Letter 181: Innocent I confirms the Carthage council's condemnation of Pelagian teaching and explains why grace is necessary.

Innocent sends greetings in the Lord to Aurelius and all the holy bishops who were present at the council of the church of Carthage, dearly beloved brothers. In investigating divine matters, which priests ought to treat with all care, and above all in a true, just, and catholic council, you have followed the examples of ancient tradition and remembered ecclesiastical discipline. You have now strengthened the vigor of our religion by consulting us, no less than you strengthened it before by making your pronouncement. You approved that the matter should be referred to our judgment, knowing what is owed to the apostolic see, since all of us placed here desire to follow the apostle himself, from whom the episcopate itself and the whole authority of this name arose. Following him, we know how to condemn evil things and approve praiseworthy ones. You judge that the institutions of the fathers, preserved by priestly duty, should not be trampled down. The fathers decreed by no human but by divine judgment that whatever was done, even in distant and separated provinces, should not be considered finished until it came to the knowledge of this see. In this way, whatever just pronouncement had been made would be confirmed by the whole authority of this see, and from here the other churches would receive what they should command, whom they should wash clean, and whom, as people stained with mud that cannot be cleaned, the water worthy of clean bodies should avoid, as all waters proceed from their native spring and pure streams flow from an incorrupt head through the different regions of the whole world. I rejoice, therefore, dearest brothers, that you sent letters to us through our brother and fellow bishop Julius. As you bear care for the churches over which you preside, you show your concern for the usefulness of all, and you ask that one decision helpful to everyone be established throughout all the churches of the whole world. Thus the Church, steadied by her own rules and strengthened by this decree of just pronouncement, may have no fear of people against whom she must be on guard. They are equipped, or rather destroyed, by perverse subtleties of words. While arguing under the appearance of catholic faith, they breathe out a poisonous vapor, so that they may corrupt the hearts of right-thinking people in a worse direction, and they seek to overturn the whole discipline of true doctrine. This disease must therefore be healed quickly, lest an accursed sickness creep further into souls. When a physician sees some illness in this earthly body, he counts it a great proof of his art if someone who had seemed beyond hope escapes through his intervention. Or when he sees a putrid wound, he applies poultices and the other remedies by which the wound that arose may be closed. If it cannot be healed while remaining there, he cuts away with the knife what was harming the body, lest it corrupt the rest of the body with its rot, and so preserves what remains whole and untouched. Therefore what has crept like a wound into a body too pure and healthy must be cut away, lest, if it is wiped away too late, a bilge of this evil that cannot be drained settle in the very organs. What right judgment are we to have from now on about people who think they owe to themselves the fact that they are good, and do not consider the one whose daily grace they receive? But such people as these no longer receive any grace of God, because they trust that without him they can obtain as much as those who ask from him scarcely deserve to receive. What could be so unjust, so barbarous, so ignorant of all religion, so hostile to Christian minds, as denying that you owe him whatever you receive in daily grace, when you confess that you owe him the very fact that you were born? Will you be more excellent in providing for yourself than the one who brought it about that you should exist? Since you think you owe him the fact that you live, how can you think you do not owe him the fact that, by obtaining his daily grace, you live in such a way? You who deny that we need divine help, as though we were wholly perfected by our own capacity: how do we not call down his help upon ourselves, since by ourselves we can even become such people as this? I would like to ask anyone who denies God's help what he means: that we do not deserve it, or that God cannot grant it, or that there is nothing for which each of us ought to ask? God's works themselves testify that he can grant it, and we cannot deny that we need daily help. If we live well, we summon that help so that we may live better and more holily; if, thinking wrongly, we are turned away from good things, we need his help all the more to return to the right way. What could seem so deadly, so headlong toward a fall, so exposed to every danger, as thinking that the free choice we received when we were born is enough for us by itself, so that we seek nothing further from the Lord? That is, forgetting our maker, we renounce his power in order to show ourselves free, as though the one who made you free at your birth has nothing more he can give. We do not know that unless God's grace descends upon us, called down by great prayers, we can in no way attempt to conquer the errors of earthly defilement and a worldly body, since not free choice but God's help alone can make us equal to resisting them. If David cries out that he needs divine help, he would not ask for it worthily if free choice were more useful to anyone. He was blessed and already chosen by the Lord, and yet he prayed to God and asked, "Be my helper; do not abandon me or despise me, God my salvation." We