4. [II.]—The Same Continued.

If Pelagius, as he possibly might, were to say in reply to this, that that very thing was what he meant by “the knowledge of the law, without which a man is unable to be free from sins,” which is communicated by the teaching of faith to converts and to babes in Christ, and in which candidates for baptism are catechetically instructed with a view to their knowing the creed, certainly this is not what is usually meant when any one is said to have a knowledge of the law. This phrase is only applied to such persons as are skilled in the law. But if he persists in describing the knowledge of the law by the words in question, which, however few in number, are great in weight, and are used to designate all who are faithfully baptized according to the prescribed rule of the Churches; and if he maintains that it was of this that he said, “No one is without sin, but the man who has acquired the knowledge of the law,”—a knowledge which must needs be conveyed to believers before they attain to the actual remission of sins,—even in such case there would crowd around him a countless multitude, not indeed of angry disputants, but of crying baptized infants, who would exclaim,—not, to be sure, in words, but in the very truthfulness of innocence,—“What is it, O what is it that you have written: ‘He only can be without sin who has acquired a knowledge of the law?’ See here are we, a large flock of lambs, without sin, and yet we have no knowledge of the law.” Now surely they with their silent tongue would compel him to silence, or, perhaps, even to confess that he was corrected of his great perverseness; or else (if you will), that he had already for some time entertained the opinion which he acknowledged before his ecclesiastical examiners, but that he had failed before to express his opinion in words of sufficient care,—that his faith, therefore, should be approved, but this book revised and amended. For, as the Scripture says: “There is that slippeth in his speech, but not in his heart.”2    Ecclus. xix. 16. Now if he would only admit this, or were already saying it, who would not most readily forgive those words which he had committed to writing with too great heedlessness and neglect, especially on his declining to defend the opinion which the said words contain, and affirming that to be his proper view which the truth approves? This we must suppose would have been in the minds of the pious judges themselves, if they could only have duly understood the contents of his Latin book, thoroughly interpreted to them, as they understood his reply to the synod, which was spoken in Greek, and therefore quite intelligible to them, and adjudged it as not alien from the Church. Let us go on to consider the other cases.

CAPUT II.

4. Ad hoc si forte Pelagius responderet, hanc ipsam se dixisse scientiam legis, sine qua non potest homo liber esse a peccatis, quae per doctrinam fidei neophytis atque in Christo parvulis traditur, qua etiam baptizandi catechizantur, ut Symbolum noverint; non quidem ista intelligi solet, quando habere quisquam scientiam legis dicitur; sed illa secundum quam legis periti appellantur: verumtamen, si haec verba, quae pauca numero, sed magna sunt pondere, et more omnium Ecclesiarum fideliter baptizandis intimantur, scientiam legis nuncuparet, asserens de hac se dixisse, «non esse sine peccato, nisi qui scientiam legis habuerit,» quae necesse est tradatur credentibus, antequam ad ipsam remissionem veniant peccatorum; etiam sic circumdaret eum, non disputantium, sed vagientium baptizatorum multitudo innumerabilis parvulorum, qui non verbis, sed ipsa innocentiae veritate clamarent, Quid est, quid est quod scripsisti, «non posse esse sine peccato, nisi qui scientiam legis habuerit?» Ecce nos grex magnus agnorum sine peccato sumus, et legis tamen scientiam non habemus. Nempe isti eum saltem, lingua tacente, tacere compellerent, aut forte etiam confiteri, vel nunc se ab illa perversitate correptum , vel certe hoc se quidem et ante sensisse, quod nunc in ecclesiastico dixit examine; sed ejus sententiae non se circumspecta verba posuisse, et ideo fidem suam esse approbandam, librum emendandum. Est enim, ut scriptum est, qui labitur in lingua, et non in corde (Eccli. XIX, 16). Quod si diceret, vel si dicat, quis eisdem verbis incautius negligentiusque conscriptis non facillime ignoscat, cum sententiam, quam verba illa continent, non defendat, sed eam dicat suam, quam veritas probat? Hoc etiam pios judices cogitasse credendum est: si tamen hoc quod in libro ejus latino est diligenter interpretatum, satis intelligere potuerunt, sicut ejus responsionem graeco eloquio prolatam, et ob hoc facile intellectam, alienam non esse ab Ecclesia judicaverunt. Sed jam caetera videamus.