書信與論戰集（CSEL） 第 5 章 第 80/118 段

Consider the divine Scriptures and examine them as much as you can, and see whether any of the just and faithful ever did this, when they suffered so many evils from those who were driving them—not to eternal life, but to eternal destruction, to which you are being compelled. I have heard that you say the Apostle Paul signified that this ought to be done, where he says: 'And if I deliver my body to be burned.' Because, namely, he was calling all good things which without charity profit nothing—such as the tongues of men and of angels, and all the mysteries, and all knowledge, and all prophecy, and all faith so as to remove mountains, and the distribution of one's goods to the poor—therefore it seems to you that he also numbered this among good things, that each should inflict death upon himself.

But attend diligently and understand in what manner the Scripture says that a man delivers his own body to be burned—not indeed that he should cast himself into the fire, when he suffers a persecuting enemy, but when it is proposed to him either to do some evil or to suffer some evil, let him choose rather not to do evil than not to suffer evil, and so let him deliver his body into the power of the slayer, just as those three men did, who were being compelled to worship a golden statue, and, unless they did so, he who compelled them threatened them with a burning fiery furnace. They refused to worship the idol; they did not cast themselves into the fire, and yet even of them it is written that they delivered their bodies, so as neither to serve nor to worship any god, but their own God.

Behold in what manner the Apostle said: 'If I deliver my body to be burned.' But see what follows: 'If I have not charity, it profits me nothing.' To this charity you are called; from this charity you are not allowed to perish; and you think it profits you something, if you cast yourself headlong into destruction, when it would profit you nothing even if another—an enemy of charity—were to kill you. But established outside the Church and separated from the framework of unity and the bond of charity, you would be punished with eternal punishment, even if you were burned alive for the name of Christ. For this is what the Apostle says: 'And if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits me nothing.'

Recall your mind, therefore, to a sound consideration and a sober thought; attend diligently whether you are being called to error and impiety, and suffer for the truth whatever troubles you please. But if it is rather you who are engaged in error and impiety, while there, whither you are called, is truth and piety—because there is Christian unity and the charity of the Holy Spirit—why do you still strive to be an enemy to yourself? For this reason the mercy of God granted that both we and your bishops should come to Carthage in so frequent and numerous an assembly, and should confer among ourselves most orderly concerning this very dissension. The proceedings were written down; our subscriptions too are kept. Read, or allow it to be read to you, and then choose what you will.

I have heard that you said you could do something with us concerning those very proceedings, if we would omit the words of your bishops, where they said: 'Neither does one case prejudice another case, nor one person another person.' You wish us to omit these words, in which, through those men unwittingly, the truth itself spoke. But you are going to say that here they erred and fell too incautiously into a false opinion; we, however, say that they spoke the truth in this, and we prove it most easily through your very own self.

For if your bishops, chosen from the whole party of Donatus, who were to uphold the cause of all, and if they had done anything, the rest would hold it pleasing and accepted—yet in that which you judge them to have said rashly and not rightly, you do not wish that it should prejudice you—then they spoke truly, that 'neither does one case prejudice another case, nor one person another person.' And there you ought to acknowledge that, if you do not wish the person of so many of your bishops constituted among those seven to prejudice the person of Donatus, the presbyter of Mutugenna, how much less ought the person of Caecilianus—even if some evil were found in him—to prejudice the whole unity of Christ, which is not enclosed in the single estate of Mutugenna, but is spread throughout the whole world!

But behold, we do what you wished; we deal with you thus, as if your bishops had not said: 'Neither does one case prejudice another case, nor one person another person.' Do you find what they ought to have said there, when the case and the person of Primianus was objected to them—who both condemned his own condemners along with the rest, and received back into their honour those whom he had condemned and detested, and chose rather to acknowledge and accept than to blow away and rescind the baptism which the dead had given (because it had been said of them in that famous sentence that the shores were full of the funerals of the dead)—and so dissolved the whole of what you, misunderstanding, are wont to say: that whoever is baptized by a dead man, what does his washing profit him? If therefore they had not said:

'Neither does one case prejudice another case, nor one person another person,' they would be held guilty in the case of Primianus; but since they said this, they made the Catholic Church immune, just as we were maintaining, from the case of Caecilianus. But read the rest, examine the rest. See whether against that very Caecilianus, of whose person they were attempting to prejudice the Church, they were able to prove anything evil. See whether they did not rather do much even on his behalf, and by the many readings which they brought forward and recited against themselves, wholly establish his cause as good. Read these things, or let them be read to you.

