Chapter 6.—Why Pelagius Does Not Speak in His Own Person.

Pray, don’t you see how Pelagius has inserted the whole of this paragraph in his writings, not in his own person, but in that of others, knowing so well the novelty of this unheard-of doctrine, which is now beginning to raise its voice against the ancient ingrafted opinion of the Church, that he was ashamed or afraid to acknowledge it himself? And perhaps he does not himself think that a man is born without sin for whom he confesses that baptism to be necessary by which comes the remission of sins; or that the man is condemned without sin who must be reckoned, when unbaptized, in the class of non-believers, since the gospel of course cannot deceive us, when it most clearly asserts, “He that believeth not shall be damned;”450    Mark xvi. 16. or, lastly, that the image of God, when without sin, is not admitted into the kingdom of God, forasmuch as “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,”451    John iii. 5.—and so must either be precipitated into eternal death without sin, or, what is still more absurd, must have eternal life outside the kingdom of God; for the Lord, when foretelling what He should say to His people at last,—“Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world,”452    Matt. xxv. 34.—also clearly indicated what the kingdom was of which He was speaking, by concluding thus: “So these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.”453    Matt. xxv. 46. These opinions, then, and others which spring from the central error, I believe so worthy a man, and so good a Christian, does not at all accept, as being too perverse and repugnant to Christian truth. But it is quite possible that he may, by the very arguments of those who deny the transmission of sin, be still so far distressed as to be anxious to hear or know what can be said in reply to them; and on this account he was both unwilling to keep silent the tenets propounded by them who deny the transmission of sin, in order that he might get the question in due time discussed, and, at the same time, declined to report the opinions in his own person, lest he should be supposed to entertain them himself.

6. Videsne, obsecro, quemadmodum hoc totum Pelagius, non ex sua, sed ex aliorum persona indiderit scriptis suis, usque adeo sciens hanc nescio quam esse novitatem, quae contra antiquam Ecclesiae insitam opinionem sonare nunc coeperit, ut eam ipse confiteri aut verecundatus, aut veritus fuerit. Et forte hoc ipse non sentit, quod sine peccato nascatur homo, cui fatetur necessarium esse Baptismum, in quo fit remissio peccatorum: et quod sine peccato damnetur homo, quem necesse est non baptizatum in non crendentibus deputari; quia utique Scriptura evangelica fallere non potest, in qua apertissime legitur, Qui non crediderit, condemnabitur: postremo, quod sine peccato imago Dei non admittatur ad regnum Dei, quoniam nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et spiritu, 0189 non potest introire in regnum Dei (Joan. III, 5): atque ita vel in aeternam mortem sine peccato praecipitetur, vel quod est absurdius, extra regnum Dei habeat vitam aeternam; cum Dominus praedicens quid suis in fine dicturus sit, Venite, benedicti Patris mei, percipite regnum quod vobis paratum est ab initio mundi, manifestaverit etiam quid sit ipsum regnum quod dicebat, ita concludens, Sic ibunt illi in ambustionem aeternam, justi autem in vitam aeternam (Matth. XXV, 34, 46). Haec ergo et alia quae istum sequuntur errorem, nimium perversa et christianae repugnantia veritati, credo quod vir ille tam egregie christianus omnino non sentiat. Sed fieri potest ut etiam istorum argumentis, qui contra peccati traducem sentiunt, adhuc fortasse ita moveatur, ut audire vel nosse quid contra eos dicatur, exspectet: et ideo quid illi dicant, qui contra peccati traducem sentiunt, nec tacere voluit, ut quaestio discutienda insinuaretur, et a persona sua removit, ne hoc etiam ipse sentire judicaretur.