Source-visible Augustine letter absent from the New Advent/NPNF English index; modern English is a first-time Roman Letters translation from Latin.
Innocent sends greetings in the Lord to Silvanus the elder, Valentinus, and the rest of the dearly beloved brothers who were present at the council of Milevis.
Among the other cares of the Roman church and the duties of the apostolic see, in which we handle the questions of various people by faithful and measured discussion, our brother and fellow bishop Julius unexpectedly delivered to me the letter of Your Love, sent from the council of Milevis with deep concern for the faith. He also added the writings of a similar complaint from the council of Carthage.
The Church truly rejoices that shepherds show such care for the flocks entrusted to them: not only refusing to allow anyone from them to wander, but also, if some sheep have been lured by the grass of perverse delight and remain in error, wanting either to separate them altogether or, if they avoid what they unlawfully sought before, to guard them with the watchfulness of their old protection. In both cases you are acting for their good, so that the rest are not seduced by a similar example if such people are received carelessly, nor, if those returning are spurned, do they seem to be thrown to the bites of wolves. This is a very prudent consultation, full of the catholic faith. Who could either tolerate someone in error or refuse to receive someone who corrects himself? Just as I think it harsh to wink at people who sin, so I judge it impious to refuse a hand to those who turn back.
You carefully and properly consult the hidden duties of apostolic honor, that honor which, besides the things that come from outside, bears anxiety for all the churches, asking what judgment should be held on troubled matters. You have followed the form of the ancient rule, which you know has always been preserved with me throughout the whole world. I pass over that point, since I do not think it is unknown to your prudence. What did you confirm by your action except that you knew answers always flow from the apostolic source to those who seek them through all the provinces? Especially whenever a matter of faith is being weighed, I think all our brothers and fellow bishops should refer it only to Peter, that is, to the author of their name and honor, as Your Love has now referred a matter that can benefit all churches throughout the world. They will necessarily become more cautious when they see the inventors of these evils, on the report of two councils, separated from church communion by the decrees of our judgment.
Your charity will therefore enjoy a double good: you will have the grace of observing the canons, and the whole world will make use of your benefit. For what catholic man would want to go on mixing speech with Christ's enemies? Who would even share the light of life in communion with them? The authors of this new heresy must certainly be avoided. What harsher thing could they invent against God than cancelling divine help and removing the reason for daily prayer? That is to say, "What need have I of God?" The psalmist rightly says of such people, "See the people who did not set God as their helper."
By denying God's help, they say that a human being can be enough for himself and does not need divine grace. Deprived of that grace, he must fall, caught in the devil's snares, while he strives to fulfill all the commandments of life by freedom alone. What a perverse teaching of most corrupt minds! Let them finally notice that the first human being was so deceived by freedom itself that, while using its reins too indulgently, he fell by presumption into transgression. He could not be rescued from that fall unless the coming of Christ the Lord, through the provision of regeneration, had restored the condition of his earlier freedom. Let him hear David say, "Our help is in the name of the Lord," and, "Be my helper; do not abandon me or despise me, O God my salvation." David would have said these things in vain if what he begged from the Lord in tearful speech had rested only in his own will.
Since this is so, and since in every divine page we read that free will must be joined only to God's help, and that it can do nothing when deserted by heavenly protections, how, as you say, do Pelagius and Caelestius stubbornly defend this power for the will alone and persuade themselves, or rather, what deserves common grief, so many others? We could use many examples to destroy such teaching, if we did not know that Your Holiness knows the whole of divine Scripture fully, especially since your own report is filled with such great testimonies that this present doctrine can be cut down by those alone. There is no need for hidden arguments when they do not dare, and cannot, resist the ones you placed there as readily available. They are trying to remove the grace of God, which we must seek even after the freedom of our first condition has been restored to us, since we cannot avoid the devil's other traps unless that same grace helps us.
As for what your fraternity says they teach, that infants can be given the rewards of eternal life even without the grace of baptism, it is utterly foolish. Unless they eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, they will not have life in themselves. Those who defend life for them without regeneration seem to me to want to empty baptism itself, since they proclaim that these children already have what is believed to be conferred on them only by baptism. If, then, they want to say that not being reborn does no harm, they must admit that the sacred streams of regeneration do no good. But so that the crooked teaching of pointless people may be cut apart by a swift rule of truth, the Lord cries out in the Gospel, saying, "Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them to come to me."
