy or unworthy. For if we do all things by 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 either could not or would not keep us at all." To these Pelagius answered: "Whether these are Caelestius's, let those see to it who say they are Caelestius's; I, however, never held them so, but I anathematize whoever holds them so." The synod said: "The holy synod receives you, condemning the wicked words thus."

Concerning all these things, certainly, there is both the plain answer of Pelagius anathematizing them and the most absolute verdict of the bishops condemning them. Whether Pelagius, or Caelestius, or both, or neither of them, or others, whether with them or under their name, held these views, or still hold them, may be doubtful or hidden; yet this has been declared plainly enough by this judgment: that they are condemned, and that Pelagius too would have been condemned, had he not also condemned these things himself. Now certainly, after this judgment, when we dispute against opinions of this kind, we dispute against a condemned heresy.

14. 31. I will say something more cheerful too. Earlier I was afraid, when Pelagius said that a man can, with the help of the grace of God, be without sin, lest perhaps he should mean by that same grace the possibility of a nature created by God with free choice—as it is in that book which I received as his (Pelagius, De natura), and to which I replied—and in that way deceive the judges, who did not know it. But now, when he anathematizes those who say that the grace of God and his help are not given for individual acts, but consist in free choice, or in the law and teaching, it appears clearly enough that he means that grace which is preached in the Church of Christ, which is given by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, so that we may be helped in our individual acts—whence we always pray for timely help, that we may not be led into temptation (See Matt 6:13). Nor do I now fear that perhaps, where he said, No one can be without sin unless he has knowledge of the law, and so explained it that he placed the help toward not sinning in knowledge of the law, he wishes that same knowledge of the law to be understood as the grace of God.

Behold, he anathematizes those who hold this; behold, he wishes neither the nature of free choice, nor the law and teaching, to be understood as the grace by which we are helped through individual acts. What then remains, except that he understand the grace which the Apostle says is given by the ministry of the Holy Spirit (See Phil 1:19)—of which the Lord says: Do not be anxious how or what you are to speak; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you (Matt 10:19-20)?

Nor is it to be feared that perhaps, where he said, All are governed by their own will, and explained that he had said this on account of free choice, to which God is a helper when one chooses good things, he meant even here the help to be through the nature of free choice and through the teaching of the law.

For since he rightly anathematized those who say that the grace of God and his help are not given for individual acts, but consist in free choice, or in the law and teaching, surely the grace of God, or his help, is given for individual acts, apart from free choice, or the law and teaching; and through this we are governed by God in our individual acts when we act rightly; nor do we say in vain, when we pray: Direct my ways according to your word, and let no iniquity rule over me (Ps 119:133 (118:133)).

14. 32. But what follows these things makes me anxious again. For when, from the fifth chapter of the book of Caelestius, it had been charged against him that "they affirm that each man can have all virtues and graces, and take away the diversity of graces which the Apostle teaches": Pelagius answered, "It was said by us, but they have reproved it malignly and unskillfully. For we do not take away the diversity of graces; but we say that God gives all graces to him who is worthy to receive them, as he gave to the apostle Paul." To this the synod said: "Consistently and with an ecclesiastical sense you too have thought concerning the gift of graces which are contained in the holy Apostle." Here someone will say: What, then, makes you anxious? Will you deny that all virtues and graces were in the Apostle? I, indeed, if all those are meant which the Apostle himself recalled in one particular place—which I judge the bishops too understood, so as to approve this and pronounce it "said with an ecclesiastical sense"—do not doubt that the apostle Paul had them. For he says: And God has placed some in the Church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then powers, then gifts of healings, helps, governings, kinds of tongues (1 Cor 12:28). What then? Shall we say that the apostle Paul did not have all these? Who would dare say this? For by the very fact that he was an apostle, he certainly had the apostolate.

But he had prophecy too. Or is this not prophecy of his? For the Spirit manifestly says that in the last times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, to doctrines of demons (1 Tim 4:1), and the rest? He was also a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth (1 Tim 2:7); and he worked powers and healings; for he shook off the biting viper from his hand unharmed, and the paralytic, his health at once restored, rose at his word. What he means by "helps" is obscure, since the force of this word extends widely (See Acts 28:3; 14:10); yet who would say that this grace too was lacking to him, by whose labor it is so clear that the salvation of men was aided? And what more illustrious than his governing, when both through him the Lord then governed so many Churches, and through his Letters governs them now? As for kinds of tongues, how could these have been lacking to him, when he himself says: I thank God that I speak with tongues more than all of you (1 Cor 14:18)?

Since, then, it must be believed that none of all these was lacking to the apostle Paul, for that reason the judges approved the answer of Pelagius, who said that "all graces were given to him." But there are other graces too, which are not here recalled. For although the apostle Paul was a most excellent member of the body of Christ, he did not receive any more and ampler graces than the very head of the whole body, whether in the flesh or in the soul of the man whom the Word of God assumed as his own creature into the unity of his person, so that he might be our head and we might be his body.

And in truth, if all things could be in individuals, the likeness given for this matter from the members of our body would seem to be given in vain. For there are some things common to all the members, such as health, such as life; but there are others proper to individuals too, whence neither does the ear perceive colors nor the eye sounds; on account of which it is said: If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? (1 Cor 12:17) This indeed is not said as though it were impossible for God to grant both to the ears the sense of seeing and to the eyes the sense of hearing.

Yet what the Apostle was doing in the body of Christ, which is the Church (See Col 1:18), and what diversity of Churches—as it were through diverse members, so that there might be gifts proper to individuals too—he signified, is certain. Therefore both the reason why those who made that charge were unwilling that the distinction of graces be taken away, and the reason why the bishops, on account of the apostle Paul, in whom we recognize all the gifts that he recalled in one place, were able to approve what Pelagius answered, is now clear.

14. 33. What is it, then, on account of which I said beforehand that I had been made anxious about this chapter? This, namely, that Pelagius says, "God gives all graces to him who is worthy to receive them, as he gave to the apostle Paul." I would be in no way anxious about this answer of his, except as it touches this cause, the care of which is to be borne most of all: namely, lest the grace of God, while we keep silent and pass over so great an evil, be assailed. Since, then, he does not say: God gives to whom he wills, but says, "God gives all graces to him who is worthy to receive them," I could not, when I read it, fail to be suspicious. For the very name of grace, and the understanding of that name, is taken away if it is not given freely, but is received by one who is worthy.

