Augustine of Hippo, Letters

1. It had been indeed long ago decreed that Pelagius and Celestius, the authors of an execrable heresy, should, as pestilent corruptors of the Catholic truth, be expelled from the city of Rome, lest they should, by their baneful influence, pervert the minds of the ignorant. In this our clemency followed up the judgment of your Holiness, according to which it is beyond all question that they were unanimously condemned after an impartial examination of their opinions. Their obstinate persistence in the offence having, however, made it necessary to issue the decree a second time, we have enacted further by a recent edict, that if any one, knowing that they are concealing themselves in any part of the provinces, shall delay either to drive them out or to inform on them, he, as an accomplice, shall be liable to the punishment prescribed.

2. To secure, however, the combined efforts of the Christian zeal of all men for the destruction of this preposterous heresy, it will be proper, most dearly beloved father, that the authority of your Holiness be applied to the correction of certain bishops, who either support the evil reasonings of these men by their silent consent, or abstain from assailing them with open opposition. Let your Reverence, then, by suitable writings, cause all bishops to be admonished (as soon as they shall know, by the order of your Holiness, that this order is laid upon them) that whoever shall, through impious obstinacy, neglect to vindicate the purity of their doctrine by subscribing the condemnation of the persons before mentioned, shall, after being punished by the loss of their episcopal office, be cut off by excommunication and banished for life from their sees. For as, by a sincere confession of the truth, we ourselves, in obedience to the Council of Nice, worship God as the Creator of all things, and as the Fountain of our imperial sovereignty, your Holiness will not suffer the members of this odious sect, inventing, to the injury of religion, notions new and strange, to hide in writings privately circulated an error condemned by public authority. For, most beloved and loving father, the guilt of heresy is in no degree less grievous in those who either by dissimulation lend the error their secret support, or by abstaining from denouncing it extend to it a fatal approbation.

(In another hand.) May the Divinity preserve you in safety for many years!

Given at Ravenna, on the 9th day of June, in the Consulship of Monaxius and Plinta.

A letter, in the same terms, was also sent to the holy Bishop Augustin.

EPISTOLA CCI . Imperatores nova in Pelagianos eorumque fautores sanctione edita, mandant Aurelio, necnon Augustino per ejusdem tenoris litteras seorsum ipsi inscriptas, ut adversus damnatam haeresim subscriptionem exigant a caeteris episcopis.

0927

Imperatores HONORIUS et THEODOSIUS Augusti, AURELIO episcopo, salutem.

1. Dudum quidem fuerat constitutum ut Pelagius atque Celestius infandi dogmatis repertores ab urbe Roma, velut quaedam catholicae veritatis contagia, pellerentur, ne ignorantium mentes saeva persuasione perverterent. In quo secuta est clementia nostra judicium Sanctitatis tuae, quo constat eos ab universis justa sententiae examinatione damnatos. Sed quia obstinati criminis pertinax malum, ut constitutio geminaretur, exegit; recenti quoque sanctione decrevimus ut si quis eos in quacumque provinciarum parte latitare non nesciens, aut propellere aut prodere distulisset, praescriptae poenae, velut particeps, subjaceret.

2. Praecipue tamen ad quorumdam episcoporum pertinaciam corrigendam, qui pravas eorum disputationes vel tacito consensu astruunt, vel publica oppugnatione non destruunt, pater charissime atque amantissime, Sanctitatis tuae auctoritatem imminere conveniet; quatenus in abolitionem praeposterae haeresis omnium devotio christiana consentiat. Religio itaque tua competentibus scriptis universos faciat admoneri, scituros definitione Sanctimonii tui hanc definitionem sibi esse praescriptam, ut quicumque damnationi memoratorum, quo pateat mens pura, subscribere impia obstinatione neglexerint, episcopatus amissione multati, interdicta, in perpetuum expulsi civitatibus, communione priventur. Nam cum ipsi juxta synodum Nicaenam confessione sincera conditorem rerum omnium Deum, imperiique nostri veneremur auctorem; non patietur tua Sanctitas sectae detestabilis homines in injuriam religionis nova et inusitata meditantes, secretis tractibus occultare sacrilegium semel publica auctoritate damnatum. Una enim eademque culpa est eorum qui aut dissimulando conniventiam, aut non damnando, favorem noxium praestiterint, pater charissime atque amantissime. (Et alia manu): Divinitas te per multos annos servet incolumem. Data V iduum juniarum, Ravennae, Monaxio et Plinta consulibus. Eodem tenore etiam ad sanctum Augustinum episcopum data .