The Accusation Against Caelestius

Following whose judgment, your Beatitude, when Coelestius was being heard by the apostolic see, commanded among other things, in these words: Do you then condemn all those things which are contained in the little book of Paulinus? That is, concerning the Questions. And in another place: Have you learned what sort of letters the apostolic see gave to the brothers and fellow-bishops of the African province? And it was added: Do you condemn all those things which we have condemned, and do you hold what we hold? And again: Do you condemn all those things which have been bruited about under your name? And again: Or those things which Paulinus set forth in his little book?

And when he said that from those things which had been objected against him, he could prove that I was a heretic, filled with the Holy Spirit, you rejected and repressed, by apostolic authority, the words of the raving and calumniating man, uttering a judgment of this kind, by which I myself would be approved as catholic, and by which you might cure him, if he wished to be healed; which is of this sort: I do not want you to lead us in circles; do you condemn all those things which have been objected against you by Paulinus, or which have been noised abroad by report? To whom is this judgment not sufficient? Who else would reject this so wholesome, so embraceable, so pious a sentence, except one who has strayed from the faith?

And he, who had earlier professed that he would condemn whatever had been objected against him, if you should judge it contrary to the faith, hears, Condemn it; and not only does he not condemn it, but he strives to the injury of so great a see. Whence the Roman Church no longer is ignorant of her guilty one, who with such bold spirit has dared to contradict, and not to condemn what your Beatitude has decreed should be condemned.

I nevertheless give thanks to God and to Christ the Lord, that he willed the cause of his Church to be conducted in such a way, that the apostolic see, by which it was fitting that heresy be condemned by the mouth of two of its pontiffs, has ordered to be condemned those things which had been objected by me against Coelestius: whose condemnation I have never desired, but whose correction I have always wished and do wish; with whom the cause now is not with me alone, but with the whole Church of God, as the writings given to your Beatitude by the African bishops testify; since he strives to go against the apostolic judgment by denying original sin, which has passed through into all men, and which, until the end of the world, holds the inheritance of that Adam who first sinned: which, unless it be remitted in infants through the sacrament of Baptism, they cannot have eternal life and the eternal kingdom.

Against which even his own teacher Pelagius contends, who condemned those very things in the eastern judgment which this man tries to establish in the assembly of the apostolic see. He has arrayed against him also the ancient catholic teachers of the Churches, very many of them, of the East and of the West, of the southern part and of the northern, who in their books can teach him concerning original sin, if he desires to be healed. He has blessed Cyprian the martyr, blessed Ambrose the confessor, Gregory Nazianzen, blessed pope Innocent. He has also those who might wrestle with him bodily, if indeed he judges himself capable of so great a contest; or at any rate those whom he ought to follow, if he wishes rather to learn what is right than to teach what is depraved. He has, what is first, your Beatitude, whose judgment he ought to have obeyed, when he heard, Condemn it.

He has, lastly, the very infants themselves, on whom he ought to have mercy, if he will not have mercy on himself; to whom, to use the words of the Martyr, not their own sins but another's are remitted.

Wherefore I beg your blessed apostolate to order this little book of mine to be received, whereby I may give thanks to so great a see, and for the most just sentences given, for my part; which little book I have sent for this reason, that Basiliscus the subdeacon, sent by your Beatitude with the Acts of the apostolic see, met with me, though only by word, at Carthage on the fourth day before the Nones of November, that I should be present at the apostolic see and at the judgment of your holiness, to which it was suggested I had fled, and that I would not fail to appear if a sentence had been given against me, and not for me. There I was then able to do nothing, because he who had appealed to the apostolic see was absent: who ought certainly to have established the merits of his appeal, especially since, with the appellant doing nothing, even according to human laws, he is always the superior who has won.

For what would it now concern me, that even before your reverence I should stand as an approver of his depraved doctrine? Concerning whom I might rejoice, if, those things which had been objected by me against him being condemned, the judgment of the apostolic see should so confirm it that he might have deserved to be absolved; and should not permit himself to be ordained before he was purged.

But the little fox has always been intent on frauds: he knows not how to change his nature. He believed he could not be caught: since he has always had confidence in his hiding-holes, in which he strives to conceal the sunken head of his conscience. Which could no longer lie hidden, but, being more manifestly disclosed, is cut off by the spiritual sword through your Beatitude: lest the flock of the Lord be further cut into pieces by ferine teeth, which the good shepherd guards with anxious and ever-wakeful care. This little book, moreover, I have sent to your Beatitude by Marcellinus, subdeacon of the church of Carthage. Given the sixth day before the Ides of November.