15. [XIV.]—Pelagius by His Mendacity and Deception Stole His Acquittal from the Synod in Palestine.

For my own part, however, I, as you are quite aware, and as I also stated in the book which I addressed to our venerable and aged Aurelius on the proceedings in Palestine, really felt glad that Pelagius in that answer of his had exhausted the whole of this question.158    See On the Proceedings of Pelagius, ch. 24. To me, indeed, he seemed most plainly to have acknowledged that there is original sin in infants, by the anathema which he pronounced against those persons who supposed that by the sin of Adam only himself, and not the human race, was injured, and who entertained the opinion that infants are in the same state in which the first man was before the transgression. When, however, I had read his four books (from the first of which I copied the words which I have just now quoted), and discovered that he was still cherishing thoughts which were opposed to the catholic faith touching infants, I felt all the greater surprise at a mendacity which he so unblushingly maintained in a synod of the Church, and on so great a question. For if he had already written these books, how did he profess to anathematize those who had ever entertained the opinions alluded to? If he purposed, however, afterwards to publish such a work, how could he anathematize those who at the time were holding the opinions? Unless, to be sure, by some ridiculous subterfuge he meant to say that the objects of his anathema were such persons as had in some previous time held, or were then holding, these opinions; but that in respect of the future—that is, as regarded those persons who were about to take up with such views—he felt that it would be impossible for him to prejudge either himself or other people, and that therefore he was guilty of no lie when he was afterwards detected in the maintenance of similar errors. This plea, however, he does not advance, not only because it is a ridiculous one, but because it cannot possibly be true; because in these very books of his he both argues against the transmission of sin from Adam to infants, and glories in the proceedings of the Synod in Palestine, where he was supposed to have sincerely anathematized such as hold the opinions in dispute, and where he, in fact, stole his acquittal by practising deceit.

CAPUT XIV.

15. Quod autem scitis, et quod in eo etiam libro posui, quem de gestis Palaestinis ad venerabilem senem nostrum Aurelium scripsi, illa ego responsione Pelagii, totam istam quaestionem consumptam esse gaudebam, confessusque mihi apertissime videbatur, esse in parvulis originale peccatum, anathema dicendo eis qui peccato Adae ipsum solum, non etiam genus humanum crederent laesum, et in eo statu opinarentur esse parvulos, in quo ille homo primus ante praevaricationem fuit. Sed postea cum legissem quatuor ejus libros, de quorum primo libro paulo ante commemorata verba descripsi, et invenissem hominem adhuc contra catholicam fidem de parvulis sentientem; plus mirari coepi, tam impudens in ecclesiastico judicio et de tanta quaestione mendacium. Si enim eosdem libros ante jam scripserat, quomodo se dixit eos anathematizare, qui sic aliquando tenuerunt? Si autem postea illud opus pollicitus est, quomodo anathematizavit qui sic tenent? Nisi ridicule forte dicturus est, eos se damnasse qui sic aliquando tenuerunt, et qui sic tenent; de tempore autem futuro, id est, eis qui sic fuerant retenturi, nec sibi, nec aliis praejudicare potuisse; et ideo non fuisse mentitum, quia postea deprehensus est sic tenere. Sed non hoc dicit, non solum quia ridiculum est, sed quia verum esse non potest. In 0393 eisdem quippe libris, et contra peccati ex Adam in parvulos transitum loquitur, et de gestis Palaestinae synodi gloriatur, ubi eos qui sic tenent, veraciter damnasse putatus est, et absolutionem suam fallendo furatus est.