claim free choice for ourselves; he asks God to be his helper. We say that what we received by being born can be enough; he begs God not to abandon him. Do we not plainly learn what we should pray when a man so blessed, as we said, longs not to be despised? Those who assert these things must accuse him. Let David be accused as ignorant of prayer and unaware of his nature, since, although he knew that there was so much in his nature, he asked God to be his helper and his constant helper. Even constant help was not enough for him; bent forward in prayers, he longed that God not despise him at any time, and throughout the whole body of the Psalter he both proclaims and cries this. If such a great man confessed this as necessary by saying it constantly and teaching it, how do Pelagius and Caelestius, setting aside every answer from the Psalms and rejecting such teaching, trust that they can persuade anyone that we ought not seek God's help and do not need it, when all the saints testify that they can do nothing without it? The person who once endured free choice, using his own goods too thoughtlessly, fell into the depths of transgression. He found no way by which he could rise from there. Deceived by his own freedom, he would have lain forever crushed by this ruin, if the coming of Christ had not lifted him up by grace. Christ, through the purification of new regeneration, cleansed all the past fault in the washing of his baptism; and after strengthening his condition so that he might proceed more rightly and steadily, he still did not deny his grace for the future. Although he redeemed the human being from past sins, he knew that the human being could sin again, and therefore kept many remedies for his repair, by which he might correct him even after those things. He supplies daily remedies. Unless we lean and trust on them, we will in no way be able to conquer human errors. It is necessary that with the help by which we conquer, if we are not helped again by that same help, we are conquered. I could say more, except that it is clear you have said everything. Whoever, then, seems to agree with this opinion, saying that we do not need divine help, declares himself an enemy of the catholic faith and ungrateful for God's benefits. Such people are not worthy of our communion, which they have polluted by preaching this way. By following the things they say, they have fled far from true religion of their own accord. Since our whole profession consists in this, and since in our daily prayers we do nothing except seek God's mercy, how can we endure people who boast these things? What error so great blinds their hearts, I ask, that if they themselves feel no grace of God, because they are not worthy and do not deserve it, they do not even consider what divine grace daily grants to others individually? They are indeed most worthy of all blindness, since they have not even left themselves this: to believe that they can be called back from errors by divine help. By denying help, they have removed it utterly not from others but from themselves. They must be torn away farther and removed far from the inner parts of the Church, lest, while occupying many people for too long, an incurable error afterwards grow. If they spend a long time under this impunity, they will necessarily lead many into the crookedness of their mind and deceive innocent, or rather imprudent, people who follow the catholic faith. Such people will think they are right if they see them still remaining in the Church. Let the incurable wound therefore be separated from the healthy body, and once the breath of the raging disease has been removed, let what is sound remain more carefully. Let a purer flock be cleansed from the contagion of this evil sheep. Let the perfection of the whole body remain unharmed, which by this pronouncement against them we know you follow and hold, and which together with you, with equal agreement, we preserve. Still, if they call upon any help of God for themselves, the help they have denied until now, and if they recognize that they need his aid so that they may be delivered from this stain into which they had fallen by the bending of their own hearts; if, as though drawn into light from foul darkness, they remove and reject everything by which their whole sight was fouled and darkened so that they could not see the truth; if they condemn what they have thought up to now and, at last giving their mind to right arguments, are corrected somewhat from this stain and hand themselves over and submit themselves to true counsels for healing, then it will be in the power of the bishops to help them in some measure and to provide some care for such wounds. The Church is accustomed not to deny this care to the fallen when they come to their senses. Thus, called back from their own precipices, they may be led back within the Lord's sheepfold, lest, placed outside and excluded from the great protection of the fortress of faith, they be exposed to every danger, to be devoured and harried by the teeth of wolves. Because of the perversity of their teaching, by which they provoked those wolves against themselves, they cannot resist them. But enough has been answered, I think, to your warnings, so abundant with examples from our law. We have judged that nothing remains for us to say, since it is clear that nothing has been passed over by you and nothing suppressed by which they are refuted and recognized as entirely convicted. Therefore no testimonies are put forward by us, because your report is full of them, and it is clear enough that so many very learned priests have said everything. It is not fitting to believe that you omitted anything that could help the case. In another hand: Farewell, brothers.