Or will someone perhaps say that I do an injury to the Apostle, because I do not say that he was worthy of grace? On the contrary, I then do both an injury to him and a punishment to myself, if I do not believe what he himself says. Or did he not so define grace as to show that it is so called from being given freely? Surely he himself said: But if by grace, then no longer from works; otherwise grace is no longer grace (Rom 11:6). Whence likewise he said: But to him who works, the wage is not reckoned according to grace, but according to debt (Rom 4:4). Whoever, then, is worthy, it is a debt to him; but if it is a debt, it is not grace; for grace is given, a debt is repaid. Grace, therefore, is given to the unworthy, that a debt may be repaid to the worthy; but he himself brings it about that they have whatever he will repay to the worthy—he who gave to the unworthy the things they did not have.

14. 34. Perhaps he will say this: I said the Apostle was worthy, to whom those so great graces should be given, not from works, but from faith; for it was not works, which he did not previously have as good ones, but nevertheless his faith that merited this. For do we think that faith does not work? On the contrary, that faith truly works which works through love (Gal 5:6). But however much the works of unbelievers may be praised, we know the opinion of this same Apostle to be true and unconquerable: Everything that is not from faith is sin (Rom 14:23). But the reason he often says that righteousness is reckoned to us not from works but from faith, when rather faith works through love, is lest anyone suppose that one arrives at faith itself through 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 too it is said to the Church in the Song of Songs: You will come, and you will pass over from the beginning of faith (Song 4:8 (sec. LXX)).

Therefore, although faith obtains the grace of working well, certainly that we might have faith itself we merited by no faith; but in its being given to us—the faith in which we might follow the Lord—his mercy went before us (See Ps 59:11 (58:11)). Or did we give it to ourselves, and make ourselves believers? Plainly here too I will cry out: He made us, and not we ourselves (Ps 100:3 (99:3)). But the apostolic teaching commends nothing else, where it says: But I say, through the grace of God that has been given to me, to all who are among you, not to be wise beyond what one ought to be wise, but to be wise unto moderation, as God has apportioned to each the measure of faith (Rom 12:3). For from this too is that saying: For what do you have that you did not receive? (1 Cor 4:7) Since we have received this too, from which begins whatever good we have in our acts.

14. 35. What is it, then, that the same Apostle says: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there remains for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the just judge, will repay to me on that day (2 Tim 4:7-8)—if these things are not repaid to the worthy, but given to the unworthy?

Whoever says this considers too little that the crown could not have been repaid to the worthy, unless grace had been given to the unworthy. For he says: I have fought the good fight (2 Tim 4:7); but he himself also says: Thanks be to God, who gave us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:57). He says: I have finished the course; but he himself also says: It is not of the one who wills, nor of the one who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom 9:16).

He says: I have kept the faith; but he himself also says: For I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to keep my deposit until that day (2 Tim 1:12)—that is, what I have entrusted; for some manuscripts do not have deposit, but, what is plainer, what is entrusted.

But what do we entrust to God, except the things we pray that he keep, among which is also our faith itself? For what else did the Lord entrust to the apostle Peter by praying, whence he says to him: I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith may not fail (Luke 22:32)—except that God keep his faith, lest it fail by yielding to temptation? Wherefore, O blessed Paul, great preacher of grace, I will say, and I will not fear (for who will be less angry with me for saying these things than you, who said the things to be said and taught the things to be taught?)—I will say, I say, and I will not fear: your crown is indeed repaid to your merits, but your merits are the gifts of God.

14. 36. The due reward, therefore, is repaid to the worthy Apostle; but grace granted the apostolate itself, which was not due, to the unworthy. Or will I regret having said this? God forbid; for by his testimony I will be defended against this odium, nor will anyone 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 the gifts of God in himself, and to glory not in himself but in the Lord (See 1 Cor 1:31), says not only that he had no good merits to become an apostle, but even tells of his evil merits, in order to manifest and proclaim the grace of God. I am not, he says, fit to be called an apostle (1 Cor 15:9)—which is nothing other than: I am not worthy; for very many Latin manuscripts have this. This is surely what we are seeking: for in this gift of the apostolate all those graces are contained. For it was not fitting or proper that an apostle should not have prophecy, or not be a teacher, or not be renowned for powers and gifts of healings, or not furnish helps, or not govern Churches, or not excel in kinds of tongues. The one name of apostolate embraces all these.

Let us therefore consult him; let us rather hear him; let us say to him: Holy apostle Paul, Pelagius the monk says that you were worthy to receive all the graces of your apostolate; what do you yourself say? I am not, he says, worthy to be called an apostle? So then, in order to show honor to Paul, shall I dare to believe Pelagius about Paul rather than Paul? I will not do it; for I will rather burden myself than honor him, if I do. Let us hear too why he is not worthy to be called an apostle: Because I persecuted, he says, the Church of God (1 Cor 15:9). If we followed sense, who would not judge that this man should be condemned by Christ rather than called? Who would so love a preacher as not to detest a persecutor? Most excellently, then, and truly: I am not, he says, worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. Doing, then, so much evil, whence did you merit so much good?

Let all the nations hear him answering: But by the grace of God I am what I am (1 Cor 15:10). Is grace commended in any other way than because it is given to the unworthy? And his grace, he says, was not empty in me (1 Cor 15:10). This he commands to others too, in order to show also the choice of the will, where he says: But, exhorting, we also entreat you not to receive the grace of God in vain (2 Cor 6:1). But whence does he prove that his grace was not empty in him, except from what follows: But I labored more than all of them (1 Cor 15:10)?

Accordingly, he did not labor in order to receive grace, but received it in order to labor; and thus, the source from which he became worthy to receive the due rewards—grace—he, the unworthy, received freely. Nor indeed did he dare to arrogate to himself that very labor; for when he had said, I labored more than all of them, he at once added: Not I, but the grace of God with me (1 Cor 15:10). O great teacher, confessor, preacher of grace! What is this: I labored more, not I? Where the will exalted itself a little, there at once devotion was vigilant, and humility trembled, because weakness recognized itself.

