教宗書信集 第 1 章 第 25/50 段

Behold, they acknowledged for how just causes, on behalf of the catholic and apostolic faith and communion — to which both those who had persevered in it belonged, while those who opposed the persevering were taught to be strangers to it — Acacius was removed by the authority of the Apostolic See (to whose examination he was chiefly summoned, yet took no care either to come or to send, that he might absolve himself of all these charges, if he had confidence), and likewise whoever became his accomplices; and he was deservedly separated, together with these, from that communion, from which he is known to have first separated himself, by disagreeing with his associates the catholic bishops; and rightly did he receive the sentence of that condemnation which was to be promulgated to the rest of his associates — he who alone, on behalf of all his associates, professed in a letter sent to the Apostolic See that he had fallen back into the communion of perfidy.

If the Eastern bishops had communicated with this Acacius before he referred the matter hither, without doubt they are proved to be involved in an equal guilt, and rightly received through him the sentence of transgression, as being made with him partakers of an alien communion — men who surely ought no longer to be consulted as belonging to our communion, but to be repudiated as set in a contrary fellowship. But if they had not communicated before Acacius referred the matter hither, they ought both to have marked out the communicant, and themselves rather to refer him hither for the same, and to approve him as deservedly struck down by the vigor of the Apostolic See, and rather to keep concord with that Apostolic See and with all those catholic bishops.

But because they had defected from the fellowship of those men and chosen to communicate with their successors, therefore they in no way agreed with the Apostolic See: for they had fallen into the lot of the transgressor Acacius, and saw beyond doubt that they were consequently bound by his sentence; for this reason they were unwilling that he should seem to be condemned, because they knew that they themselves were condemned in the same transgression, in which they persist in remaining even today.

But just as these men, bound by a like condition, cannot judge their accomplice to have been condemned unjustly, nor can they properly absolve the guilty party of guilt, so, that transgressor having been justly condemned, they too lie prostrate under an equal condemnation, and cannot at all be absolved therefrom except by repenting; because just as through one man writing, the transgression of them all — who had fallen back into the same action of perfidy — was made public, so in one and the same man, who had written on behalf of all, or by writing had betrayed the wills of all, when his transgression was punished, likewise the transgression of all the accomplices was punished together with him and in him.

Yet this sentence directed against Acacius, even if it is lawfully proved to have been pronounced only in the name of the apostolic prelate — to whose power it belonged, especially since it seemed it had to be dispatched secretly, lest, with guards set out everywhere, the salutary disposition, hindered by any difficulties, could not have the necessary effect — nevertheless, because, with the orthodox everywhere cast down and only the heretics and their associates now left in the East, catholic bishops either were no longer surviving at all, or exercised no freedom, a gathering of very many catholic priests in Italy reasonably recognized that the sentence had been pronounced against Acacius.

This gathering of bishops, once made, convened not against the Chalcedonian synod, not as a new synod against the old and first, but rather, according to the tenor of the old ordinance, became a sharer of the apostolic execution — so that it may sufficiently appear that the catholic Church and the Apostolic See, because it could not now be done elsewhere, where it could and with whom it could, omitted absolutely nothing that pertained to brotherly duty, transacted on behalf of the undefiled faith and sincere communion.

Since those who now seem to preside over the Eastern churches know all these things, they for this reason shun having Christian unity restored by lawful remedy — because they now refuse to lay aside the occasion of this dissension that favors their own ambitions, whereby, without the authority of the Apostolic See, they may confound the rights of all the churches everywhere; choosing rather to persist in error than to lose the opportunity for their presumptions, loving the license of their usurpations more than holding in their heart regard for the divine judgment. In which matter it is necessary, whether they will or not,

that they receive what they deserve, both for having neglected the sincerity of the catholic and apostolic faith and communion, and for having manifestly broken through the canons of the fathers — unless, while time yet allows here, they take pains with corrected minds to turn aside these perils of eternal condemnation, so that they may not remain such men against whom the sentence passed is indissoluble, but, by withdrawing from such men, may not be held by that same sentence, which, just as it has been fixed never to be loosed for those who continue in error, so it will be foreign to those who shall have proved themselves free from the wickedness to be punished.