EPISTOLA 181 Scripta forte eodem tempore. Innocentius Patribus Carthaginensis concilii, eos laudans quod ipsum super anxiis fidei rebus consuluerint (nn. 1-2): eorum confirmat doctrinam sententiamque adversus pelagianam haeresim, quae velut Ecclesiae corporis est tabes, utpote quae gratiae adversetur salutemque reponat in libero arbitrio per quod in culpam ceciderit genus humanum (nn. 3-7). Ab Ecclesia amovendi huiusmodi haeretici, sed iterum recipienti si resipuerint (nn. 8-9). INNOCENTIUS, AURELIO ET OMNIBUS SANCTIS EPISCOPTS QUI IN CONCILIO CARTHAGINENSIS ECCLESIAE ADFUERUNT DILECTISSIMIS FRATRIBUS, IN DOMINO SALUTEM Apostolicae Sedis auctoritas supra regionalia concilia. 1. In requirendis divinis rebus, quas omni cum sollicitudine decet a sacerdotibus, maximeque a vero iustoque et catholico tractari concilio, antiquae traditionis exempla servantes, et ecclesiasticae memores disciplinae, nostrae religionis vigorem non minus nunc in consulendo, quam antea cum pronuntiaretis, vera ratione firmastis, qui ad nostrum referendum approbastis esse iudicium, scientes quid apostolicae Sedi, cum omnes hoc loco positi ipsum sequi desideremus apostolum, debeatur, a quo ipse episcopatus et tota auctoritas nominis huius emersit. Quem sequentes, tam mala damnare novimus quam probare laudanda velut id vero quod patrum instituta sacerdotali custodientes officio non censetis esse calcanda, quod illi non humana, sed divina decrevere sententia, ut quidquid quamvis in disiunctis remotisque provinciis ageretur, non prius ducerent finiendum, nisi ad huius Sedis notitiam perveniret: ut tota huius auctoritate iusta quae fuerit pronuntiatio firmaretur, indeque sumerent caeterae Ecclesiae (velut de natali suo fonte aquae cunctae procederent, et per diversas totius mundi regiones puri latices capitis incorrupti manarent) quid praeciperent, quos abluerent, quos velut coeno inemundabili sordidatos mundis digna corporibus unda vitaret. Antiquam esse regulam R. Pontificem consulere de anxiis fidei rebus. 2. Gratulor igitur, fratres carissimi, quod per fratrem et coepiscopum nostrum Iulium litteras ad nos destinastis, et cum illis curam geritis quibus praesidetis Ecclesiis, sollicitudinem vestram pro omnium utilitate monstratis, et per cunctas totius orbis Ecclesias omnibus una quod prosit decernendum esse deposcitis: ut suis constabilita regulis Ecclesia, et hoc, quo illos caveat, pronuntiationis iustae firmata decreto talibus pavere non possit qui perversis instructi, imo destructi verborum argutiis, sub imagine catholicae fidei disputantes, velut pestiferum exhalantes virus, ut hominum recte sentientium in deteriorem partem corda corrumpant, totam veri dogmatis quaerunt evertere disciplinam. Haeresis ut tabes Ecclesiae corporis curanda. 3. Sanandum ergo celerius, ne longius exsecrandus animis morbus irrepat: sicut medicus cum viderit huius terreni corporis aliquem esse languorem, magnum suae artis aestimat documentum, si cito quis illius interventu desperatus evadat; vel cum putre vulnus aspexerit, adhibet fomenta vel caetera, quibus illud possit quod natum fuerat vulnus obduci; ac si id manens sanari non poterit, ne corpus reliquum sua tabe corrumpat, ferro amputat quod nocebat, quo reliquum integrum servet et intactum. Praecidendum id ergo est, quod velut puro sanoque nimium corpori vulnus obrepsit, ne cum tardius abstergitur, in ipsis pene visceribus huius mali non exhaurienda post sentina considat. Pelagiana haeresis: impium barbarumque dogma. 