Therefore by the authority of apostolic vigor we decree that Pelagius and Caelestius, inventors of new words that, as the apostle said, build up nothing but usually produce the emptiest questions, are to be deprived of church communion until they recover their senses from the devil's snares, by whom they are held captive according to his will. Meanwhile they are not to be received into the Lord's fold, which they chose to abandon by following the track of a perverse road. "Those who trouble you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ must be cut off." At the same time we command that whoever tries to defend this with similar stubbornness be bound by the same punishment. It is not only those who do such things, but also those who consent to those who do them, for I think there is not much difference between the mind of the person committing the offense and the favor of the person consenting to it. I add even more: often a person unlearns error when no one agrees with him.
So let this judgment concerning the people named above remain fixed, dearest brothers. Let them be absent from the courts of the Lord; let them lack pastoral protection, lest the dreadful infection of two sheep creep through an unwary crowd, and the ravenous wolf rejoice inside the Lord's fold over such great masses of sheep poured out, while the wound of two sheep is ignored by the guards. We must take care that by allowing wolves we appear to be hired hands rather than shepherds.
Still, because Christ the Lord signified by his own voice that he does not want the death of the dying, but only that he turn back and live, we command that if they ever return to health, abandon the error of their crooked doctrine, and condemn the things by whose transgression they condemned themselves, the usual medicine, that is, their reception by the Church, should not be denied them. Otherwise, while perhaps keeping them from returning, we would leave them outside the fold, where the waiting enemy's rabid jaws would swallow them, jaws they armed against themselves with the weapons of evil disputation. Farewell, brothers. Given on the sixth day before the Kalends of February, in the consulship of the most distinguished Honorius and Constantius.
EPISTOLA 182
Scripta VI Kal. Februarias a. 417.
Innocentius, Romanus Pontifex, respondet concilii Milevitani patribus laudans quod ad supremam Apostolicae Sedis auctoritatem (n. 2) pronuntiationes quas ipsi sanxerant deferre voluerint contra pelagianam haeresim eiusque auctores ac sectatores. Romanus Pontifex confirmat excommunicationis sententiam contra illos, qui recipendi sunt in Ecclesia si resipuerint (nn. 1, 6, 7): item confirmat gratiae doctrinam (n. 3) quam in omnibus divinis Paginis legimus (n. 4) ac baptismi necessitatem pro parvulis ut vitam assequantur aeternam (n. 5).
INNOCENTIUS, SILVANO SENI, VALENTINO, ET CAETERIS QUI IN MILEVITANA SYNODO INTERFUERUNT DILECTISSIMIS FRATRIBUS, IN DOMINO SALUTEM.
Haereticos a communione segregatos Ecclesia recipit emendatos.
1. Inter caeteras Romanae Ecclesiae curas, et apostolicae Sedis occupationes, quibus diversorum consulta fideli ac modica disceptatione tractamus, frater et coepiscopus noster Iulius Dilectionis vestrae litteras, quas ex Milevitano concilio cura fidei propensiore misistis, mihi inopinanter ingessit, Carthaginensis etiam synodi querelae parilis scripta subiungens. Nimirum exsultat Ecclesia tantam sollicitudinem commissis gregibus exhibere pastores, ut non solum neminem ex his patiantur errare, sed si quas magis ovium scaevae delectationis herba seduxit, ac si in errore permanserint, aut segregari penitus velint, aut illicenter dudum petita vitantes, custodiae pristinae circumspectione tutari, in utraque parte videlicet consulentes, ne vel suscipiendo tales simili caeterae seducantur exemplo; vel spernendo redeuntes, luporum morsibus videantur ingestae. Prudens admodum et catholicae fidei plena consultatio. Quis enim aut tolerare possit errantem, aut non recipere se corrigentem? Nam ut durum arbitror conniventiam praebere peccantibus, ita impium iudico manum negare conversis.
In fidei rebus suprema auctoritas penes Petrum.