Consider all things, review them diligently, and choose what you will follow: whether to rejoice with us in the peace of Christ, in the unity of the Catholic Church, in brotherly charity, or, on account of a wicked dissension, on account of the party of Donatus, on account of a sacrilegious division, longer to endure the importunity of our love toward you. For you attend, and often repeat, as I hear, that it is written in the Gospel that seventy disciples withdrew from the Lord and were left to the judgment of their own bad and impious withdrawal, and that to the remaining twelve who had stayed it was answered: 'Do you also wish to go away?' And you do not attend to this: that then the Church was first sprouting with a new shoot, and that prophecy had not yet been fulfilled in it:

'And all the kings of the earth shall adore him, all nations shall serve him,' which indeed, the more it is fulfilled, the greater the power the Church employs, so that it not only invites but even compels to the good. This the Lord then wished to signify, who, although he had great power, chose first to commend humility. This too he showed clearly enough in that parable of the banquet, where he sent to those invited and they were unwilling to come; and he said to the servant: 'Go out into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the weak and the blind and the lame.' And the servant said to the lord: 'It is done as you commanded, and there is still room.' And the lord said to the servant: 'Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.'

See now in what manner it is said of those who came first: 'Bring them in'—it was not said 'compel'—thus were signified the beginnings of the Church still growing, so that there should also be strength for compelling. Accordingly, because it was fitting that, when it was already strengthened by its own force and greatness, men should even be compelled to the banquet of eternal salvation, after it was said, 'It is done as you commanded, and there is still room,' he says, 'Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in.' Wherefore, if you were walking quietly outside this banquet of the holy unity of the Church, we would find you as it were in the highways;

but now, because through the many evil and savage things which you commit against our people you are as it were full of thorns and harshness, we find you as it were in the hedges and compel you to enter in. He who is compelled is driven where he does not wish; but, when he has entered, he is now fed willingly. Restrain therefore now your iniquitous and unpacified mind, that in the true Church of Christ you may find the saving banquet. CLXXIII. A. To the most beloved lords, holy brethren and fellow-presbyters Deogratias and Theodorus, and to the fellow-deacons Titianus and to the brother Comes, Augustine.

Although not by your letters, yet by a most certain and most faithful messenger I have learned that you desire it to be written to you by me, whereby, without any doubt and without any obscurity which cannot be penetrated by the slower-minded, it may be proved that the Holy Spirit is God. Accordingly let your brotherhood know that, as far as I am able to recall the Holy Scriptures on this matter, whoever is not satisfied by what the Apostle says—'Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body'—is utterly ignorant whence he can be persuaded that the Holy Spirit is God, as far as pertains to the authority of the divine oracles;

but as far as pertains to reason, which can be entered upon either by a man or by such a man as we are, on this matter it is disputed with the greatest labour. But whoever yields to the most eminent authority of the divine Scriptures, let him first observe what is written: 'You shall adore the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.' This in Greek is so placed that it is understood not to be that service which is owed even to human masters, but that which is to be rendered to God alone, which is called latria; whence idolatry too is justly condemned, since latria is rendered to idols, whereas latria is to be rendered to the true God alone. But it does not say, 'You shall adore the Lord your God only'; 'and him only,' it says, 'shall you serve.'

There it said 'only,' where it said 'you shall serve'—namely with that service which is called latria. To this service belong the temple, the sacrifice, the priest, and whatever is of this kind. And on this account the Apostle would in no way say that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, unless that service were owed to him which is called latria. Further, such service would not be owed unless he were God, to whom it is owed—especially since he says that our bodies are members of Christ, whom even those do not deny to be God who deny that the Holy Spirit is God, and who contend that Christ is greater than the Holy Spirit. In what manner therefore could the members of the greater be the temple of the lesser?