We judge these things to suffice fully and abundantly for the instruction of your Charity, although, if the Lord grant the ability, we may take pains to expound the same more amply, so that each of the faithful may recognize that the Apostolic See — far be it! — has decreed nothing over-hastily, and that perverse wickedness may be taught that it has nothing which it can justly object. Your Charity will do rightly to make these things which we write known alike to catholics and to those who think the contrary, so that both the necessary firmness may be afforded to the sound, and fitting medicine to the ill-minded. Given on the Kalends of February after the consulship of Viator, vir clarissimus. (96.) LETTER OF POPE GELASIUS TO BISHOP HONORIUS. To his most beloved brother Honorius, Gelasius.

We marvel that your Charity has marveled that the care of the Apostolic See — which by the custom of our forefathers is owed to all the churches throughout the world — has been solicitous also for the faith of your region; and that, when word had been brought to it that certain men throughout the Dalmatias were striving to corrupt catholic integrity and again to introduce the venom of the Pelagian pestilence, already condemned by divine and human laws, we did not think it should in any way be deferred to inquire into these things more diligently — so that either, if perchance they had crept in, they might be healed forthwith from near at hand, or, if the reports were proved false, they might relieve our anxiety — reckoning it better that we should be seen to have wished to trace out such things somewhat impatiently, than to let ruin grow by dissembling:

for neither ought we to suppress causes of this kind by silence, nor to foster them by deferring — since, as the Teacher of the nations says, we are to be «not slothful in diligence», and again, «he who presides, in diligence», and beyond doubt these very words would convict us as guilty, unless we inquired at once, even if the reports had been spread in vain; nor did it matter through whom the same had come to our ears. For whoever the persons and in whatever manner reporting these things, once they had penetrated our conscience, the pastoral watches ought not to have been negligent in truly tracking them down, so that either at the very outset resistance might be made to the lurking wolves, or, no beasts existing, the guardianship of the sheep might remain secure.

The Apostle testifies that from those who were of Chloe he had learned of the dissensions of the Corinthians, and he does not fail to write at once, so that either the pious healer might meet the quarrels while they were being born, or might rejoice at their soon-ascertained soundness. This we too remember to have indicated in the letters that were directed concerning this matter — namely, that either we might withstand the encroaching madnesses, or, if none of these had at all occurred, we might rejoice at the integrity of catholic truth.

Wherefore not only ought your Charity not to be disturbed by our vigilance, but rather, having received the greeting of this present address, you should join your own diligence and skill to ours — so that either, if such things have been attempted, they may be corrected forthwith, or, lest by any deceitful encroachment they be attempted, they may not be able to steal in, since they are more attentively forestalled. But concerning the matters about which those whom your Charity has sent wished to be more fully instructed, the following headings, with their responses, will make them known.

And since the aforesaid men professed that they acquiesce in these things to this extent — that they affirmed they had held the same even from the first, but wished certain points, called into question by some, to be more clearly unfolded — we have taken pains, so far as it could be done amid occupations which by no means permit us to draw breath, by the Lord's bounty following the footsteps of the fathers, not to keep silent about what we have received concerning such matters. Whoever follows this rule of sober thinking with a faithful heart, ought deservedly to be esteemed among the orthodox; but whoever shall think it must be refused, let him not doubt that he is an exile from the apostolic teachings.

Certainly, if there is anything that has power to disturb the mind, let your Brotherhood not fail to consult us with confidence, so that, by the ministering grace of the Lord, brotherly conference may resolve the doubt of every obscurity. (97.) SAYINGS OF THE SAME AGAINST THE PELAGIAN HERESY.

Concerning the Pelagian notions and sacrilegious blasphemies, condemned even among our forebears by just examination through laws both divine and human, the material is exceedingly abundant — because their pernicious perversity is manifold, and the more harmful in that it is the more subtle under a color of plausibility, which, not rightly conceived concerning the depraved and deadly figment about the very first author of the human race, they wove together by the falsehoods of consequences drawn from it (for it is necessary that whoever has deviated from the beginning, wandering everywhere as he proceeds from the entire straight path, the more strongly he thinks himself to run,

the more he errs); and in refuting these, as is fitting, a lengthy disputation must be employed, since indeed it is the way of perfect medicine either first to understand or to lay open the origin of diseases, and, these being disclosed, to prepare a fitting remedy. All of which, if the Lord grant life and ability, we shall endeavor to explain elsewhere, so far as, invigorated by the heavenly dew, we shall be able: but for now we have thought this article, which is reported to move certain persons, should for the time being be sufficiently explained, so that, this being suitably examined, they may weigh — by the granting of the Lord our God — what they ought henceforth to guard against in the rest.