4. Nam quid nos de his posthac rectum mentibus existimemus, qui sibi se putant debere quod boni sunt, nec illum considerant cuius quotidie gratiam consequuntur? Sed iam isti, qui tales sunt, nullam Dei gratiam consequuntur, qui sine illo tantum se assequi posse confidunt, quantum vix illi qui ab illo postulant, accipere promerentur. Quid enim tam iniquum potest esse, tam barbarum, tam totius religionis ignarum, tam christianis mentibus inimicum, quam huic te negare debere quidquid in quotidiana gratia consequeris, cui te ipse confiteris debere quod natus es? Ergo eris tibi in providendo praestantior, quam potest in te esse, qui te ut esses effecit! et cum te putes ei debere quod vivis, quomodo te non putas illi debere quod quotidianam eius consequendo gratiam taliter vivis? Et qui nos adiutorio negas indigere divino, quasi ex nostra in totum possibilitate perfectos, quomodo non adiutorium eius in nos, cum tales a nobis etiam esse possumus, provocamus? Dei auxilium respuens iniuriam infert Creatori. 5. Qui enim adiutorium Dei negat, vellem interrogare quid dicat; nos non mereri, an illum hoc non posse praestare? an nihil esse propter quod unusquisque hoc debeat postulare? Posse hoc Deum, opera ipsa testantur; et adiutorio quotidiano nos egere, negare non possumus. Hoc enim seu bene vivimus, provocamus, ut melius sanctiusque vivamus; seu prave sentientes a bonis avertimur, ut ad rectam redeamus viam, eius auxilio plus egemus. Nam quid tam mortiferum, tam praeceps videatur ad casum, tam expositum ad omnia pericula, si hoc solum nobis putantes posse sufficere, quod liberum arbitrium cum nasceremur accepimus, ultra iam a Domino nihil quaeramus, id est, auctoris nostri obliti, eius potentiam ut nos ostendamus liberos, abiuremus, quasi iam amplius quod possit dare non habeat, qui te in tuo ortu liberum fecit? nescientes quod nisi magnis precibus in nos Dei gratia implorata descendat, nequaquam terrenae labis et mundani corporis vincere conemur errores, cum pares nos ad resistendum non liberum arbitrium, sed Dei solum facere possit auxilium. Toto psalterio David Dei opem rogat. 6. Nam si ille clamat adiutorio sibi opus esse divino, qui digne hoc non quaereret, si cui liberum arbitrium plus prodesset - quippe cum vir beatus et iam electus a Domino 1 nihil egeret; tamen ita Deum deprecatur postulans: Adiutor meus esto; ne derelinquas me, neque despicias me, Deus salutaris meus 2 - nos nobis liberum arbitrium; ille sibi Deum postulat adiutorem! quod nati sumus posse sufficere nos dicimus, ille Deum ne derelinquatur exorat! Non, rogo, manifeste discimus, quid oremus, cum ille tantopere beatus, ut supra diximus, vir ne despiciatur exoptat? Illi enim necesse est ista arguant, qui illa confirmant. David enim orationis ignarus, et suae naturae nescius accusetur, qui cum sciat tantum in sua inesse natura, adiutorem sibi Deum et assiduum adiutorem, nec illi sufficit assiduum, sed ne aliquando illum despiciat, orationibus pronus exoptat, et per corpus omne Psalterii hoc et praedicat et clamat! Si ergo hoc ille tam magnus sicut assidue dicere, ita necessarium confessus est ut doceret; quemadmodum Pelagius Celestiusque seposita omni responsione Psalmorum, talique abdicata doctrina, suasuros se aliquibus esse confidunt, nos adiutorium Dei nec debere quaerere, nec eo egere; cum omnes sancti nihil se sine hoc agere posse testentur? Libero arbitrio foedatus homo gratia liberatur. 