Whence not only is the Holy Spirit understood without doubt to be God through this, because a temple cannot be piously and rightly assigned except to God; but he is also necessarily found to be one God with the Father and the Son, because the Trinity is one God. For since the assigning of a temple pertains to that service which is called latria, and it is written, 'You shall adore the Lord your God and him only shall you serve,' that is, to him only shall you render latria—assuredly, since latria, when it is rightly rendered, is rendered to God, and to him to whom a temple is rendered latria is rendered, and there is one God alone to whom latria is to be rendered, then without doubt the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. And this is what he says: 'Glorify and bear God in your body.'

Of whom he had said: 'Your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God.' These things I have preferred to dictate as hastily as I could, rather than to put off the desire of your charity by any excuse. If you think this too little, keep yourselves for reading the books on the Trinity which, in the name of the Lord, I am setting about to publish and am already arranging, lest perhaps they persuade you of what nevertheless a brief letter cannot. CLXXIV. To the most blessed lord, and to be venerated with most sincere charity, the holy brother and fellow-priest, Pope Aurelius, Augustine, greeting in the Lord. On the Trinity, which is the supreme and true God, I began the books as a young man, and published them as an old man.

For I had set this work aside, after I learned that some of them had been snatched or stolen from me before I had finished them and, as had been my intention, polished them by revision. For I had decided to publish them not one by one but all together, for this reason: that the succeeding books are linked to the preceding by an inquiry that goes on advancing. Since therefore, through those men who were able to get hold of some of them before I wished, my intention could not be fulfilled, I had left the dictation interrupted, thinking to complain of this very thing in some of my writings, so that those who could might know that the same books were not published by me but taken away, before they seemed to me worthy of my edition.

But, compelled by the most vehement demand of many brethren, and especially by your command, I took care, with the Lord's help, to finish so laborious a work; and having corrected them—not as I wished, but as I was able—lest they should differ too much from those which, having been stolen, had already gone out into men's hands, I have sent them to your reverence through our most dear son the fellow-deacon, and I have permitted them to be heard, read, and copied by whoever wishes. In these, if my intention could have been preserved, they would surely, though having the same opinions, be much more disentangled and plainer, as far as the difficulty of explaining such great matters and our own capacity would allow.

But there are some copies which have the first four, or rather even five, books without their prefaces, and the twelfth without its final part, which is no small portion. But if this edition can become known to them, they will correct everything, if they are willing and able. I ask indeed that you order this letter to be placed separately, yet nevertheless at the head of the same books. Pray for me. CLXXV. To the most blessed lord, and most to be honoured, the holy brother, Pope Innocent, Aurelius, Numidius, Rusticianus, Fidentius, Evagrius, Antoninus, Palatinus, Adeodatus, Vincentius, Publianus, Theasius, Tutus, Pannonius, Victor, Restitutus, another Restitutus, Rusticus, Fortunatianus,

Ampelius, Avivius, Felix, Donatianus, Adeodatus, Octavius, Serotinus, Maiorinus, Postumianus, Crispulus, Victor, another Victor, Leucius, Marianus, Fructuosus, Faustinianus, Quodvultdeus, Candorius, Maximus, Megarius, Rusticus, Rufinianus, Proculus, Thomas, Ianuarius, Octavianus, Praetextatus, Sixtus, Quodvultdeus, Pentadius, Quodvultdeus, Cyprianus, Servilius, Pelagius, Marcellus, Venantius, Didymus, Saturninus, Bazacenus, Germanus, Germanianus, Iuventius, Maiorinus, Iuventius, Candidus, Cyprianus, Aemilianus, Romanus, Africanus and Marcellinus—we who were present in the council of the Church of Carthage.