14. 37. Rightly, as the proceedings indicate, the holy John, prelate of the Church of Jerusalem (See Orosius, Liber apologeticus 3, 6-4, 1), used this testimony too, as he himself related to our fellow bishops, who presided together in that judgment, when he was asked what had been done before him prior to the judgment. For he says that then, when certain people were whispering and saying that Pelagius said "a man can be perfected without the grace of God"—that is, what he had said above, "a man can be without sin"—: "Blaming them on this point," he says, "I also brought forward that the apostle Paul too, laboring much, yet 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 (1 Cor 15:10); and again: It is not of the one who wills, nor of the one who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom 9:16); and that: Unless the Lord builds the house, they who build it have labored in vain (Ps 127:1 (126:1)); and many other similar things," he says, "we said from the holy Scriptures. But when they did not accept what was said by us from the holy Scriptures, but were still whispering, Pelagius said: I too believe so; let him be anathema who says that without the help of God a man can come to the perfection of all virtues."

15. 38. These things the bishop John related, with Pelagius listening, who certainly could have said respectfully: Your Holiness is mistaken, you do not remember well; I did not say in response to those testimonies which you recalled from the Scriptures, "I too believe so"—since I do not so understand them, that the grace of God so labors with a man that his not sinning is not of the one who wills, nor of the one who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom 9:16).

16. 39. For there are certain expositions of the Letter of Paul which is written to the Romans, which are said to be Pelagius's own (See M. Mercator, Common. adv. haer. Pelagii et Cael), where he asserts that what is written, It is not of the one who wills, nor of the one who runs, but of God who shows mercy, was "not said in the person of Paul, but that he used the voice of one questioning and refuting, when he said this, as though this surely ought not to be said." Not, then, when the bishop John plainly recognized this opinion to be the Apostle's, and for that reason recalled it, lest Pelagius should think that anyone is without sin apart from the grace of God, and said that Pelagius answered, "I too believe so"; nor, when he heard this in his presence, did he answer: I do not believe so. He must therefore either deny that that perverse exposition is his, where he wished it to be understood that the Apostle did not hold this view but rather refuted it, or not hesitate to correct and amend it.

For whatever the bishop John said about our absent brothers—whether about the fellow bishops Heros and Lazarus, or about the presbyter Orosius (See Orosius, Liber apologeticus 6, 1), or about others whose names are not given there—I believe that he understands it does not avail to their prejudice. For if they were present, they could perhaps—far be it from me to say convict him of a lie—but perhaps recall what he had forgotten, or in what the Latin interpreter had deceived him, even if not from a zeal for lying, certainly from some difficulty of a foreign language too little understood; especially since it was not being conducted in formal records, which are usefully instituted so that the wicked may not lie and the good may not forget anything. But if anyone brings any question against our aforementioned brothers from this, and calls them to an episcopal judgment, they will be present for themselves as they can; what need is there for us to labor here, when not even the judges themselves, after the narration of our fellow bishop, wished to pronounce anything about it?

17. 40. Since, then, Pelagius, present, silently acknowledged that he believed thus in response to those testimonies of the Scriptures, how, recalling a little before that testimony of the Apostle, and finding that he 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 (1 Cor 15:9-10), did he not see that he ought not to have said, when it was a matter of the abundance of graces which the same Apostle received, that "he was worthy to receive them"—when he himself not only said, but, giving another reason as well, proved that he was unworthy, and by that very thing commended grace as truly grace? But if perhaps he could not think of or remember that which had long ago been related by the holy John, let him look at his own most recent answer, and notice the things charged against him from Caelestius which he anathematized a little before. For surely among those is what was charged—that Caelestius said, "The grace of God is given according to our merits."

If, then, Pelagius truly anathematized this, what is it that he says—that all graces were given to the Apostle according to merit? Or is it one thing to be worthy to receive, another to receive according to merit? And can one show, by some subtlety of argument, that someone is worthy but does not merit? Yet Caelestius, or whoever else it was, all of whose foregoing opinions he anathematized, does not permit him to spread mists over this word too and hide in them. For he presses and says: "And grace itself too is placed in my will, whether I be worthy or unworthy." If, then, this was rightly and truly condemned by Pelagius, where it is said, "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 says, "We say that God gives all graces to him who is worthy to receive them"? Who, if he notices these things carefully, would not become anxious about his answer or defense?

17. 41. Why, then, says someone, did the judges approve this? I confess that for this reason I am now myself in doubt; but no doubt either the brief saying easily escaped their hearing and attention, or, thinking that it could in some way be rightly understood—since they seemed to themselves to have clear confessions of his on this matter—they thought no controversy should be raised with him over practically a single word. Which perhaps would have happened to us too, had we sat with them in that judgment. For if, in place of what was set down, "worthy," there had been set down "predestined," or something of the kind, certainly no scruple would touch and increase the mind; and yet, if it is said that he who is justified through the election of grace, with no preceding good merits but by appointment, is called worthy, just as he is called elect, it is judged difficult whether this can be said either at all, or at least with the least offense to the understanding.

For as far as I am concerned, I would easily pass over this word, except that that book to which I replied—where he says there is no grace of God at all, except our nature with free choice, a created grace—makes me anxious about the very meaning of Pelagius, lest perhaps he took care to insert this word not from carelessness of expression, but from carefulness of teaching. Now the things that remain, the very last, so moved the judges that they judged them to be condemned even before the answer of Pelagius.

18. 42. For it was charged that in the sixth chapter of the book of Caelestius there was set down, "That they cannot be called sons of God unless they have been made in every way without sin." Whence, according to him, it was said that not even the apostle Paul is a son of God, who said: Not that I have already obtained, or that I am already made perfect (Phil 3:12). 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." Whereas David says: Remember not the sins of my youth and my ignorances (Ps 25:7 (24:7)); and whereas in the law sacrifices are offered for ignorance as for sin (See Lev 4:2-3. 13-14. 22-23. 27-28). In the tenth chapter, "That there is no free choice, if it needs the help of God, since each one 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 the help of God, but from free choice": which he is said to have inferred in these words, "Ours is the victory, since by our own will we took up arms; just as, on the contrary, ours it is when we are overcome, since by our own will we scorned to be armed." And concerning the apostle Peter he set down the testimony, "That we are partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4)." And he is said to make a syllogism: "Since, if the soul cannot be without sin, then God too is subject to sin, since a part of him—that is, the soul—is liable to sin." In the thirteenth chapter he says, "That pardon is given to the penitent not according to the grace and mercy of God, but according to the merits and labor of those who through penitence have been worthy of mercy."

