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De la grâce de Jésus-Christ et du péché originel

15.

En lisant le livre que j'ai adressé à notre vénérable vieillard Aurélius, et dans lequel je, discutais les actes du concile de Palestine, vous avez vu avec quel joie véritable j'accueillais cette réponse de Pélage, car elle paraissait avoir clos le débat et confessé ouvertement l'existence du péché originel dans les enfants. Et, en effet, quel autre sentiment pouvais-je éprouver quand je l'entendais frapper d'anathème ceux qui soutenaient que le péché d'Adam n'avait nui qu'à son auteur et nullement au genre humain, et que les enfants à leur naissance sont dans le même état qu'Adam avant sa prévarication? Mais lorsque j'eus parcouru les quatre livres de cet ouvrage dont je viens de citer quelques lignes; lorsque je vis ce même homme se mettre en opposition directe avec la foi catholique, au sujet du péché originel pour les enfants, je me demandai avec effroi comment cet homme avait pu mentir aussi impudemment dans un jugement ecclésiastique et sur une question d'une telle importance. Supposé que ces livres fussent écrits avant le jugement, comment a-t-il pu frapper d'anathème ceux qui avaient professé cette doctrine? Et s'il ne les composa que dans la suite, comment a-t-il osé condamner ceux qui embrassent cette erreur? Braverait-il le ridicule jusqu'au point de dire que son anathème ne frappait que ceux qui, dans le passé ou au moment même, avaient professé ou professaient cette doctrine, tandis qu'ils ne pouvaient nullement s'appliquer à ceux qui dans l'avenir embrasseraient cette erreur, dût-il l'embrasser lui-même? Il conclurait de là qu'il ne s'est pas démenti, quoique dans la suite il.ait enseigné ce qu'il avait d'abord condamné. Mais il recule devant un tel langage, non-seulement parce qu'il serait ridicule, mais aussi parce qu'il serait d'une fausseté éclatante. En effet, dans ces mêmes livres il attaque la transmission du péché d'Adam aux enfants, et tire vanité des actes du synode de Palestine, dans lequel il parut condamner réellement ceux qui partagent ces erreurs, et dans lequel aussi il vola son absolution, grâce à l'habileté de ses mensonges.

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A Treatise on the grace of christ, and on original sin

Chapter 15 [XIV.]--Pelagius by His Mendacity and Deception Stole His Acquittal from the Synod in Palestine.

For my own part, however, I, as you are quite aware, and as I also stated in the book which I addressed to our venerable and aged Aurelius on the proceedings in Palestine, really felt glad that Pelagius in that answer of his had exhausted the whole of this question. ¹ To me, indeed, he seemed most plainly to have acknowledged that there is original sin in infants, by the anathema which he pronounced against those persons who supposed that by the sin of Adam only himself, and not the human race, was injured, and who entertained the opinion that infants are in the same state in which the first man was before the transgression. When, however, I had read his four books (from the first of which I copied the words which I have just now quoted), and discovered that he was still cherishing thoughts which were opposed to the catholic faith touching infants, I felt all the greater surprise at a mendacity which he so unblushingly maintained in a synod of the Church, and on so great a question. For if he had already written these books, how did he profess to anathematize those who had ever entertained the opinions alluded to? If he purposed, however, afterwards to publish such a work, how could he anathematize those who at the time were holding the opinions? Unless, to be sure, by some ridiculous subterfuge he meant to say that the objects of his anathema were such persons as had in some previous time held, or were then holding, these opinions; but that in respect of the future--that is, as regarded those persons who were about to take up with such views--he felt that it would be impossible for him to prejudge either himself or other people, and that therefore he was guilty of no lie when he was afterwards detected in the maintenance of similar errors. This plea, however, he does not advance, not only because it is a ridiculous one, but because it cannot possibly be true; because in these very books of his he both argues against the transmission of sin from Adam to infants, and glories in the proceedings of the Synod in Palestine, where he was supposed to have sincerely anathematized such as hold the opinions in dispute, and where he, in fact, stole his acquittal by practising deceit.