2. Diligenter ergo et congrue apostolici consulitis honoris arcana (honoris, inquam, illius quem, praeter illa quae sunt extrinsecus, sollicitudo manet omnium Ecclesiarum 1) super anxiis rebus, quae sit tenenda sententia, antiquae scilicet regulae formam secuti, quam toto semper ab orbe mecum nostis esse servatam. Verum haec missa facio; neque enim hoc vestram credo latere prudentiam: qui id enim actione firmastis, nisi scientes quod per omnes provincias de apostolico fonte petentibus responsa semper emanent? praesertim quoties fidei ratio ventilatur, arbitror omnes fratres et coepiscopos nostros, nonnisi ad Petrum, id est, sui nominis et honoris auctorem referre debere, velut nunc retulit vestra Dilectio, quod per totum mundum possit omnibus Ecclesiis in commune prodesse. Fiant enim necesse est cautiores, cum inventores malorum, ad duplicis relationem synodi, sententiae nostrae statutis viderint ab ecclesiastica communione seiunctos.
Cur pelagiana haeresis perversa.
3. Gemino igitur bono caritas vestra fungetur. Nam et canonum potiemini gratia servatorum, et beneficio vestro totus orbis utetur. Quis enim catholicorum virorum cum adversariis Christi velit ulterius miscere sermonem? quis saltem ipsam lucem vitae communione partiri? Novae haereseos nimirum fugiantur auctores. Quid enim acerbius in Deum fingere potuerunt, quam cum adiutoria divina cassarent, causamque quotidianae precationis auferrent? Hoc est dicere, Quid mihi opus est Deo? Merito in hos dicat Hymnidicus: Ecce homines, qui non posuerunt Deum adiutorem sibi 2. Negantes ergo auxilium Dei, inquiunt hominem sibi posse sufficere, nec gratia hunc egere divina, qua privatus necesse est diaboli laqueis irretitus occumbat, dum ad omnia vitae perficienda mandata, sola tantummodo libertate contendat. O pravissimarum mentium perversa doctrina! Advertat id tandem quod primum hominem ita libertas ipsa decepit, ut, dum indulgentius frenis eius utitur, in praevaricationem praesumptione conciderit; nec ex hac potuit erui, nisi providentia regenerationis, statum pristinae libertatis Christi Domini reformasset adventus. Audiat David dicentem, Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini 3; et: Adiutor meus esto, ne derelinquas me, neque despicias me, Deus salutaris meus 4: quae incassum dixerit, si tantum in eius erat positum voluntate quod a Domino flebili sermone poscebat.
Hominis voluntatem nihil posse absque Dei auxilio.
4. Quae cum ita sint, cumque in omnibus divinis paginis voluntati liberae nonnisi adiutorium Dei legamus esse nectendum, eamque nihil posse coelestibus praesidiis destitutam; quonam modo huic soli possibilitatem hanc pertinaciter, ut asseritis, defendentes, sibimet, imo, quod est dignius dolore communi, iam plurimis Pelagius Celestiusque persuadent? Multifariis equidem ad destruendum tale magisterium uti possemus exemplis, nisi sciremus Sanctitatem vestram ad plenum Scripturas omnes callere divinas; praesertim cum vestra relatio tantis ac talibus testimoniis sit referta, ut his solis valeat praesens dogma rescindi; opusque non esse reconditis, cum et iis quae facile vobis occurrentia posuistis, nec audeant obviare, nec possint. Ergo Dei gratiam conantur auferre, quam necesse est, etiam restituta nobis status pristini libertate, quaeramus: quippe qui nec alias diaboli machinas, nisi eadem possumus iuvante vitare.
Parvulorum sine baptismo defunctorum aeterna sors.
5. Illud vero quod eos vestra fraternitas asserit praedicare, parvulos aeternae vitae praemiis etiam sine Baptismatis gratia posse donari, perfatuum est. Nisi enim manducaverint carnem Filii hominis, et biberint sanguinem eius, non habebunt vitam in semetipsis 5. Qui autem hanc eis sine regeneratione defendunt, videntur mihi ipsum Baptismum velle cassare, cum praedicant hos habere quod in eos creditur nonnisi Baptismate conferendum. Si ergo nihil volunt officere non renasci, fateantur necesse est nec regenerationis sacra fluenta prodesse. Verum ut superfluorum hominum prava doctrina celeri veritatis possit ratione discindi, proclamat hoc Dominus in Evangelio, dicens: Sinite infantes venire ad me, et nolite eos prohibere ad me 6.