19. 43. When these had been read out, the synod said: "What does Pelagius the monk, here present, say to these chapters that have been read? For this the holy synod, and the holy catholic Church of God, reprove." Pelagius answered: "Again I say that these things, even according to their own testimony, are not mine; for which, as I said, I owe no satisfaction. But the things I have confessed to be mine, these I affirm to be right; and the things I have said are not mine, I reprove according to the judgment of the holy Church, pronouncing anathema on everyone who contravenes and contradicts the teachings of the holy catholic Church. For I believe in a Trinity of one substance, and all things according to the teaching of the holy catholic Church; but if anyone holds views foreign to this, let him be anathema."

20. 44. The synod said: "Now, since satisfaction has been made to us by the statements of Pelagius the monk here present, who indeed consents to the devout teachings and reproves and anathematizes those contrary to the faith of the Church, we confess that he is of the ecclesiastical and catholic communion."

21. 45. If these are the proceedings in which the friends of Pelagius rejoice that he was cleared: we, since he took care to prove well enough his friendship toward us too—even bringing forward our familiar letters and reciting them in this judgment, which the proceedings contain inserted—desire and wish indeed his salvation in Christ; but over this clearing of his, which is believed rather than clearly demonstrated, we ought not rashly to rejoice. Nor in saying this do I accuse the judges either of negligence, or of connivance, or—what it is most certain is far from them—of complicity in impious teachings; but, their judgment being approved and praised according to its merit, Pelagius nevertheless does not seem to me to be cleared in the eyes of those to whom he is more fully and more certainly known. For they, judging as it were about an unknown man—especially in the absence of those who had presented the petition against him—were by no means able to examine the man more carefully; yet they utterly destroyed the heresy itself, if those who were contending for his perversity follow their judgment. But those who well know what Pelagius was accustomed to teach—whether those who resisted his disputations, or those who rejoice that they have been freed from that error—how can they not hold him suspect, when they read not his simple confession condemning past errors, but such a confession as if he had never thought otherwise than what was approved in his answers in that judgment?

22. 46. For, to speak above all of myself: I first came to know the name of Pelagius, while he was absent and established at Rome, with great praise of him. Afterward report began to bring us word that he was disputing against the grace of God; and although I grieved at this, and it was told me by those whom I believed, I nevertheless desired to know something of the kind from himself, or in some book of his, so that, if I began to refute it, he could not deny it. But after he came to Africa, in my absence, he was received on our coast—that is, the coast of Hippo—where, as I have learned from our people, nothing of this kind was heard from him at all; for he set off from there sooner than was expected. Later I saw his face at Carthage, as I recall, once or twice, when I was most occupied with the care of the Conference we were about to hold with the Donatist heretics; but he hastened off even to lands beyond the sea. Meanwhile these teachings were boiling through the mouths of those who were reported to be his disciples; so much so that Caelestius came before an ecclesiastical judgment and carried back a sentence worthy of his perversity. We thought it more wholesome, however, to act against them in such a way that, with the names of the men kept silent, the errors themselves should be refuted and confuted, and that men should thus be corrected rather by the fear of an ecclesiastical judgment than punished by the judgment itself. And so we did not cease either to argue against those evils in books, or to do so in sermons to the people.

23. 47. But when that book too was given me by servants of God, good and honorable men, Timasius and James—where Pelagius, having raised against himself, as though from an adversary, the question of the grace of God under which he was already laboring with great odium, seemed to resolve it for himself in no other way than by saying that nature created with free choice is the grace of God; sometimes, and that thinly 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 without any doubt how great a poison, hostile to Christian salvation, that perversity was. Yet not even so did I insert the name of Pelagius into the work by which I refuted that same book, thinking that I would more easily be of use if, friendship being preserved, I still spared his modesty, while I ought no longer to spare his writings.

Hence it is that I now take it ill that in this judgment he said in a certain place, "I anathematize those who hold these things so, or have ever held them." It would have sufficed to say, "who hold these things so," so that we might believe him to have been corrected; but when he added, "or have ever held them": first, how unjustly did he dare to condemn the undeserving, who were not free of that error which they had learned either from others or from him their teacher? Then, who of those who know that he not only once held these things but even taught them would not, not without reason, suspect that he had pretended to anathematize those who hold these things, when he did not hesitate to anathematize in the same way those who once held them, among whom they will remember him their very master? Behold, to be silent about others, with what eyes, with what brow, will he look upon Timasius and James, both his admirers and once his disciples, to whom I wrote the book in which I replied to his book? And since, indeed, I did not think it should be kept silent and passed over how they wrote back to me, I have appended below a copy of their letter (See Ep. 168: NBA 22, 782 f).

24. 48. "To the lord truly most blessed and deservedly venerable father, bishop Augustine, Timasius and James, greeting in the Lord. The grace of God, ministered through your word, has so refreshed and restored us that we say quite genuinely: He sent his word, and healed them (Ps 107:20 (106:20)), most blessed lord and deservedly venerable father. Indeed, we find that your Holiness has sifted the text of that same little book with such diligence that we are astonished at the answers rendered to each point—whether in those things which it befits a Christian to refute, detest, and flee, or in those in which he is not found to have erred enough; although, by I know not what cunning, in these too he thought the grace of God should be suppressed.

But there is one thing that affects us in so great a benefit: that this so illustrious gift of the grace of God shone forth late. For it happened that some became absent to whom this illumination of so manifest a truth was owed in their blindness; to whom, even if more slowly, we do not doubt, by God's favor, that the same grace will come, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4). But we, even if long ago, taught by the spirit of love which is in you, cast off our subjection to that error, even now give thanks in this too, that what we believed before we have now learned to open to others, your Holiness's more abundant discourse spreading open the way of ease. And in another hand: May the mercy of our God glorify your Blessedness, safe and mindful of us, forever."

Timasius and James desired that Pelagius be freed from his error.

