Letter 178: Augustine briefs Hilarius on Pelagian teaching and the African councils' response.

To my Most Blessed lord Hilarius, brother and fellow bishop to be revered in the truth of Christ: Augustine sends greetings in the Lord. Our honorable son Palladius, as he was sailing from our coast, gave me a favor by asking one: he gave me the chance to commend not only him to Your Kindness, but also myself to your prayers, Most Blessed lord and venerable brother in Christ's love. Since I do this, Your Holiness will surely do what both of us expect from the matter. As for how things are with us, since I know your love is concerned for us just as ours is for you, Your Holiness will hear it from the bearer I have mentioned. Still, I will briefly say what is most necessary. A certain new heresy, hostile to the grace of Christ, is trying to rise up against the church of Christ, though it has not yet visibly separated from the church. These people dare to attribute such power to human weakness that they claim only this belongs to God's grace: that we were created with free will, with the possibility of not sinning, and that we received God's commands for us to fulfill. For keeping and fulfilling those same commands, they say, we need no divine help. They admit that remission of sins is necessary for us, because we cannot make undone the evil things we have done in the past. But for avoiding future sins, overcoming them, and conquering every temptation by virtue, they want the human will, by natural possibility, to be sufficient without any further aid of God's grace. Nor, they say, do infants need the grace of the Savior, by which they are freed from perdition through his baptism, because they have drawn no contagion of condemnation from Adam. Your Venerability sees with us how hostile these claims are to the grace of God given to the human race through Jesus Christ our Lord, and how they try to overturn the foundations of the whole Christian faith. Nor should we have kept silence about them before you, so that with pastoral care you may guard against such people. We want and desire them to be healed in the church rather than cut away from it. Already, when I was writing this, we knew that a decree of an episcopal council had been established against them in the church of Carthage and was to be sent by letter to the holy and venerable Pope Innocent. We, too, from the council of Numidia, had already written similarly to the same Apostolic See. All of us who have hope in Christ must resist this deadly impiety and condemn and anathematize it with one accord. It contradicts even our prayers. It allows us to say, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors," but does so while asserting that a human being in this corruptible body, which weighs down the soul, can reach such righteousness by his own powers that he no longer needs to say, "Forgive us our debts." As for what follows, "Do not lead us into temptation," they do not receive it as meaning that God should be asked to help us overcome temptations to sin, but only that no human accident should rush upon us bodily and afflict us. They think the power to conquer temptations to sin is already so placed in our natural ability that it is empty to seek this by prayer. In one brief letter I cannot gather all, or even many, arguments against so great an impiety, especially because, as I wrote these things, the bearers who were about to sail did not allow me to delay longer. I trust I have not burdened your holy mind by refusing to be silent about so great an evil, one to be avoided with all watchfulness, with the Lord's help.

EPISTOLA 178 Scripta a. 416. Augustinus Hilario de pelagiana haeresi, cuius summam perstringit (n. 1), duobus in Africa conciliis damnata utpote quae totius fidei Christianae fundamenta evertere moliatur (n. 2), ideoque omnibus Christi fidelibus damnanda (n. 3). DOMINO BEATISSIMO, ET IN CHRISTI VERITATE VENERANDO FRATRI ET CONSACERDOTI HILARIO, AUGUSTINUS, IN DOMINO SALUTEM. Pelagianae haeresis summa. 1. Honorabilis filius noster Palladius cum de nostro littore navigaret, beneficium poscendo magis dedit, ut non solum eum Benignitati tuae, verum etiam meipsum tuis orationibus commendarem, domine beatissime, et in Christi caritate venerande frater. Quod cum facio, profecto et Sanctitas tua faciet quod de re ambo praesumimus. Quae autem circa nos sint, quoniam scio dilectionem vestram pro nobis, sicut et nostram pro vobis esse sollicitam, a memorato perlatore audiet Sanctitas tua. Verumtamen quod maxime necessarium est breviter dicam. Nova quaedam haeresis inimica gratiae Christi contra Ecclesiam Christi conatur exsurgere; sed nondum evidenter ab Ecclesia separata est: hominum scilicet qui tantum audent infirmitati humanae tribuere potestatis, ut hoc solum ad Dei gratiam pertinere contendant, quod cum libero arbitrio et non peccandi possibilitate creati sumus, et Dei mandata quae a nobis implerentur accepimus; caeterum ad eadem mandata servanda et implenda nullo divino adiutorio nos egere. Necessariam vero nobis esse remissionem peccatorum, quia ea quae a nobis in praeteritum malefacta sunt, infecta facere non valemus. Cavendis autem futuris vincendisque peccatis, omnibusque tentationibus virtute superandis, sine ullo deinceps adiutorio gratiae Dei naturali possibilitate humanam sufficere voluntatem. Nec parvulos indigere gratia Salvatoris, qua per eius baptismum a perditione liberentur, eo quod nullum ex Adam contagium damnationis attraxerint. De duobus conciliis contra pelagianam haeresim. 2. Quam sint haec inimica gratiae Dei, quae per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum humano generi indulta est, et quemadmodum totius fidei christianae fundamenta evertere moliantur, pervidet nobiscum Venerabilitas vestra. Neque apud vos tacere debuimus, ut eiusmodi homines, quos quidem sanari in Ecclesia, quam ex illa resecari magis volumus et optamus, cura pastorali caveatis. Iam enim cum ista scriberem, cognoveramus in ecclesia Carthaginensi adversus eos episcopalis concilii conditum fuisse decretum, per epistolam sancto et venerabili Papae Innocentio dirigendum; et nos de concilio Numidiae ad eamdem apostolicam Sedem iam similiter scripseramus. Omnibus Christifidelibus pelagiana impietas damnanda. 3. Omnes enim qui spem habemus in Christo, huic pestiferae impietati resistere, eamque concorditer damnare et anathemare debemus: quae contradicit etiam orationibus nostris, concedens quidem ut dicamus: Dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris 1; et hoc ita concedens, ut asserat hominem in hoc corruptibili corpore quod aggravat animam 2, posse suis viribus ad tantam iustitiam pervenire, ut neque hoc illi sit dicere necessarium: Dimitte nobis debita nostra. Illud vero quod sequitur: Ne nos inferas in tentationem 3, non sic accipiunt tamquam Deus orandus sit quo nos ad superandas tentationes adiuvet peccatorum, sed ne quisquam irruens corporaliter nos humanus casus affligat; quoniam peccatorum tentationes vincere ita sit iam in nostra positum potestate, possibilitate naturae, ut hoc inaniter impetrandum orationibus arbitremur. Non possumus una epistola brevi omnia vel plurima tantae impietatis argumenta colligere, praesertim quia cum ista conscriberem, perlatores navigaturi me immorari diutius non sinebant. Puto autem onerosum me non fuisse sanctis sensibus tuis, quod de tanto malo, omni vigilantia, Domino adiuvante, vitando, tacere non potui.