Pelagiani excommunicatur donec resipiscant.
6. Quare Pelagium Celestiumque, id est inventores vocum novarum, quae, sicut dixit Apostolus, aedificationis nihil, sed magis vanissimas consueverunt parere quaestiones 7, ecclesiastica communione privari, apostolici vigoris auctoritate censemus, donec resipiscant de diaboli laqueis, a quo captivi tenentur secundum ipsius voluntatem 8; eosque interim dominico ovili non recipi, quod ipsi, perversae viae secuti tramitem, deserere voluerunt: abscindendi sunt enim qui vos conturbant, et volunt convertere Evangelium Christi 9. Simul autem praecipimus ut quicumque id pertinacia simili defensare nituntur, par eos vindicta constringat. Non solum enim qui faciunt, sed etiam qui consentiunt facientibus 10; quia non multum interesse arbitror inter committentis animum, et consentientis favorem. Addo et amplius: plerumque dediscit errare, cui nemo consentit. Haec igitur, fratres carissimi, in supradictos maneat fixa sententia; absint atriis Domini, careant custodia pastorali, ne duarum ovium dira contagia serpant forsitan per vulgus incautum, rapacique lupus corde laetetur intra ovile dominicum tantas ovium fusas catervas, dum a custodibus dissimulanter habetur vulnus duarum. Prospiciendum est ergo ne permittendo lupos, mercenarii magis videamur esse quam pastores.
Haeretici in Ecclesiam recipiendi si resipuerint.
7. Iubemus sane, quoniam Christus Dominus propria voce significavit nolle se mortem morientis, tantum ut revertatur et vivat 11, si umquam ad sanum, deposito pravi dogmatis errore, resipuerint, damnarintque ea quorum se ipsi praevaricatione damnarunt, eis medicinam solitam, id est receptaculum suum ab Ecclesia non negari: ne dum eos redeuntes forsitan prohibemus, vere extra ovile remanentes et exspectantis, hostis rabidis faucibus gluttiantur, quas in semetipsos spiculis malae disputationis armarunt. Bene valete, fratres. Datum sexto calend. februarias, Honorio et Constantio viris clarissimis consulibus.
◆
Innocent sends greetings in the Lord to Silvanus the elder, Valentinus, and the rest of the dearly beloved brothers who were present at the council of Milevis.
Among the other cares of the Roman church and the duties of the apostolic see, in which we handle the questions of various people by faithful and measured discussion, our brother and fellow bishop Julius unexpectedly delivered to me the letter of Your Love, sent from the council of Milevis with deep concern for the faith. He also added the writings of a similar complaint from the council of Carthage.
The Church truly rejoices that shepherds show such care for the flocks entrusted to them: not only refusing to allow anyone from them to wander, but also, if some sheep have been lured by the grass of perverse delight and remain in error, wanting either to separate them altogether or, if they avoid what they unlawfully sought before, to guard them with the watchfulness of their old protection. In both cases you are acting for their good, so that the rest are not seduced by a similar example if such people are received carelessly, nor, if those returning are spurned, do they seem to be thrown to the bites of wolves. This is a very prudent consultation, full of the catholic faith. Who could either tolerate someone in error or refuse to receive someone who corrects himself? Just as I think it harsh to wink at people who sin, so I judge it impious to refuse a hand to those who turn back.
You carefully and properly consult the hidden duties of apostolic honor, that honor which, besides the things that come from outside, bears anxiety for all the churches, asking what judgment should be held on troubled matters. You have followed the form of the ancient rule, which you know has always been preserved with me throughout the whole world. I pass over that point, since I do not think it is unknown to your prudence. What did you confirm by your action except that you knew answers always flow from the apostolic source to those who seek them through all the provinces? Especially whenever a matter of faith is being weighed, I think all our brothers and fellow bishops should refer it only to Peter, that is, to the author of their name and honor, as Your Love has now referred a matter that can benefit all churches throughout the world. They will necessarily become more cautious when they see the inventors of these evils, on the report of two councils, separated from church communion by the decrees of our judgment.