25. 49. If, then, this man too were to confess that he had once been in this error, as a man caught off guard, but that he now anathematizes those who hold these things: whoever did not rejoice with him, now that he was holding the way of truth, would himself lose the bowels of love. But as it is, it is not enough that he did not confess himself freed from that pestilence, but he moreover anathematized those who have been freed, who love him so much that they desire that he too be freed;

among whom are these too, who signified their goodwill toward him in this letter of theirs given to me. For surely they were thinking especially of him, when they said that they were affected by this, that I wrote that book late? "For it happened," they say, "that some became absent to whom this illumination of so manifest a truth was owed in their blindness; to whom, even if more slowly," they say, "we do not doubt, by God's favor, that the same grace will come." For they too thought that the name, or names, should still be kept silent, so that, friendship living, the error of their friends might rather die.

Would that Pelagius might gain the true victory!

25. 50. But now, if Pelagius thinks of God, if he is not ungrateful for the mercy of him who brought him to the judgment of the bishops for this very reason—that he might not afterward dare to defend these anathematized opinions, and might now recognize them as to be detested and cast off—he will receive our letter more gladly, when, with his name expressed, we rather open the sore to be healed, than that letter where, while we feared to cause pain, we were increasing the swelling, which we now regret.

But if he is angry with me, let him consider how unjustly he is angry, and, in order to conquer his anger, let him at last at some time ask for the grace of God, which in this judgment he confessed to be necessary for our individual acts, so that, with his help, he may gain the true victory. For what do those so great praises of him in the letters of bishops profit him—the praises he thought should be recalled for himself, and even read and adduced—as though 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?

26. 51. And I, indeed, in my letter, which he brought forward, not only refrained from praising him, but even, as far as I could without stirring up the question with him, admonished him to think rightly about the grace of God. For in the salutation I called him "lord": which, in the manner of letters, we are accustomed to write even to certain non-Christians; nor did I do so falsely, since to all, for the gaining of the salvation that is in Christ, we owe in some way a free servitude. I called him most beloved: which I say even now, and, even if he is angry, I will still say it; for unless I keep love toward him, while he is angry, I will harm myself more. I called him most longed-for; for I greatly desired to converse with him, were he present, about something: for I had already heard that, against the grace by which we are justified, whenever any mention was made of it here, he tried with open contention to argue.

In short, the brief text of the letter itself shows this: for when I had given thanks that he had cheered me with his writings, making me certain of the salvation of himself and his people—whom, if we want them corrected, we ought certainly to want safe in bodily health too—I soon wished good things to be repaid him by the Lord, not things pertaining to the health of the body, but rather those which he thought were placed, or perhaps still thinks are placed, in the choice of the will alone and in one's own power; wishing for this reason eternal life as well. Then, because in his letter, to which I was replying, he had praised in me, very kindly, certain such good things, there too I asked him to pray for me, so that I might rather be made by the Lord such as he already believed me to be: so that, while I thus admonished him, against what he held, that the very righteousness which he had thought praiseworthy in me is also not of the one who wills, nor of the one who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom 9:16). This is the whole of what that brief letter of mine contains, and it was dictated with that intention; for it runs thus:

27-28. 52. "To the most beloved lord and most longed-for brother Pelagius, Augustine, greeting in the Lord. I give very many thanks that you deigned to cheer me with your letter and to make me certain of your salvation. May the Lord repay you good things, by which you may always be good, and may you live forever with him who is eternal, most beloved lord and most longed-for brother. But I, even if I do not recognize in myself the commendations of me which your Kindness's letter contains, nevertheless, toward your kindly disposition to my littleness, I cannot be ungrateful; admonishing at the same time that you rather pray for me, that I may be made by the Lord such as you already judge me to be. And in another hand: Mindful of us, may you, safe, please the Lord, most beloved lord and most longed-for brother."

29. 53. In the very subscription too, what I put—that he should please the Lord—I signified to be rather in his grace than in the will of man alone, since I neither exhorted, nor commanded, nor taught this, but wished it. And just as, if I were exhorting, or commanding, or teaching, I would show this to pertain also to free choice, yet would not detract from the grace of God: so, because I wished it, I commended indeed the grace of God, yet did not extinguish the choice of the will. Why, then, did he bring forward this letter in this judgment? According to which, if he had thought rightly from the beginning, perhaps he would in no way have been called to an episcopal judgment, even though by good brothers, yet offended by the perversity of his disputations.

Moreover, just as I have given the reasoning for this letter of mine, so, if it were necessary, would those whose letters he adduced give the reasoning for theirs, saying either what they thought, or what they did not know, or for what reason they wrote. Accordingly, however much Pelagius may have boasted of the friendship of any saints, may have read letters of any of them about his own praises, may have brought forward any proceedings of his own clearing, unless he is proved by the trustworthy testimony of qualified witnesses to have set down in his books the things he set against the grace of God, by which we are called and justified, and unless, having confessed, he has anathematized them, and then has written and disputed against these very things, he will by no means seem, to those to whom he is more fully known, to be corrected.

30. 54. For now I will not be silent about the things that followed after this judgment, which increase this suspicion still more. There came into our hands a certain letter, said to be of Pelagius himself, writing to a certain friend of his, a presbyter, who, as the same letter relates, had kindly admonished 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 is not necessary, 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 wills. Which sentence," he says, "filled the mouth of contradiction with confusion, and separated from one another every fellowship conspiring for evil." Whether, then, Pelagius truly wrote this letter, or whether it was fabricated under his name by someone, who does not see how this error glories, even over the judgment in which it was convicted and condemned, as over a victory? For he set down these words just as they are read in his book which is called Chapters, not as they were charged in the judgment, or repeated even in his own answer. For those too who made the charge, by I know not what carelessness, set down too little of the word about which there is no small controversy. For they set down that he said: "A man can, if he wills, be without sin, and keep the commandments of God if he wills"; 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 wills": nor did he himself say, "easily keep," but only "keep."

