Chapter 7.—He Suggests a Dilemma to Cœlestius.

What was that which the same pope replied to the bishops of Numidia concerning this very cause, because he had received letters from both Councils, as well from the Council of Carthage as from the Council of Mileve—does he not speak most plainly concerning infants? For these are his words:107    See Augustin’s Letters, 182, 5. “For what your Fraternity108    An address like “your Honour,” “your Love,” etc. asserts that they preach, that infants can be endowed with the rewards of eternal life even without the grace of baptism, is excessively silly; for unless they shall eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, they shall not have life in themselves.109    John vi. 54. And they who maintain this as being theirs without regeneration, appear to me to wish to destroy baptism itself, since they proclaim that these have that which we believe is not to be conferred on them without baptism.” What does the ungrateful man say to this, when the Apostolic See had already spared him on his profession, as if he were corrected by its most benignant lenity? What does he say to this? Will infants after the end of their life, even if while they live they are not baptized in Christ, be in eternal life, or will they not? If he should say, “They will,” how then did he answer that he had condemned what had been uttered under his name “according to the judgment of Innocent, of blessed memory”? Lo, Pope Innocent, of blessed memory, says that infants have not life without Christ’s baptism, and without partaking of Christ’s body and blood. If he should say, “They will not,” how then, if they do not receive eternal life, are they certainly by consequence condemned in eternal death if they derive no original sin?

7. Quid illud quod idem Papa de hac ipsa causa etiam Numidiae rescripsit episcopis, quia de utroque concilio, et de Carthaginensi scilicet et de Milevitano scripta susceperat, nonne apertissime de parvulis loquitur? Haec enim ejus verba sunt: «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 ejus, non habebunt vitam in semetipsis (Joan. VI, 54). Qui autem hanc eis sine regeneratione defendunt, videntur mihi ipsum Baptismum velle cassare, cum praedicant hos habere, quod in eos credimus nonnisi Baptismate conferendum» (Innocentius, epist. 182, n. 5, inter Augustinianas). Quid ad haec dicit ingratus, cui Sedes Apostolica jam sua professione quasi correcto benignissima lenitate pepercerat? Quid ad haec dicit? utrum post hujus vitae finem parvuli, etiamsi dum vivunt non baptizentur in Christo, in vita aeterna erunt, an non erunt? Si dixerit, Erunt: quomodo ergo quae de nomine ejus jactata sunt, secundum sententiam beatae memoriae Innocentii se damnasse respondit? Ecce beatae memoriae Innocentius Papa sine Baptismo Christi, et sine participatione corporis et sanguinis Christi vitam non habere parvulos dicit. Si dixerit, Non erunt: quomodo ergo non accipientes aeternam vitam, utique consequenter aeterna morte damnantur, si nullum trahunt originale peccatum?