Your charity will therefore enjoy a double good: you will have the grace of observing the canons, and the whole world will make use of your benefit. For what catholic man would want to go on mixing speech with Christ's enemies? Who would even share the light of life in communion with them? The authors of this new heresy must certainly be avoided. What harsher thing could they invent against God than cancelling divine help and removing the reason for daily prayer? That is to say, "What need have I of God?" The psalmist rightly says of such people, "See the people who did not set God as their helper."
By denying God's help, they say that a human being can be enough for himself and does not need divine grace. Deprived of that grace, he must fall, caught in the devil's snares, while he strives to fulfill all the commandments of life by freedom alone. What a perverse teaching of most corrupt minds! Let them finally notice that the first human being was so deceived by freedom itself that, while using its reins too indulgently, he fell by presumption into transgression. He could not be rescued from that fall unless the coming of Christ the Lord, through the provision of regeneration, had restored the condition of his earlier freedom. Let him hear David say, "Our help is in the name of the Lord," and, "Be my helper; do not abandon me or despise me, O God my salvation." David would have said these things in vain if what he begged from the Lord in tearful speech had rested only in his own will.
Since this is so, and since in every divine page we read that free will must be joined only to God's help, and that it can do nothing when deserted by heavenly protections, how, as you say, do Pelagius and Caelestius stubbornly defend this power for the will alone and persuade themselves, or rather, what deserves common grief, so many others? We could use many examples to destroy such teaching, if we did not know that Your Holiness knows the whole of divine Scripture fully, especially since your own report is filled with such great testimonies that this present doctrine can be cut down by those alone. There is no need for hidden arguments when they do not dare, and cannot, resist the ones you placed there as readily available. They are trying to remove the grace of God, which we must seek even after the freedom of our first condition has been restored to us, since we cannot avoid the devil's other traps unless that same grace helps us.
As for what your fraternity says they teach, that infants can be given the rewards of eternal life even without the grace of baptism, it is utterly foolish. Unless they eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, they will not have life in themselves. Those who defend life for them without regeneration seem to me to want to empty baptism itself, since they proclaim that these children already have what is believed to be conferred on them only by baptism. If, then, they want to say that not being reborn does no harm, they must admit that the sacred streams of regeneration do no good. But so that the crooked teaching of pointless people may be cut apart by a swift rule of truth, the Lord cries out in the Gospel, saying, "Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them to come to me."
Therefore by the authority of apostolic vigor we decree that Pelagius and Caelestius, inventors of new words that, as the apostle said, build up nothing but usually produce the emptiest questions, are to be deprived of church communion until they recover their senses from the devil's snares, by whom they are held captive according to his will. Meanwhile they are not to be received into the Lord's fold, which they chose to abandon by following the track of a perverse road. "Those who trouble you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ must be cut off." At the same time we command that whoever tries to defend this with similar stubbornness be bound by the same punishment. It is not only those who do such things, but also those who consent to those who do them, for I think there is not much difference between the mind of the person committing the offense and the favor of the person consenting to it. I add even more: often a person unlearns error when no one agrees with him.
So let this judgment concerning the people named above remain fixed, dearest brothers. Let them be absent from the courts of the Lord; let them lack pastoral protection, lest the dreadful infection of two sheep creep through an unwary crowd, and the ravenous wolf rejoice inside the Lord's fold over such great masses of sheep poured out, while the wound of two sheep is ignored by the guards. We must take care that by allowing wolves we appear to be hired hands rather than shepherds.
Still, because Christ the Lord signified by his own voice that he does not want the death of the dying, but only that he turn back and live, we command that if they ever return to health, abandon the error of their crooked doctrine, and condemn the things by whose transgression they condemned themselves, the usual medicine, that is, their reception by the Church, should not be denied them. Otherwise, while perhaps keeping them from returning, we would leave them outside the fold, where the waiting enemy's rabid jaws would swallow them, jaws they armed against themselves with the weapons of evil disputation. Farewell, brothers. Given on the sixth day before the Kalends of February, in the consulship of the most distinguished Honorius and Constantius.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
EPISTOLA 182
Scripta VI Kal. Februarias a. 417.