So too in another place, among those matters about which Hilary consulted me, and to which I wrote back (Hilary, Ep. 156 (among Augustine's letters), and Aug., Ep. 157: NBA 22, 580-637), it was charged thus: "A man can be without sin, if he wills." To which he himself answered thus: "That a man can be without sin has been said above." Here too, then, neither by those who made the charge, nor by him who answered, was "easily" added. Above, also, in the narration of the holy bishop John it was recalled thus: "When they," he says, "were insisting and saying: For he is a heretic, since he says that a man can, if he wills, be without sin; and when we questioned him about this, he answered: I did not say that human nature is so constituted as to be incapable of sin; but I said that he who wills to labor and strive for his own salvation, so as not to sin and to walk in the precepts of God, has this possibility from God. Then, when certain people were whispering and saying that Pelagius said a man can be perfected without the grace of God: Blaming them on this point," he says, "I also brought forward that the apostle Paul too, laboring much, yet 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" (1 Cor 15:10): and the rest that I have already recalled.

30. 55. What, then, does it mean, that in this letter they dared to glory so as to boast that, with fourteen bishops judging, they had persuaded them not only of the possibility of not sinning, but even of the ease, as it is set down in the book of Chapters of this same Pelagius—when so often the same things, added to the proceedings and repeated, are found nowhere to contain this? For how is this word not contrary even to the defense and answer of Pelagius himself, since the bishop John too said that he had answered before him in such a way that "he wished it to be understood that one can avoid sin who wills to labor and strive for his salvation"; and he himself, now acting and defending himself in the proceedings, said that "by his own labor and the grace of God a man can be without sin"? How, then, is it done easily, if one labors that it may be done? For I think that all human sense recognizes with us that where there is labor, there is no ease.

And yet a letter of carnal windiness and elation flies about, and, procured by the slowness of the proceedings, flying ahead with speed, flits into the hands of men, so that it is said to have pleased the fourteen eastern bishops, not only "that a man can be without sin and keep the commandments of God," but also "easily keep" them; and with no mention of God's help, but only "if he wills": so that, namely, the divine grace—for which the most vehement fight was being waged—being passed over in silence, there remains, to be read alone in the letter, unhappy human pride, deceiving itself as though victorious. As though the bishop John had not said that he blamed this, and had cast down, with three strokes as it were of lightning of the divine testimonies, the as it were giant mountains built against the eminence of heavenly grace (See Eph 3:19); or as though the other bishop-judges too, along with him, would have borne, either in mind or in their very ears, Pelagius saying, "We did say that a man can be without sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wills," unless there immediately followed, "For God gave him this possibility" (which they did not know that he said of nature, not of that grace which they knew in the apostolic preaching); and then he joined, "We did not, however, say that anyone is found, from infancy to old age, who has never sinned; but that, having turned from his sins, he can by his own labor and the grace of God be without sin." Which they also declared by their sentence, saying that he had rightly answered "that a man can, with the help and grace of God, be without sin": fearing what else, except that by denying this they might seem to do an injury, not to the possibility of man, but to the very grace of God?

Yet it was not defined when a man becomes without sin—which it was judged could come about with the help of the grace of God: it was not, I say, defined whether, in this flesh which lusts against the spirit (See Gal 5:17), there has been, or is, or will be anyone, already using reason and the choice of the will, whether in this throng of men or in the solitude of monks, for whom it is not already necessary, not on account of others, but even on account of himself, to say in prayer: Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12); or whether rather this gift is perfected then, when we shall be like him, when we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2); when it will be said, not by those still fighting: I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind (Rom 7:23), but by those triumphing: Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? (1 Cor 15:55) Which is perhaps to be inquired into peaceably, not between Catholics and heretics, but among Catholics themselves.

31. 56. How, then, can it be believed that Pelagius (if indeed this letter is his) truly confessed both 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 our individual acts—and truly anathematized whoever held views against these things, when in his own letter he set down even the ease of not sinning, about which there was no question in this judgment, as though the judges had been pleased with this word too, and did not set down the grace of God, by confessing and adding which he escaped the penalty of ecclesiastical condemnation?

32. 57. There is something else too that I ought not to keep silent. In the document of his defense, which he sent me through a certain Carus, our fellow citizen of Hippo but an eastern deacon, he did something that stands otherwise than is contained in the episcopal proceedings. But what the proceedings have is far better and firmer, and altogether more clearly unraveled for catholic truth against the pestilence of that heresy. For when I read that same document, before the proceedings had come to us, I did not know that he had not set down those very words which, when he was present to himself, he used in the judgment; for they are few, and do not stand much otherwise, about which I do not much care.

33. 57. But I took it ill that he can be seen to have kept for himself a defense of some of the opinions of Caelestius which it is clear he anathematized in the proceedings (See Aug., Contra Iulianum 1, 5. 19). For some of these he denied to be his own, saying only that "he ought not to make satisfaction for them"; but he was unwilling to anathematize in the same document the ones that are these: "That Adam was made mortal, who would have died whether he sinned or did not sin. That Adam's sin harmed himself alone, and not the human race. That the law sends to the kingdom of heaven just as the Gospel does. That newly born infants are in the state in which Adam was before his transgression. That neither does the whole human race 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 baptized rich men, unless they renounce all things, even if they seem to do some good, it is not reckoned to them, nor will they have the kingdom of heaven." To these, indeed, in that document he answered thus: "All these things, according to their own testimony, were not said by me, nor do I owe satisfaction for them." But in the proceedings he spoke about these very things thus: "According to their own testimony they were not said by me, and for them I ought not to make satisfaction; but nevertheless, for the satisfaction of the holy synod, I anathematize those who hold them so, or have ever held them." Why, then, was it not written so in that document too? Not much ink, I think, nor letters, nor delay, nor of the document itself, would have been spent, if it were done so. But who would not believe that this was contrived, so that, as it were in place of an abridgment of those proceedings, that document might run about everywhere—where it might be thought that the liberty of defending any of those opinions had not been taken away, on the ground that they had only been charged against him, and not proved against him, yet not anathematized and condemned?

33. 58. Afterward, too, he heaped together in the same document many chapters charged against him from the book of Caelestius; and not, with those intervals which the proceedings contain, two answers by which he anathematized those same chapters, but he subjoined one to them all at once. Which I would think was done from a zeal for brevity, unless I perceived that it makes a great deal of difference to what moves us.

For he closed thus: "Again I say that these things, even according to their testimony, are not mine; for which, as I said, I owe no satisfaction. But the things I have confessed to be mine, these I affirm that I say rightly; and the things I have said are not mine, I reprove according to the judgment of the holy Church, pronouncing anathema on everyone who contravenes the teachings of the holy and catholic Church; and likewise on those who, fabricating false things, have stirred up calumny against us."

