{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050447.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050447.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050447.htm","text":"Chapter 62.\u2014The History Continued. C\u0153lestius Condemned at Carthage by Episcopal Judgment. Pelagius Acquitted by Bishops in Palestine, in Consequence of His Deceptive Answers; But Yet His Heresy Was Condemned by Them.\nAfter this heresy had deceived a great many persons, and was disturbing the brethren whom it had failed to deceive, one C\u0153lestius, who entertained these sentiments, was brought up for trial before the Church of Carthage, and was condemned by a sentence of the bishops. 1764 Then, a few years afterwards, Pelagius, who was said to have been this man\u2019s instructor, having been accused of holding his heresy, found also his way before an episcopal tribunal. 1765 The indictment was prepared against him by the Gallican bishops, Heros and Lazarus, who were, however, not present at the proceedings, and were excused from attendance owing to the illness of one of them. After all the charges were duly recited, and Pelagius had met them by his answers, the fourteen bishops of the province of Palestine pronounced him, in accordance with his answers, free from the perversity of this heresy; while yet without hesitation condemning the heresy itself. They approved indeed of his answer to the objections, that \u201ca man is assisted by a knowledge of the law, towards not sinning; even as it is written, \u2018He hath given them a law for a help;\u2019\u201d 1766 but yet they disapproved of this knowledge of the law being that grace of God concerning which the Scripture says: \u201cWho shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.\u201d 1767 Nor did Pelagius say absolutely: \u201cAll men are ruled by their own will,\u201d as if God did not rule them; for he said, when questioned on this point: \u201cThis I stated in the interest of the freedom of our will; God is its helper, whenever it makes choice of good. Man, however, when sinning, is himself in fault, as being under the direction of his free will.\u201d 1768 They approved, moreover, of his statement, that \u201cin the day of judgment no forbearance will be shown to the ungodly and sinners, but they will be punished in everlasting fires;\u201d because in his defence he said, \u201cthat he had made such an assertion in accordance with the gospel, in which it is written concerning sinners, \u2018These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.\u2019\u201d 1769 But he did not say, all sinners are reserved for eternal punishment, for then he would evidently have run counter to the apostle, who distinctly states that some of them will be saved, \u201cyet so as by fire.\u201d 1770 When also Pelagius said that \u201cthe kingdom of heaven was promised even in the Old Testament,\u201d they approved of the statement, on the ground that he supported himself by the testimony of the prophet Daniel, who thus wrote: \u201cThe saints shall take the kingdom of the Most High.\u201d 1771 They understood him, in this statement of his, to mean by the term \u201cOld Testament,\u201d not simply the Testament which was made on Mount Sinai, but the entire body of the canonical Scriptures which had been given previous to the coming of the Lord. His allegation, however, that \u201ca man is able to be without sin, if he wishes,\u201d was not approved by the bishops in the sense which he had evidently meant it to bear in his book 1772 \u2014as if this was solely in a man\u2019s power by free will (for it was contended that he must have meant no less than this by his saying: \u201cif he wishes\u201d),\u2014but only in the sense which he actually gave to the passage on the present occasion in his answer; in the very sense, indeed, in which the episcopal judges mentioned the subject in their own interlocution with especial brevity and clearness, that a man is able to be without sin with the help and grace of God. But still it was left undetermined when the saints were to attain to this state of perfection,\u2014whether in the body of this death, or when death shall be swallowed up in victory.\nThis trial was held at Carthage, before the Bishop Aurelius (to whom Augustin dedicated the present treatise), at the beginning of the year 412, as appears from the letter to Innocentius among Augustin\u2019s Epistles, 175, Nos. 1 and 6.\n210:1765\nThis happened in the year 415, in the month of December, at Diospolis.\n210:1766\nIsa. viii. 20. See above, 2.\n210:1767 210:1768 210:1769\nMatt. xxv. 46. See above, 9.\n210:1770 210:1771\nDan. vii. 18. See above, 13.\n210:1772","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Work on the Pro...","type":"page"}