When, according to custom, we had come solemnly to the Church of Carthage, and a synod gathered from among us was being held on various matters, our fellow-presbyter Orosius gave us the letters of the holy brethren and our fellow-priests Heros and Lazarus, a copy of whose form we have determined should be appended to these. When therefore these had been read, we perceived Pelagius and Caelestius to be the authors of a thoroughly wicked error, to be anathematized by us all. Whence it came about that we asked to have reviewed what had been transacted here, nearly five years ago, concerning the name of Caelestius before the Church of Carthage. When this had been recited, as your holiness will be able to perceive from what is subjoined, although the judgment stood manifest,

because at that time this so great a wound seemed to have been cut out from the Church by episcopal judgment, nevertheless we decreed by common deliberation that the authors of such a persuasion—although the same Caelestius is said to have afterward attained even to the presbyterate—unless they most openly anathematize these things, ought themselves to be anathematized; so that, if the healing of them cannot be accomplished, at least the healing of those who have been deceived by them, or can be deceived, may be procured once the sentence passed against them is known. This transaction, therefore, lord and brother, we have judged should be made known to your holy charity, that to the decrees of our mediocrity the authority also of the apostolic see may be applied, for the safeguarding of the salvation of many and for the correction of the perversity of certain persons.

For these men are doing this by their damnable disputations: that, by not defending but rather by exalting free will into sacrilegious pride, they leave no place for the grace of God, by which we are Christians, by which too the very choice of our will is truly made free, when it is freed from the dominion of carnal concupiscences—the Lord saying: 'If the Son shall have freed you, then you shall be truly free'; which help faith obtains, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. But these men assert—as we have learned from brethren who have even read their books—

that God's grace is to be reckoned in this: that he instituted and created such a nature of man as, through its own will, is able to fulfill the law of God, whether written naturally in the heart or given in letters; and that the same law also pertains to grace, in that God gave it as a help to men. But that grace by which, as has been said, we are Christians, of which the Apostle is the preacher when he says: 'For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man; but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive in the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who shall free me from the body of this death?

the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord'—that grace they are utterly unwilling to acknowledge, nor indeed do they dare openly to attack it. But what else are they doing, when they do not cease to persuade animal men, who do not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God, that human nature alone can suffice of itself for working and perfecting righteousness and for fulfilling God's commandments—not attending to what is written: 'The Spirit helps our weakness,' and: 'It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy,' and that 'we are one body in Christ Jesus, and severally members one of another, having different gifts according to the grace that is given to us,' and:

'By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace in me was not in vain, but I labored more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God with me,' and: 'Thanks be to God, who gave us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,' and: 'Not that we are sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,' and: 'We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us,' and innumerable other passages which, if we should wish to collect them from all the Scriptures, a volume would not suffice? And we fear lest, in recalling to you these very things which with greater grace you preach from the apostolic see, we may seem to act unbecomingly;

But we do this for the reason that, precisely because we are the weaker party, each of us is thought the more attentive in whatever direction he preaches the word of God. All the more often, and the more boldly, do we endure their risings against us. If, therefore, Pelagius has by the episcopal acts, which are said to have been concluded in the East, been justly deemed by your Reverence also to be absolved, nevertheless the error itself and the impiety, which already has many defenders scattered through diverse regions, must be anathematized even by the authority of the Apostolic See. For let your Holiness consider, and be moved with us in your pastoral compassion of heart, how pestilent and deadly to the sheep of Christ is that which necessarily follows upon their sacrilegious disputations, namely, that we ought not even to pray.

Namely, that we should not pray "lest we enter into temptation," which the Lord warned His disciples and set down in the prayer He taught; nor that our faith may not fail, which He Himself testified that He had asked on behalf of the Apostle Peter. For if these things are established within the power of nature's capacity and the choice of the will, who does not see that they are asked of the Lord in vain and prayed for deceitfully, when by praying those things are sought which are already obtained by sufficient powers of a nature so constituted; and that the Lord Jesus ought not to have said, "Watch and pray," but only, "Watch, lest you enter into temptation"; nor to the most blessed first of the apostles, "I have prayed for you," but rather "I admonish you," or "I command and enjoin you, that your faith may not fail"?

By these men's contention our benedictions also are contradicted, so that we seem to speak over the people in vain whatever we entreat from the Lord for them—that by living rightly and piously they may please Him—or those things which the Apostle prays for the faithful, saying: "I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named, that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit." If therefore, in blessing over the people, we should wish to say, "Grant to him, O Lord, to be strengthened with might through Your Spirit," these men's disputation contradicts us, affirming that free will is denied if this is asked of God—that which is in our own power.