Certain persons, then, suppose that in this life anyone can stand in such perfection that he is beaten by no affections whatsoever of human frailty, nor agitated by any bodily enticements. And whoever supposes that he attains this by his own powers and by the resolve of his own will, deceives himself, and the truth is not in him;

for if in those very first human beings — while they trusted overmuch in their own felicity and, receiving so great a grace of God in vain, by not praying (which indeed they are nowhere reported to have done), nor by giving thanks for the graces received, nor by suppliantly imploring that these same gifts might endure undefiled — could not remain unharmed, how much more, after the ruin of transgression, into which they deadly fell by an evil self-confidence, in no wise seeking their Creator, can they not, sickened, stand fast by their own powers without the divine gift — without which they were not even able to persist whole? But if anyone,

not by the possibility of human capacity but through grace alone, asserts that this can be conferred in this life upon any of the saints, he does well indeed to opine confidently and to hope faithfully such things of the gift of God, to whom all things are possible; but whether any such persons have existed who attained to this perfection of the present life — just as it is nowhere evidently established, so it is not fitting for us either to affirm or to impugn it easily. And it is more sober to learn from the very voices of the prophets and of the holy apostles by what measure we ought to reckon the progress of this life; men than whom, so far as pertains to the discipline of holy life, it is manifest that nothing has been or is more excellent in this world.

For even if by a more copious gift of God they were assailed by human passions altogether rare or very slight, and by a more abundant grace of God easily overcame the vices of mortality, yet they do not testify that they were so far free of them that it should be proper to that «immaculate Lamb» alone to have had absolutely no sin, and that this must be attributed to Him alone, if any other saint be believed to have been free of fault. Let us therefore be content with the profession of the saints, and let us hear what they themselves rather pronounce concerning themselves, than follow, without sure authority, what is either rashly to be thought or ventilated by our opinions.

But why, when God almighty, after the mystery of human restoration, could have conferred even this upon man — that he should be immune from absolutely all vices — He rather willed His faithful to be saved and to await the firmness of perfect blessedness, so that what we desire by hoping we may attain in reality; and why He judged it best now to perfect virtue in weakness, rather than, with weaknesses removed, to allow the human condition to be beaten by no agitation of languor: this will be discussed, as is fitting, so far as the Lord shall supply.

It is established that we are instructed concerning these notions by the testimonies of the Scriptures, against whose tenor nothing is to be rashly professed. In the very first man, Christ and the Church were prefigured, as the blessed apostle Paul teaches us, when, speaking of the covenant of holy wedlock, he says: «This is a great sacrament (mystery); but I speak in Christ and in the Church.» And so, from thence onward, whichever of the saints came forth was reckoned in the prefiguration of this sacrament, and all the saints from Abel enacted this mystery by their sacrifices and deeds.

In Christ, then, and in the Church, in which indeed the remission of sins was universally prepared beforehand, all the faithful lived unto God and holy, and up to the times of the Law given through Moses were purged by certain sacrifices in the power of this mystery. Wherefore, if they all needed to be unceasingly expiated by mystic immolations, there is no doubt that they were beaten by the vices of the human condition, from which it was necessary that they be unceasingly absolved through those remedies of the future sacrament.

