Traduction Masquer
A work on the proceedings of pelagius

Chapter 47 [XXIII.]--Pelagius' Book, Which Was Sent by Timasius and Jacobus to Augustin, Was Answered by the Latter in His Work "On Nature and Grace."

But when there was actually placed in my hands, by those faithful servants of God and honourable men, Timasius and Jacobus, the treatise in which Pelagius dealt with the question of God's grace, it became very evident to me--too evident, indeed, to admit of any further doubt--how hostile to salvation by Christ was his poisonous perversion of the truth. He treated the subject in the shape of an objection started, as if by an opponent, in his own terms against himself; for he was already suffering a good deal of obloquy from his opinions on the question, which he now appeared to solve for himself in no other way than by simply describing the grace of God as nature created with a free will, occasionally combining therewith either the help of the law, or even the remission of sins; although these additional admissions were not plainly made, but only sparingly suggested by him. And yet, even under these circumstances, I refrained from inserting Pelagius' name in my work, wherein I refuted this book of his; for I still thought that I should render a prompter assistance to the truth if I continued to preserve a friendly relation to him, and so to spare his personal feelings, while at the same time I showed no mercy, as I was bound not to show it, to the productions of his pen. Hence, I must say, I now feel some annoyance, that in this trial he somewhere said: "I anathematize those who hold these opinions, or have at any time held them." He might have been contented with saying, "Those who hold these opinions," which we should have regarded in the light of a self-censure; but when he went on to say, "Or have at any time held them," in the first place, how could he dare to condemn so unjustly those harmless persons who no longer hold the errors, which they had learnt either from others, or actually from himself? And, in the second place, who among all those persons that were aware of the fact of his not only having held the opinions in question, but of his having taught them, could help suspecting, and not unreasonably, that he must have acted insincerely in condemning those who now hold those opinions, seeing that he did not hesitate to condemn in the same strain and at the same moment those also who had at any time previously held them, when they would be sure to remember that they had no less a person than himself as their instructor in these errors? There are, for instance, such persons as Timasius and Jacobus, to say nothing of any others. How can he with unblushing face look at them, his dear friends (who have never relinquished their love of him) and his former disciples? These are the persons to whom I addressed the work in which I replied to the statements of his book. I think I ought not to pass over in silence the style and tone which they observed towards me in their correspondence, and I have here added a letter of theirs as a sample.

Traduction Masquer
Des actes du procès de Pélage

47.

Enfin, deux serviteurs de Dieu, aussi généreux que bons, Timasius et Jacques, remirent entre mes mains ce livre dans lequel Pélage, désireux de,se produire officiellement, se posait directement à lui-même la question de la grâce et la résolvait en disant que la grâce de Dieu n'est autre chose que la nature créée avec le libre arbitre. Parfois, mais à mots couverts et avec un déguisement prononcé, il adjoignait au libre arbitré le secours de la loi, voire même la rémission des péchés. Malgré ces subterfuges, je compris clairement qu'il y avait dans cette doctrine un venin de perversité, très-opposé au salut chrétien. Toutefois, dans la réfutation que j'ai faite de ce livre, je n'ai pas prononcé le nom de Pélage; car je croyais obtenir plus sûrement mon but, en conservant les dehors de l'amitié, et en ménageant la susceptibilité personnelle de celui dont les écrits ne méritaient de ma part aucun ménagement. C'est là cependant, et je le regrette profondément, ce qui, dans le jugement, lui a arraché cette parole : « J'anathématise ceux qui tiennent ou ont tenu ce langage ». Il suffisait de dire : «Ceux qui tiennent », car alors nous aurions conclu qu'il était corrigé. Mais quand-il ajouté : « Et ceux qui l'ont ténu autrefois », comment ne pas lui reprocher l'injuste condamnation qu'il porte contre des innocents qui ont rejeté l'erreur à laquelle ils avaient été initiés par lui-même ou par ses disciples ?Au contraire, quand on sait non-seulement qu'il a professé cette erreur, mais qu'il l'a enseignée, comment ne pas craindre la simulation dans l'anathème qu'il lance contre ceux qui professent cette erreur, puisqu'il anathématise également ceux qui l'ont professée autrefois ? S'ils l'ont professée, n'est-ce pas lui qui la leur enseignait? Sans parler des autres, de quel œil peut-il regarder, de quel front peut-il contempler Timasius et Jacques ses amis et autrefois ses disciples, et auxquels j'ai adressé la réfutation que j'ai faite de son- erreur¹? Puisque j'ai reçu leur réponse, je ne pouvais passer leur nom sous silence; j'ai même annexé à ce livre une copie de leur lettre.