7. Liberum enim arbitrium olim ille perpessus, dum suis inconsultius utitur bonis, cadens in praevaricationis profunda demersus est; et nihil quemadmodum exinde surgere posset invenit; suaque in aeternum libertate deceptus huius ruinae iacuisset oppressu, nisi eum post Christi pro sua gratia relevasset adventus: qui per novae regenerationis purificationem, omne praeteritum vitium sui baptismatis lavacro purgavit, et eius firmans statum quo rectius stabiliusque procederet, tamen suam gratiam in posterum non negavit. Nam quamvis redemisset hominem a praeteritis ille peccatis, tamen sciens iterum posse peccare, ad reparationem sibi, quemadmodum posset illum et post ista corrigere, multa servavit: quotidiana praestat ille remedia, quibus nisi freti confisique nitamur, nullatenus vincere humanos poterimus errores. Necesse est enim ut quo auxiliante vincimus, eo iterum non adiuvante vincamur. Sed possem plura dicere, nisi vos constaret cuncta dixisse. Ab Ecclesia removendi pelagianam pravitatem sectantes. 8. Quisquis ergo huic assentiens videtur esse sententiae, qua dicat adiutorio nobis non opus esse divino, inimicum se catholicae fidei, et Dei beneficiis profitetur ingratum. Nam nec nostra communione sunt digni, quam praedicando taliter polluerunt. Ipsi enim sua sponte dum sequuntur illa quae dicunt, longius a vera religione refugerunt. Cum enim hoc totum in nostra professione consistat, quotidianisque precibus nihil agamus nisi quemadmodum Dei misericordiam consequamur; quemadmodum ferre possumus ista iactantes? Quis, rogo, tantus illorum pectora error obcaecat, ut, si ipsi nullam Dei gratiam sentiunt, quia nec digni sunt nec merentur, nec de aliis considerent quid quotidie singulis gratia divina largitur? Sunt quidem isti omni caecitate dignissimi, qui nec hoc sibi reliquerunt, ut se auxilio credant revocari ab erroribus posse divino. Negantes enim adiutorium, non aliis, sed sibi hoc penitus abstulerunt; qui avellendi sunt longius, et ab Ecclesiae procul removendi visceribus, ne diutius multa occupans, insanabilis post error increscat. Si enim diu sub hac fuerint impunitate versati, necesse est multos in hanc suae pravitatem mentis inducant decipiantque innocentes, vel potius imprudentes, qui fidem catholicam sequuntur. Putabunt enim eos recte sentire, quos adhuc viderint in Ecclesia perdurare. Ecclesia parata ad haereticis correctis parcendum. 9. Separetur ergo a sano corpore vulnus insanum, remotoque morbi saevientis afflatu cautius quae sunt sincera perdurent, et grex purior ab hac mali pecoris contagione purgetur. Sit totius corporis illibata perfectio, quam vos sequi et tenere hac in illos pronuntiatione cognovimus, et una vobiscum pari assensione servamus. Qui si tamen aliquod in se Dei adiutorium, quod hucusque negaverunt, provocarint, et opus sibi eius auxilio esse cognoverint, ut hac labe in quam sui cordis incurvatione corruerant, liberentur, et quasi in lucem de foeda tracti caligine, remotis abdicatisque omnibus, quibus totus, ne verum aspicerent, foedabatur et caligabat aspectus, damnent haec quae hucusque senserunt, et aliquando animum rectis disputationibus commodantes, ab hac aliquantulum labe correcti, veris se sanandos consiliis tribuant atque submittant. Quod si fecerint, erit in potestate pontificum, istis aliquatenus subvenire, et talibus aliquam curam praestare vulneribus, quam solet lapsis, cum resipuerint, Ecclesia non negare: ut a suis revocati praecipitiis, intra ovile Domini redigantur 3; ne foris positi, et tanto praesidio a fide munitionis exclusi, periculis omnibus exponantur, devorandi luporum dentibus atque vexandi, quibus obsistere hac, qua illos in se irritaverant doctrinae perversitate, non possint. Sed satis vestris monitis, sic abundantibus nostrae legis exemplis, probatur esse responsum; nec quidquam superesse duximus quod dicamus, cum nihil praetermissum a vobis, nihil constet esse suppressum, quo illi refutati et penitus agnoscantur esse convicti. Ideoque a nobis testimonia nulla ponuntur, quia et his plena relatio est, et satis constat tot doctissimos sacerdotes cuncta dixisse, nec decet credere vos aliquid, quod ad causam possit proficere, praeteriisse. (Et alia manu:) Bene valete, fratres.