Indeed, that in the time of the Law there was none of the saints who did not offer a victim for sin, the venerable reading testifies, to such a degree that even the high priests so pleaded the causes of the then-faithful people before God, that they too immolated victims for their own offenses; and everywhere all the prophets cry out, begging pardon for their sins. Hence it is that holy Job says: «No one is clean from filth, not even an infant whose life upon earth is of one day»; and the same elsewhere: «The stars are not clean in Thy sight.» A sure definition also is known to have been uttered by the prophet David concerning the generality of the saints, in which he says: «Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no living man be justified»;

wherein indeed it is perceived that he distinguished absolutely no man, just as the same, speaking this very thing more plainly, more manifestly declares: «I said, ‹I will pronounce against myself my own injustice to the Lord,› and Thou hast forgiven the impiety of my heart. For this shall every saint pray to Thee in a fitting time» — he who surely could not fail to be, not only under the Law were there to be saints, but also in the future grace of God there would be saints after them of more eminent purpose; whence, in saying «in a fitting time», he did not append it without knowledge of things to come. And in his prayer the most wise Solomon says: «There is no man who has not sinned»; and again he himself:

«Who shall boast that he has a chaste heart, or that he is clean from sin?» But lest the saints of those times be thought perhaps to be excepted from this passibility, on the ground that they were using wives not forbidden by God (although both blessed Elias is recorded to have been passible, as the sequel will show, and the holy prophet Daniel is reported to have prayed not only for the sins of the people but even for his own, as he himself says: «When I was praying and confessing my sins and the sins of my people to the Lord my God»), let us come at last to the blessed apostles, and let the blessed James speak — he who, though all the apostles were surely righteous, is read to have obtained properly and specifically the prerogative of a righteous man:

«Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been proved, he shall receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him»; and likewise a little after: «But each one is tempted, drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence; then concupiscence, when it has conceived, brings forth sin, but sin, when it has been consummated, begets death»; and likewise the same: «For in many things we all offend»; and following on, the same added: «And Elias was a man of like passions with us.» Let the blessed apostle Peter speak: «Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, to abstain from bodily pleasures which war against the soul.» And likewise: «Be not amazed at the fervor which comes upon you to your temptation, as though some new thing were happening to you»;

Likewise afterward: 'Be sober and watchful, for your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about crying out and seeking whom he may devour; resist him in faith, knowing that the same sufferings befall your brotherhood which is in the world.' From this brotherhood indeed those same men proclaim themselves to be the brothers of all the faithful, and are shown never to have set their own person apart from it. Let the blessed John the Evangelist speak, he who reclined upon the breast of the Saviour: 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity.' Likewise:

'And if we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.' Let the same one speak: 'These things I write to you, that you may not sin; but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, one who is just, and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world.' Likewise he himself: 'All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, which is not from the Father but is of the world; and the world passes away and its lust, but he who does the will of the Lord abides forever.'

Let there come the least of the apostles, yet God's chosen vessel; let there come Paul, the teacher of the nations, the singular preacher of divine grace and the abundant expositor of the heavenly mystery, he who, not knowing whether in the body or out of the body, being caught up into the third heaven, heard unspeakable words; who overflowed with such grace that, though he was the last of all, he laboured more than all; and let the teacher of free truth declare not only what he would instil into the faithful about this matter, but also what he pronounces concerning himself.

And since it would be tedious to recount all the sayings that pertain to this matter, let a few out of many be set down, by which it may be most sufficiently shown to us that we ought rather to be made weak together with Paul, that Christ may dwell in us, than to appear strong by holding some opinion other than Paul's, and, as it were (which God forbid), to have no need of Christ's remedies. He says therefore: 'I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwells no good; for to will is present with me, but to accomplish the good I find not. For the good which I will, this I do not; but the evil which I will not, this I do; but if I do that which I will not, it is no longer I that work it, but the sin that dwells in me.' Likewise:

'For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and leading me captive under the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' Why then does he call himself a wretched man, why does he rejoice that through the grace of Christ he is delivered from the body of death, if he was assailed by no impulses of human misery, if he was harassed by no assaults from which he needed deliverance? Likewise the same one: 'The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you will.'

For the spirit does not accomplish what it wills, lest it grow proud of its perfection; and likewise: the flesh does not accomplish what it wills, that thus he may remind us of the human condition, yet not utterly sink the faithful resolve. And lest perchance—as certain men are wont to suppose in their vain opinions—one should think that the blessed apostle Paul pronounces these things under the person of some other unknown man rather than confesses them of himself (although nothing of the kind can at all be shown there, and when he says 'wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of death? the grace of God through Jesus Christ,' the person of both Gentile and Jew is proved to be excluded), let us nevertheless hear him in another place, as it were pointing to himself with his own hand and indicating himself in particular:

'I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin'; and likewise concerning himself: 'I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be found reprobate.' Who then would not observe what difference it could have made, that he should restrain his members by chastising them lest he become reprobate, if he were assailed by no such goads—by neglecting which, and by not subduing them through the chastisement of his body, he could have become reprobate?

