47. [XXIII.]—Pelagius’ Book, Which Was Sent by Timasius and Jacobus to Augustin, Was Answered by the Latter in His Work “On Nature and Grace.”

But when there was actually placed in my hands, by those faithful servants of God and honourable men, Timasius and Jacobus, the treatise in which Pelagius dealt with the question of God’s grace, it became very evident to me—too evident, indeed, to admit of any further doubt—how hostile to salvation by Christ was his poisonous perversion of the truth. He treated the subject in the shape of an objection started, as if by an opponent, in his own terms against himself; for he was already suffering a good deal of obloquy from his opinions on the question, which he now appeared to solve for himself in no other way than by simply describing the grace of God as nature created with a free will, occasionally combining therewith either the help of the law, or even the remission of sins; although these additional admissions were not plainly made, but only sparingly suggested by him. And yet, even under these circumstances, I refrained from inserting Pelagius’ name in my work, wherein I refuted this book of his; for I still thought that I should render a prompter assistance to the truth if I continued to preserve a friendly relation to him, and so to spare his personal feelings, while at the same time I showed no mercy, as I was bound not to show it, to the productions of his pen. Hence, I must say, I now feel some annoyance, that in this trial he somewhere said: “I anathematize those who hold these opinions, or have at any time held them.” He might have been contented with saying, “Those who hold these opinions,” which we should have regarded in the light of a self-censure; but when he went on to say, “Or have at any time held them,” in the first place, how could he dare to condemn so unjustly those harmless persons who no longer hold the errors, which they had learnt either from others, or actually from himself? And, in the second place, who among all those persons that were aware of the fact of his not only having held the opinions in question, but of his having taught them, could help suspecting, and not unreasonably, that he must have acted insincerely in condemning those who now hold those opinions, seeing that he did not hesitate to condemn in the same strain and at the same moment those also who had at any time previously held them, when they would be sure to remember that they had no less a person than himself as their instructor in these errors? There are, for instance, such persons as Timasius and Jacobus, to say nothing of any others. How can he with unblushing face look at them, his dear friends (who have never relinquished their love of him) and his former disciples? These are the persons to whom I addressed the work in which I replied to the statements of his book. I think I ought not to pass over in silence the style and tone which they observed towards me in their correspondence, and I have here added a letter of theirs as a sample.

CAPUT XXIII.

47. Cum vero mihi etiam liber ille datus esset a servis Dei, bonis et honestis viris Timasio et Jacobo, ubi apertissime Pelagius objectam sibi a se ipso tanquam ab adversario, unde jam grandi invidia laborabat, de Dei gratia quaestionem non aliter sibi solvere visus est, nisi ut naturam cum libero arbitrio conditam, Dei diceret gratiam; aliquando, idque tenuiter , nec aperte, ei conjungens vel legis, adjutorium, vel remissionem etiam peccatorum: tum vero sine ulla dubitatione mihi claruit, quam esset christianae saluti venenum illius perversitatis inimicum. Nec sic tamen operi meo, quo eumdem librum refelli, Pelagii nomen inserui: facilius me existimans profuturum, si servata amicitia, adhuc ejus verecundiae parcerem, cujus litteris jam parcere non deberem. Hinc est, quod nunc moleste fero, in hoc judicio dixisse illum quodam loco, «Anathematizo illos qui sic tenent, aut aliquando tenuerunt.» Suffecerat dicere, «qui sic tenent;» ut eum crederemus esse correctum: cum vero addidit, «aut aliquando tenuerunt;» primum, quam injuste damnare immeritos ausus est, qui illo, quem sive aliis, sive ipso doctore didicerant, errore caruerunt? Deinde, quis eorum qui eum ista non solum aliquando tenuisse, verum etiam docuisse noverunt, non merito suspicetur, simulate anathematizasse qui haec tenent, cum eodem modo anathematizare non dubitavit qui haec aliquando tenuerunt, in quibus eum ipsum recordabuntur magistrum? Ecce, ut alios taceam, Timasium et Jacobum, quibus oculis, qua fronte conspiciet, suos et dilectores, et aliquando discipulos, ad quos librum scripsi, ubi libro ejus respondi ? qui certe quemadmodum mihi rescripserint, tacendum et praetereundum non putavi; sed exemplum litterarum subter annexui.