This last line the proceedings do not have, but it is nothing to the matter about which we ought to be anxious. For let those too be utterly anathema who, fabricating false things, have stirred up calumny against them. But when I first read, "But the things I have said are not mine, I reprove according to the judgment of the holy Church":

not knowing that that judgment of the Church had been made, since here it is kept silent, and I had not read the proceedings, I thought nothing else than that he had promised that he would think about these chapters whatever the Church had not yet judged but would at some time judge, and that he would reprove the things that it had not yet reproved but would at some time reprove; so that to this would pertain also what he added, "pronouncing anathema on everyone who contravenes or contradicts the teachings of the holy catholic Church."

But the truth, as the proceedings attest, is that an ecclesiastical judgment about these things had already been made by fourteen bishops, according to which judgment he said that he reproved all these things, and pronounced anathema on those who, by holding such views, contravene the judgment which the proceedings indicate had already been made. For the judges had already said, "What does Pelagius the monk, here present, say to these chapters that have been read? For this the holy synod, and the holy catholic Church of God, reprove."

But those who do not know this, and read that document, think that some of those things can lawfully be defended, as though it had not been judged to be contrary to catholic teaching, and as though Pelagius had said that he was ready to think about these matters whatever the Church had not judged, but would judge.

He did not, therefore, write in the document of which we are now treating in such a way that what the trustworthiness of the proceedings contains might be known: namely, that all those teachings by which that same heresy was creeping forward and growing strong with contentious boldness were condemned by an ecclesiastical judgment, fourteen bishops presiding. And if he feared that this matter should become known as it is, let him rather correct himself than be angry at our vigilance, however late. But if it is false that he feared this, and, as we are men, we suspect wrongly, let him pardon it—provided that he henceforth assails the things that were anathematized and reproved in the proceedings by which he was heard; lest, by sparing them, he seem not only to have believed these things before, but to believe them.

34. 59. Accordingly, this book—perhaps not without reason lengthy in so grave and great a cause—I wished to write to your Veneration for this reason: that, if it does not displease your judgment, it may rather by your authority, which is far greater than the industry of our littleness, become known to those to whom you may think it necessary, in order to crush the vanities and contentions of those who think that, Pelagius being acquitted, those teachings pleased the eastern bishop-judges which, sprouting most perniciously against the Christian faith and against the grace of God by which we are called and justified (See Rom 8:30), Christian truth always condemns, and condemned even by the authority of these fourteen bishops—an authority which would at the same time have condemned Pelagius too, had they not been anathematized by him. Now, then, since we have rendered to the man the care of fraternal love, and have faithfully set forth our solicitude about him and on his behalf, let us see how it can briefly be noticed that, even though he, which is clear, was acquitted before men, yet the heresy itself, always damnable by the divine judgment, was condemned even by the judgment of the fourteen eastern bishops.

35. 60. This is the final sentence of that judgment. The synod said: "Now, since satisfaction has been made to us by the statements of Pelagius the monk here present, who indeed consents to the devout teachings, but reproves and anathematizes those contrary to the faith of the Church, we confess that he is of the ecclesiastical and catholic communion." Two things clear enough about Pelagius the monk the holy bishop-judges embraced in the brevity of their sentence: one, that "he consents to the devout teachings"; the other, that "he reproves and anathematizes the things contrary to the faith of the Church." It was on account of these two things that Pelagius was pronounced "of the ecclesiastical and catholic communion." By what words of his, then, meanwhile—as far as men could in the present judge of manifest things—each of these became clear, let us see by briefly recapitulating everything. For in those things charged against him, which he answered were not his, he was said to reprove and anathematize the contrary. Let us therefore briefly gather this whole cause thus, if we can.

35. 61. Since it was necessary that what the apostle Paul foretold be fulfilled: There must also be heresies, that those who are approved may be made manifest among you (1 Cor 11:19)—after the old heresies, even now a heresy was brought in, not by bishops, or presbyters, or any clerics, but by certain men as it were monks: a heresy which disputed against the grace of God, which is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:25), as though in defense of free choice, and tried 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 all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:21); and which denied the help of God in our acts, saying that "in order that we may not sin and may fulfill righteousness, human nature, which was created with free choice, can suffice; and that this is the grace of God, because we were so created that we can do this by the will, and because he gave the help of his law and commandments, and because he pardons past sins to those who turn to him"; and that the grace of God is to be reckoned in these things alone, not in the help of our individual acts. "For a man can be without sin, and easily keep the commandments of God, if he wills."

35. 62. When this heresy had deceived very many, and was troubling the brothers whom it had not deceived, a certain Caelestius, holding such views, was brought before the judgment of the Church of Carthage and was condemned by the sentence of the bishops. Then, after some years, when this heresy had been charged against Pelagius, who was reported to be his teacher, he too came before an episcopal judgment; and when all the things had been read out that the Gallic bishops Heros and Lazarus had set down in the petition presented against him—they indeed being absent and excusing themselves on account of the illness of one of them—as Pelagius answered to everything, the fourteen bishops of the province of Palestine, according to his answers, pronounced him a stranger to the perversity of this heresy; yet condemning that heresy without any doubt.

For they approved, according to what he answered to the things charged, "that a man is helped through knowledge of the law toward not sinning, as it is written: He gave them the law for a help (Isa 8:20)." Yet they did not on this account judge that same knowledge of the law to be that grace of God of which it is written: Who will free me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 7:24-25). Nor that Pelagius said, "All are governed by their own will," in such a way that God does not govern them; for he answered, "He said this on account of free choice, to which God is a helper when one chooses good things; but the man who sins is himself at fault, as it were of free choice." They also approved "that the wicked and sinners are not to be spared on the day of judgment, but are to be punished with 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 (Matt 25:46).

But he had not said that all sinners pertain 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 (1 Cor 3:15). They approved "that the kingdom of heaven was promised even in the Old Testament," because he gave testimony from the prophet Daniel, where it is said: And the saints will receive the kingdom of the Most High (Dan 7:18).