Innocentius, Romanus Pontifex, respondet concilii Milevitani patribus laudans quod ad supremam Apostolicae Sedis auctoritatem (n. 2) pronuntiationes quas ipsi sanxerant deferre voluerint contra pelagianam haeresim eiusque auctores ac sectatores. Romanus Pontifex confirmat excommunicationis sententiam contra illos, qui recipendi sunt in Ecclesia si resipuerint (nn. 1, 6, 7): item confirmat gratiae doctrinam (n. 3) quam in omnibus divinis Paginis legimus (n. 4) ac baptismi necessitatem pro parvulis ut vitam assequantur aeternam (n. 5).
INNOCENTIUS, SILVANO SENI, VALENTINO, ET CAETERIS QUI IN MILEVITANA SYNODO INTERFUERUNT DILECTISSIMIS FRATRIBUS, IN DOMINO SALUTEM.
Haereticos a communione segregatos Ecclesia recipit emendatos.
1. Inter caeteras Romanae Ecclesiae curas, et apostolicae Sedis occupationes, quibus diversorum consulta fideli ac modica disceptatione tractamus, frater et coepiscopus noster Iulius Dilectionis vestrae litteras, quas ex Milevitano concilio cura fidei propensiore misistis, mihi inopinanter ingessit, Carthaginensis etiam synodi querelae parilis scripta subiungens. Nimirum exsultat Ecclesia tantam sollicitudinem commissis gregibus exhibere pastores, ut non solum neminem ex his patiantur errare, sed si quas magis ovium scaevae delectationis herba seduxit, ac si in errore permanserint, aut segregari penitus velint, aut illicenter dudum petita vitantes, custodiae pristinae circumspectione tutari, in utraque parte videlicet consulentes, ne vel suscipiendo tales simili caeterae seducantur exemplo; vel spernendo redeuntes, luporum morsibus videantur ingestae. Prudens admodum et catholicae fidei plena consultatio. Quis enim aut tolerare possit errantem, aut non recipere se corrigentem? Nam ut durum arbitror conniventiam praebere peccantibus, ita impium iudico manum negare conversis.
In fidei rebus suprema auctoritas penes Petrum.
2. Diligenter ergo et congrue apostolici consulitis honoris arcana (honoris, inquam, illius quem, praeter illa quae sunt extrinsecus, sollicitudo manet omnium Ecclesiarum 1) super anxiis rebus, quae sit tenenda sententia, antiquae scilicet regulae formam secuti, quam toto semper ab orbe mecum nostis esse servatam. Verum haec missa facio; neque enim hoc vestram credo latere prudentiam: qui id enim actione firmastis, nisi scientes quod per omnes provincias de apostolico fonte petentibus responsa semper emanent? praesertim quoties fidei ratio ventilatur, arbitror omnes fratres et coepiscopos nostros, nonnisi ad Petrum, id est, sui nominis et honoris auctorem referre debere, velut nunc retulit vestra Dilectio, quod per totum mundum possit omnibus Ecclesiis in commune prodesse. Fiant enim necesse est cautiores, cum inventores malorum, ad duplicis relationem synodi, sententiae nostrae statutis viderint ab ecclesiastica communione seiunctos.
Cur pelagiana haeresis perversa.
3. Gemino igitur bono caritas vestra fungetur. Nam et canonum potiemini gratia servatorum, et beneficio vestro totus orbis utetur. Quis enim catholicorum virorum cum adversariis Christi velit ulterius miscere sermonem? quis saltem ipsam lucem vitae communione partiri? Novae haereseos nimirum fugiantur auctores. Quid enim acerbius in Deum fingere potuerunt, quam cum adiutoria divina cassarent, causamque quotidianae precationis auferrent? Hoc est dicere, Quid mihi opus est Deo? Merito in hos dicat Hymnidicus: Ecce homines, qui non posuerunt Deum adiutorem sibi 2. Negantes ergo auxilium Dei, inquiunt hominem sibi posse sufficere, nec gratia hunc egere divina, qua privatus necesse est diaboli laqueis irretitus occumbat, dum ad omnia vitae perficienda mandata, sola tantummodo libertate contendat. O pravissimarum mentium perversa doctrina! Advertat id tandem quod primum hominem ita libertas ipsa decepit, ut, dum indulgentius frenis eius utitur, in praevaricationem praesumptione conciderit; nec ex hac potuit erui, nisi providentia regenerationis, statum pristinae libertatis Christi Domini reformasset adventus. Audiat David dicentem, Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini 3; et: Adiutor meus esto, ne derelinquas me, neque despicias me, Deus salutaris meus 4: quae incassum dixerit, si tantum in eius erat positum voluntate quod a Domino flebili sermone poscebat.