Wherefore, since these things are shown to have been professed by the apostles concerning their very selves—who, even if they had not disclosed these things, would nevertheless beyond doubt have both of necessity preached the Lord's Prayer and uttered it with a truthful heart, wherein they are taught daily as suppliants to ask that their debts be forgiven them, and to have prayed that they be not led into temptation, and humbly to have implored that they might be delivered from evil. On which account too the blessed apostle John, as has already been said above, is understood to have set forth, saying:

'If we say that we have no sin, we make Him a liar'—Christ, namely—who would not have given this form of praying to His disciples, in which there should come forth a release even from daily debts, and in which they should implore not to fall back into temptation, or should beg to be delivered from evil, if there were nothing at all whereby either an unremitted debt might weigh them down, or a temptation to sin could be brought upon them, or any evil whatever existed from which they might be delivered. Yet in this way a creeping delusion moves certain men concerning the sleeping, as though the concupiscence of the waking were not reckoned graver.

For although bodily unruliness must also more frequently be restrained, whether by the chastisement of fasting or by the frugality of the food taken, lest matter be furnished to human senses to be deceived by the imagining of a phantom pleasure, or this must be implored with great prayers out of the divine compassion, that minds lulled asleep be rendered immune from enticing visions: nevertheless, whether these things befall those who live incontinently or those who live continently, certainly, if there is any, the guilt of those who are unaware is less than of those who openly and manifestly desire it in appetite for a carnal deed. In short, though he obtain no small gift of God—

whoever, if it be possible, is assailed by no such snares, or by very rare ones—nowhere do we read that the phantasms of dreams are called into blame. But plainly we are not ignorant that it was uttered by the very voice of the Lord, that whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart, where consequently it is not doubtful that guilt underlies, and therefore it must be expiated both by continual supplication and by almsgiving and by other good deeds. For it is not idle that it was said that all things can be cleansed by almsgiving, when the Lord says, while speaking figuratively of inner and outer purifications:

'But rather give alms, and behold, all things are clean unto you'; and also that 'charity covers a multitude of sins,' namely that whatever is drawn in by the insincerity of body and mind may be blotted out by the work of a reasonable piety. But concerning the blessed apostles, as we have already said above, we ought to know only those things which they themselves have set forth in their own words as to be felt concerning their manner of life; but as for the things which are left unspoken by them, no license will be left to us of prying further.

But let us now more diligently trace out why, even after the restoration of the human race and the renewal of nature which comes to pass through the sacrament of baptism, not only have these vices not been removed, but they do not cease to assail even those set in a purpose of great continence—whether more or less, according as each has advanced through the dispensing of divine grace; why there are left the things against which a religious mind must fight; and why, although already saved through faith they have received the hope of redemption, yet still, as the apostle says, 'the redemption of our body' is awaited.

Since, when those reborn by the heavenly mysteries have received an inborn pledge of adoption, the adoption yet to be brought to completion is thereafter to be awaited—namely, that when those same vices fail against which our contest is continual in this present time, being freed from this necessity, we may attain by the longed-for enjoyment of the very realities themselves that which we received by faith and sustained through hope set before us; so that, stripped utterly of this plague of assaults, we may live in a tranquil sanctification for ever, which is promised to be fulfilled in that future blessedness, when, as the apostle says, 'this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal shall put on immortality,' and the animal body shall take on spiritual dignity.

Therefore it is beyond doubt that pride is above every sin, seeing that of it is written: 'The beginning of every sin is pride.' It is so great an evil that individual wrongly-done deeds are judged to be damnable in this very fact, that they are perverse, and pride alone is that which is taught to be perilous even in well-done deeds. This is the sin which not only would not suffer the rational animal set upon earth to stand firm, but in its hostility cast down the angelic nature as well.