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Des actes du procès de Pélage

49.

Si Pélage, avouant qu'autrefois, sans trop s'en rendre compté, il avait été imbu de cette erreur, s'était contenté d'anathématiser ceux qui la professent actuellement, ce serait dépouiller tout sentiment de charité que de ne pas le féliciter d'être enfin rentré dans le chemin de la vérité. Mais, non content de se proclamer libre de cette erreur, il n'a pas craint de frapper d'anathème ceux qui en avaient secoué le joug et qui l'aiment lui-même jusqu'à désirer sa délivrance. Au nombre de ces derniers se trouvent Timasius et Jacques, qui pour lui témoigner leur bienveillance m'ont adressé cette lettre. N'était-ce pas de lui surtout qu'ils parlaient quand ils me témoignaient le regret que mon livre fût venu trop tard ? En effet, disent-ils, « nous n'avons plus ici certaines personnes aveuglées par l'erreur, et dont les yeux se seraient ouverts à une si éclatante lumière; nous espérons toutefois qu'elles en obtiendront, quoique un peu tard, cette même grâce par la bonté de Dieu ». Ils ont cru devoir taire le nom ou les noms propres, afin que, en ménageant les liens de l'amitié, ils obtinssent plus facilement pour leurs amis la mort de l'erreur.

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A work on the proceedings of pelagius

Chapter 49 [XXV.]--Pelagius' Behaviour Contrasted with that of the Writers of the Letter.

If now that man, ¹ too, were to confess that he had once been implicated in this error as a person possessed, but that he now anathematized all that hold these opinions, whoever should withhold his congratulation from him, now that he was in possession of the way of truth, would surely surrender all the bowels of love. As the case, however, now stands, he has not only not acknowledged his liberation from his pestilential error; but, as if that were a small thing, he has gone on to anathematize men who have reached that freedom, who love him so well that they would fain desire his own emancipation. Amongst these are those very men who have expressed their good-will towards him in the letter, which they forwarded to me. For he it was whom they had chiefly in view when they said how much they were affected at the fact of my having at last written that work. "If, indeed, it has happened," they say, "that some are removed from the influence of this clearest light of truth, whose blindness required its illumination, yet even to them," they go on to remark, "we doubt not, the self-same grace will find its way, by the merciful favour of God." Any name, or names, even they, too, thought it desirable as yet to suppress, in order that, if friendship still lived on, the error of the friends might the more surely die.