Hominis voluntatem nihil posse absque Dei auxilio.
4. Quae cum ita sint, cumque in omnibus divinis paginis voluntati liberae nonnisi adiutorium Dei legamus esse nectendum, eamque nihil posse coelestibus praesidiis destitutam; quonam modo huic soli possibilitatem hanc pertinaciter, ut asseritis, defendentes, sibimet, imo, quod est dignius dolore communi, iam plurimis Pelagius Celestiusque persuadent? Multifariis equidem ad destruendum tale magisterium uti possemus exemplis, nisi sciremus Sanctitatem vestram ad plenum Scripturas omnes callere divinas; praesertim cum vestra relatio tantis ac talibus testimoniis sit referta, ut his solis valeat praesens dogma rescindi; opusque non esse reconditis, cum et iis quae facile vobis occurrentia posuistis, nec audeant obviare, nec possint. Ergo Dei gratiam conantur auferre, quam necesse est, etiam restituta nobis status pristini libertate, quaeramus: quippe qui nec alias diaboli machinas, nisi eadem possumus iuvante vitare.
Parvulorum sine baptismo defunctorum aeterna sors.
5. Illud vero quod eos vestra fraternitas asserit praedicare, parvulos aeternae vitae praemiis etiam sine Baptismatis gratia posse donari, perfatuum est. Nisi enim manducaverint carnem Filii hominis, et biberint sanguinem eius, non habebunt vitam in semetipsis 5. Qui autem hanc eis sine regeneratione defendunt, videntur mihi ipsum Baptismum velle cassare, cum praedicant hos habere quod in eos creditur nonnisi Baptismate conferendum. Si ergo nihil volunt officere non renasci, fateantur necesse est nec regenerationis sacra fluenta prodesse. Verum ut superfluorum hominum prava doctrina celeri veritatis possit ratione discindi, proclamat hoc Dominus in Evangelio, dicens: Sinite infantes venire ad me, et nolite eos prohibere ad me 6.
Pelagiani excommunicatur donec resipiscant.
6. Quare Pelagium Celestiumque, id est inventores vocum novarum, quae, sicut dixit Apostolus, aedificationis nihil, sed magis vanissimas consueverunt parere quaestiones 7, ecclesiastica communione privari, apostolici vigoris auctoritate censemus, donec resipiscant de diaboli laqueis, a quo captivi tenentur secundum ipsius voluntatem 8; eosque interim dominico ovili non recipi, quod ipsi, perversae viae secuti tramitem, deserere voluerunt: abscindendi sunt enim qui vos conturbant, et volunt convertere Evangelium Christi 9. Simul autem praecipimus ut quicumque id pertinacia simili defensare nituntur, par eos vindicta constringat. Non solum enim qui faciunt, sed etiam qui consentiunt facientibus 10; quia non multum interesse arbitror inter committentis animum, et consentientis favorem. Addo et amplius: plerumque dediscit errare, cui nemo consentit. Haec igitur, fratres carissimi, in supradictos maneat fixa sententia; absint atriis Domini, careant custodia pastorali, ne duarum ovium dira contagia serpant forsitan per vulgus incautum, rapacique lupus corde laetetur intra ovile dominicum tantas ovium fusas catervas, dum a custodibus dissimulanter habetur vulnus duarum. Prospiciendum est ergo ne permittendo lupos, mercenarii magis videamur esse quam pastores.
Haeretici in Ecclesiam recipiendi si resipuerint.
7. Iubemus sane, quoniam Christus Dominus propria voce significavit nolle se mortem morientis, tantum ut revertatur et vivat 11, si umquam ad sanum, deposito pravi dogmatis errore, resipuerint, damnarintque ea quorum se ipsi praevaricatione damnarunt, eis medicinam solitam, id est receptaculum suum ab Ecclesia non negari: ne dum eos redeuntes forsitan prohibemus, vere extra ovile remanentes et exspectantis, hostis rabidis faucibus gluttiantur, quas in semetipsos spiculis malae disputationis armarunt. Bene valete, fratres. Datum sexto calend. februarias, Honorio et Constantio viris clarissimis consulibus.