St. Augustine
1Quod tuae sanctitatis scripta non merui, nihil audeo suscensere; melius enim perlatorem credo defuisse, quam me suspicor a tua veneratione contemptum, domine beatissime et merito venerabilis frater. Nunc vero, quoniam servum dei Lucam, per quem ista direxi, cito comperi esse rediturum, agam domino et tuae benignitati uberes gratias, si me litteris fueris visitare dignatus. Pelagium vero fratrem nostrum, filium tuum, quem audio quod multum diligis, hanc illi suggero exhibeas dilectionem, ut homines, qui eum noverunt et diligenter audierunt, non ab eo tuam sanctitatem existiment falli.
2Nam quidam ex discipulis eius adulescentes honestissime nati et institutis liberalibus eruditi spem, quam habebant in saeculo, eius exhortatione dimiserunt et se ad dei servitium contulerunt. In quibus tamen cum apparuissent quaedam sanae doctrinae adversantia, quae salvatoris evangelio
Letters of St. Augustine
I would not for anything venture to cherish resentment1 that I have not been honoured with letters from your Holiness; for it is better for me to believe that you, my saintly lord and deservedly revered brother, were without anyone to convey them, than to harbour the suspicion that your Grace was scorning me. But now, as I have learned that Luke, the servant of God by whom I am sending this letter to you, is going to return very shortly, I shall give hearty thanks to the Lord and to your Benignity, if you have the kindness to visit me by letter. As for Pelagius, our brother and your son, to whom I hear you show much affection, I suggest that the affection you show him be such that the people who know him and have carefully listened to him may not imagine that your Holiness is being deceived by him.
Some of his disciples, indeed, young men of very2 noble birth and education in the liberal arts,b gave up their worldly prospects at his persuasion and betook themselves to the service of God. When, however, they gave evidence of certain theories at variance with sound doctrine as contained in the Gospel of the Saviour and declared in the words of
- aThis is John, bishop of Jerusalem from 386 to 417. When Pelagius and Coelestius reached Palestine in 415, John refused to accept the decrees of the Council of Carthage against them and held his own synod in 415. In 416 the Synod of Diospolis gave a decision favourable to Pelagius, but later this was reversed. Meantime Augustine writes warning John to beware of tolerating and encouraging the Pelagian heresy. For Augustine’s earlier relations with Pelagius see No. 36.
- bThese young men were Timasius and Jacobus, who in 415 sent Augustine a copy of Pelagius’s De Natura, to which Augustine replied in his De Natura et Gratia, dedicated to the two young men; their letter of thanks on receiving the reply is printed as Ep. clxviii.