Augustine in His Own Words
Against the Pelagians 379 tor, but he refused, insisting that the African condemnation and the views of a leading Latin theologian sufficed, and Greek bishops needed to yield to their authority. A verdict exonerating Pelagius was avoided when Orosius appealed to the bishop of Rome, arguing this was a case for the Latin church.
Six months later, formal charges were again brought against Pelagius, this time by two Gallic bishops, Heros and Lazarus. When a synod of bishops met in Diospolis in December 415, the accusers failed to show up (one claimed ill health), and Pelagius was able to defend himself without serious crossexamination. He addressed the long list of written accusations, mostly quotations from his writings that minimized the need for grace. He answered skillfully, and perhaps disingenuously.25 He felt no qualms anathematizing his one-time disciple, Caelestius. The bishops accepted the explanations, denials, and anathemas and declared themselves satisfied. Pelagius acted quickly, advertising the verdict, sending a digest of the proceedings far and wide, quietly editing out embarrassing moments and boasting: "The statement in which I maintained that 'a person can be without sin and easily keep the commandments of God if he wishes,' has been approved by the verdict of fourteen bishops. This verdict has spread confusion over the faces of my opponents."26 The moment of triumph turned violent. Pelagius's supporters, it was said, torched Jerome's monastery in Bethlehem. A deacon was killed, and Jerome and the nuns under his direction, many from Rome's leading families, barely escaped with their lives.
Pelagius's acquittal was a serious blow to Augustine and the wider North African episcopate. It seemed an affront to their claim against their Donatist rivals that they were in union with the catholica, the worldwide consensus of churches. In a newly discovered sermon published by François Dolbeau, we hear Augustine speaking anxiously, right after getting news of Pelagius's vindication. He denounces Pelagius publicly for the first time and warns his congregation of "this new heresy . . . spreading its tentacles far and wide."27 He tells them that he has just received Pelagius's own digest, that he is suspicious of its accuracy, and that he has written for a full transcript. In a second recent discovery, we now know where he finally got his copy: from Cyril, the formidable patriarch of Alexandria (d. 444).28 With the full text in hand, Au-
25. See Robert F. Evans, "Pelagius's Veracity at the Synod of Diospolis," in Studies in Medieval Culture, ed. John R. Sommerfeldt (Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 1964), 21–30.
26. Pelagius, quoted in De gestis Pelagii 30.54 (CSEL 42:107); trans. Mourant and Collinge, FOTC 86:163. Augustine attacked Pelagius's hyperbole, noting that the word "easily" never appeared in the transcript of the tribunal.
27. S. 348A.5 (= Dolbeau 30). For the text, see François Dolbeau, "Le sermon 348A de saint augustin contre Pélage: Édition du texte intégral," Recherches Augustiniennes 28 (1995): 37–63; reprinted in Augustin et la prédication en Afrique, 241–67; trans. Hill, WSA III/11:312.
28. Ep. 4* (BA 46B:108–12). Before its discovery, we had known that Augustine had sent John of Jeru-