In this place understanding that the Old Testament was named by him not only that which was made on Mount Sinai, but all the canonical Scriptures administered before the coming of the Lord. But "that a man can be without sin, if he wills," was not approved in the way it seemed to be set down by him in his book, as though this were in the power of man alone through free choice—for he was accused of having thought this by saying, "if he wills"—but in the way he himself now answered; or rather in the way the bishop-judges more briefly and more openly recalled it in their own statement, that a man can, with the help of God and grace, 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 will be swallowed up in victory (See 1 Cor 15:54).

35. 63. Of the things, too, which were charged against Pelagius as having been said or written by Caelestius, as teachings of his disciple, he himself recognized some as his own, but answered that he had held them otherwise than they were charged. Hence is that, "That before the coming of Christ certain men lived holily and justly":

but Caelestius was reported to have said "that they were without sin." Likewise it was charged that Caelestius said, "The Church is without spot or wrinkle." But Pelagius said "that it was indeed said by him, but in this way, that the Church is purged by the washing from every spot and wrinkle, and that the Lord wills it to remain so."

Likewise that saying of Caelestius, "That we do more than is commanded in the Law and the Gospel." But Pelagius answered that "he said it concerning virginity, of which Paul says: I have no commandment of the Lord (1 Cor 7:25)." Likewise it was charged that Caelestius affirms, "Each man can have all virtues and graces," and that thus the diversity of graces which the Apostle teaches is taken away. But Pelagius answered, "He does not take away the diversity of graces; but he says that God gives all graces to him who is worthy to receive them, as he gave to the apostle Paul."

35. 64. These four opinions, from the name of Caelestius, the bishop-judges did not approve in the way Caelestius was said to have held them, but in the way Pelagius answered about them. For they saw that to be without sin is one thing, and to live holily and justly another, as the Scripture testifies that some lived even before the coming of Christ. And that, although the Church here is not without spot or wrinkle, yet it is purged of every spot and wrinkle by the washing of regeneration, and that the Lord wills it to remain so; for it will indeed so remain, since it will certainly reign without spot or wrinkle in eternal happiness.

And that perpetual virginity, which is not commanded, is without doubt more than conjugal chastity, which is commanded; although virginity perseveres in many who nevertheless are not without sin. And that the apostle Paul had all those graces which he recalls in one place; yet that he was worthy to receive them they could understand in some way 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 (1 Cor 15:9)—or else the word escaped their attention, which let Pelagius himself see how he set it down. These are the things in which the bishops pronounced that Pelagius consents to the devout teachings.

35. 65. Now let us likewise, by recapitulating, look a little more attentively at those things which they said he reproved and anathematized as contrary. For in this rather consists that whole heresy. Setting aside, then, those things which he was said to have set down in his books in flattery of some widow or other—which he answered "are neither in his books, nor has he ever said such things; and those who held such views he anathematized, not as heretics, but as fools"—these are the things by which we grieved that the thickets of that heresy were sprouting daily, or rather were already running wild. "That Adam was made mortal, who would have died whether he sinned or did not sin. That Adam's sin harmed himself alone, and not the human race. That the Law sends to the kingdom just as the Gospel does. That newly born infants are in the state in which Adam was before his transgression. That neither does the whole human race 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 baptized rich men, unless they renounce all things, even if they seem to do some good, it is not reckoned to them, nor can they have the kingdom of God. That the grace of God and his help are not given for individual acts, but consist in free choice, and in the law and teaching. That the grace of God is given according to our merits; and that therefore grace itself is placed in the will of man, whether he becomes worthy or unworthy. That they cannot be called sons of God unless they have been made entirely without sin. That forgetfulness and ignorance are not subject to sin, since they happen not according to the will, but according to necessity. That there is no free choice, if it needs the help of God, since each one has it in his own will either to do something or not to do it. That our victory is not from the help of God, but from free choice. That from what Peter says, that we are partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4), it follows that the soul can be so without sin as God is."

For in the eleventh chapter of the book—which does not, indeed, bear the title of its author, but is reported to be Caelestius's—I myself read this set down in these words: "How," he says, "does anyone take up a partnership in that thing from whose state and power he is defined to be a stranger?" Therefore the brothers who charged these things understood him as though he had said that the soul and God are of the same nature, and that the soul is a part of God; for so they took it, that he held it to be of the same state and power as God. But at the end of the charges there is set down: "That pardon is given to the penitent not according to the grace and mercy of God, but according to the merit and labor of those who through penitence have been worthy of mercy." All these things, and whatever arguments were interposed to confirm them, the judges approved that Pelagius denied to be his and anathematized; and therefore they pronounced that, by reproving and anathematizing the things contrary to the faith of the Church, he condemned them. And through this, in whatever way Caelestius may have set them down or not set them down, or Pelagius may have held them or not held them, let us rejoice that such great evils of this so new a heresy were condemned by that ecclesiastical judgment, and let us give thanks to God and speak his praises.

35. 66. But concerning the things that are said to have been perpetrated there, after this judgment, with incredible boldness by some band, I know not what, of ruined men, who are reported to favor Pelagius very perversely—so that the servants and handmaids of God belonging to the care of the holy presbyter Jerome were afflicted with most criminal slaughter, a deacon was killed, the buildings of the monasteries were burned, and Jerome himself was scarcely protected from this assault and incursion of the impious by a better-fortified tower, in the mercy of God—I see that I should rather keep silent, and wait to see what our brothers the bishops there think should be done about these so great evils (See Letter of Innocent to John of Jerusalem 43; Letter of Innocent to Jerome 42), which who would believe they could disregard? For the impious teachings of men of this kind are to be refuted by any Catholics whatever, even those who are far from those lands, lest they harm wherever they can, wherever they have been able to reach; but impious deeds, the coercion of which pertains to episcopal discipline, are to be punished, where they are committed, especially there, by those present or established nearby, with pastoral diligence and devout severity See Innocent's third letter to the bishops 41; cf. Ep. 183 (among Augustine's letters): NBA 22, 922-927..

We, therefore, placed so far away, ought to wish that such an end be given there to these matters that it be not necessary to judge of them any further anywhere; but rather such an end as it befits us to proclaim: so that the minds of all who have been gravely wounded by the report of those crimes flitting about everywhere may be healed by the mercy of God that follows after. Hence let this now be the end of this book, which, as I hope, if it has deserved to please your judgment, will, with the Lord's help, be useful to its readers—more commended in your name than in mine, and, by your diligence, more widely known to many.