For, they say, if we wish to be strengthened with might, we can do it by that capacity of nature which we did not receive now, but received when we were created. They also deny that infants are to be baptized for the sake of the salvation that is given through Christ the Savior; and thus by this deadly doctrine they slay them eternally, promising that even if they are not baptized they will have eternal life, and that those do not belong to the number of whom the Lord says, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost"—because these, they say, were not lost, nor is there anything in them to be saved or to be redeemed at so great a price, since there is nothing corrupted in them, nothing held captive under the power of the devil, nor is it read that blood was poured out for them unto the remission of sins.

Although through the baptism of Christ the redemption even of infants takes place, as Caelestius has already confessed in his little book in the Church of Carthage; yet many who are reported to be, or to have been, their disciples do not cease to affirm, wherever they can, these evils by which they attempt to overturn the foundations of the Christian faith. Hence, even if Pelagius and Caelestius have been corrected, or say that they never held these views, and deny that whatever writings have been brought forward against them are their own—and there is no way in which they can be convicted of falsehood—nevertheless, in general terms:

Whoever dogmatizes and affirms that human nature by itself can suffice for conquering sins and fulfilling God's commandments, and in that way is found an adversary of the grace of God, which is more evidently declared by the prayers of the saints; and whoever denies that little children are freed from perdition through the baptism of Christ and receive everlasting salvation—let him be anathema. But as for whatever other charges are brought against them, we do not doubt that your Reverence, when you have examined the episcopal proceedings which are said to have been concluded in the East in this same case, will so judge them that we may all rejoice in the mercy of God. Pray for us, most blessed lord and pope.

To the most blessed lord, deservedly venerable and to be honored in Christ, Pope Innocent: Silvanus the elder, Valentinus, Aurelius, Donatus, Restitutus, Lucianus, Alypius, Augustine, Placentius, Severus, Fortunatus, Possidius, Novatus, Secundus, Maurentius, Leo, Faustinianus, Cresconius, Malchus, Litorius, Fortunatus, Donatus, Pontician, Saturninus, Cresconius, Honorius, Cresconius, Lucius, Adeodatus, Processus, Secundus, Felix, Asiaticus, Rufinus, Faustinus, Servus, Terentius, Cresconius, Sperantius, Quadratus, Lucillus, Sabinus, Faustinus, Cresconius, Victor, Gigantius, Possidonius, Antoninus, Innocentius, Felix, Antoninus, Victor, Honoratus, Donatus, Peter, Praesidius.

Cresconius, Lampadius, Delphinus, from the Council of Mileve, greeting in the Lord. Because the Lord has placed you in the Apostolic See by the special gift of His grace, and has provided our times with such a man as you, so that it would rather be to our fault of negligence if we should keep silent before your Reverence concerning the things that ought to be suggested for the Church, than that you should be able to receive them either with disdain or with negligence—we beseech you to deign to apply your pastoral diligence to the great perils of the weak members of Christ. For a new and exceedingly pernicious heresy of the enemies of the grace of Christ is attempting to arise, men who try to take away from us even the Lord's Prayer by their impious disputations. For whereas the Lord has taught us to say:

"Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors," these men say that a man in this life, having come to know God's precepts, can attain to so great a perfection of righteousness without the aid of the Savior's grace, through the choice of free will alone, that it is not even necessary to say, "Forgive us our debts." But as for what follows—"Lead us not into temptation"—they hold that it is not to be understood as though we ought to ask for divine aid lest, being tempted, we fall into sin, but that this lies placed within our own power, and that for fulfilling it the will of man alone suffices—as though the Apostle had said in vain: "It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy," and:

"God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but with the temptation will also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it"—and that the Lord would have said in vain to the Apostle Peter, "I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail," and to all His own, "Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation," if all this belongs to human power. They also contend, with a presumption in no way Christian, that even little children, if they be imbued with none of the sacraments of Christian grace, will have eternal life—thus voiding what the Apostle says: "Through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed unto all men, in whom all have sinned," and in another place:

"As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." Therefore, to pass over the other many things which they dispute against the holy Scriptures, these two meanwhile, by which they attempt to overturn utterly the whole of that which makes us Christians: