Letter 1: Accordingly, lest this should be attempted any further, and lest this pernicious habit, which owes its introduction to certain persons' negligence, should result in the overthrow of many souls, by this our authoritative injunction we charge you, brother, to give diligence that a synod of the clergy of your province be convened, and all, whether...

Leo, Bishop of Rome, to the Bishop of Aquileia. I've learned from a letter sent by our brother and fellow bishop Septimus — which I'm enclosing — that certain priests, deacons, and clergy of various ranks in your province were swept up in the Pelagian and Celestian heresy [a fifth-century movement that denied original sin and held that humans could achieve salvation through their own free will, without needing divine grace], and then admitted back into Catholic communion without ever being required to renounce their errors. While the appointed shepherds were sleeping, wolves in sheep's clothing slipped into the Lord's fold — their predatory nature unchanged. Worse, they now presume to do things forbidden even to clergy in good standing: they've abandoned the churches where they were received or reinstated, wandering freely from place to place, hiding behind the appearance of communion with the Church to corrupt hearts wherever they go — because their hosts have no idea who they really are. This has to stop. To prevent it spreading any further — and to cut off the dangerous habit that certain people's negligence has allowed to take root — I am directing you by apostolic authority to convene a synod of your province's clergy without delay. Everyone who was readmitted from Pelagian or Celestian error into Catholic communion so hastily that they were never required to recant must now, finally, be brought to genuine correction. They must publicly condemn the founders of this presumptuous heresy. They must renounce everything the universal Church has rejected in their teaching. They must submit full written declarations — signed in their own hand — affirming that they accept and fully embrace every synodal decree that the Apostolic See has ratified in the eradication of this heresy. There must be nothing vague or ambiguous in what they say. Here is the one point where these men persistently deceive: when they appear to condemn and abandon their doctrines, they quietly exempt one specific claim — that God's grace is given in proportion to the merit of the recipient. But if grace is calibrated to what someone deserves, it isn't grace at all; it's payment. The blessed Apostle says plainly: "By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God — not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:8–10).

To the Bishop of Aquileia. I. Through the negligence of the authorities the Pelagian heresy has been spreading in his province. From the account of our holy brother and fellow bishop Septimus which is contained in the subjoined letter , we have understood that certain priests and deacons and clergy of various orders in your province who have been drawn in by the Pelagian or Cælestian heresy, have attained to Catholic communion without any recantation of their peculiar error being required of them; and that, while the shepherds set to watch were fast asleep, wolves clothed in sheep-skins but without laying aside their bestial minds have entered into the Lord's sheep-fold: and that they make a practice of what is not allowed even to non-offenders by the injunctions of our canons and decrees : to wit that they should leave the churches in which they received or regained their office and carry their uncertainty in all directions, loving to continue wandering and never to remain on the foundations of the Apostles. For without being sifted by any test or bound by any previous confession of faith, they make a great point of their right to the privilege of going to one house after another under cover of their being in communion with the Church, and corrupting the hearts of many through men's ignorance of their false name. And yet I am sure they could not do this, if the rulers of the churches had exercised their rightful diligence in the matter of receiving such, and had not allowed any of them to wander from place to place. II. He orders a provincial synod to be convened to receive the recantation of the heretics in express terms. Accordingly, lest this should be attempted any further, and lest this pernicious habit, which owes its introduction to certain persons' negligence, should result in the overthrow of many souls, by this our authoritative injunction we charge you, brother, to give diligence that a synod of the clergy of your province be convened, and all, whether priests or deacons or clerics of any rank who have been re-admitted from their alliance with the Pelagians and the Cælestians into Catholic communion with such precipitation that they were not first constrained to recant their error, be now at least forced to a true correction, which can advantage themselves and hurt no one, since their deceitfulness has in part been disclosed. Let them by their public confession condemn the authors of this presumptuous error and renounce all that the universal Church has repudiated in their doctrine: and let them announce by full and open statements, signed by their own hand, that they embrace and entirely approve of all the synodal decrees which the authority of the Apostolic See has ratified to the rooting out of this heresy. Let nothing obscure, nothing ambiguous be found in their words. For we know that their cunning is such that they reckon that the meaning of any particular clause of their execrable doctrine can be defended if they only keep it distinct from the main body of their damnable views. 3. The Pelagian view of God's grace is unscriptural. And when they pretend to disapprove of and give up all their definitions to facilitate evasion through their complete art of deception, unless their meaning is detected, they make exception of the dogma that the grace of God is given according to the merits of the recipient. And yet surely, unless it is given freely, it is not a gift , but a price and compensation for merits: for the blessed Apostle says, by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves but it is the gift of God; not of works lest any should perchance be exalted. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God prepared that we should walk in them Ephesians 2:8-10 . Thus every bestowal of good works is of God's preparing: because a man is justified by grace rather than by his own excellence: for grace is to every one the source of righteousness, the source of good and the fountain of merit. But these heretics say it is anticipated by men's natural goodness for this reason, that that nature which (in their view) is before grace conspicuous for good desires of its own, may not seem marred by any stain of original sin, and that what the Truth says may be falsified: For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. IV. Prompt measures are essential. You must take heed, therefore, beloved, and with great diligence make provision that offenses which have long been removed be not set up again through such men and that no seed of the same evil spring up in your province from a doctrine which has once been uprooted: for not only will it take root and grow, but also will taint the future generations of the Church with its poisonous exhalations. Those who wish to appear corrected must purge themselves of all suspicion: and by obeying us, prove themselves ours. And if any of them decline to satisfy our wholesome injunctions, be he cleric or layman, he must be driven from the society of the Church lest he deal treacherously by others' safety as well as forfeit his own soul. V. The canons must be enforced against clerics who wander from one church to another. We admonish you also to restore to full working that part of the discipline of the Church whereby the holy Fathers and we have often in former times decreed that neither in the grade of the priesthood nor in the order of the diaconate nor in the lower ranks of the clergy, is any one at liberty to migrate from church to church: to the end that each one may persevere where he was ordained without being enticed by ambition, or led astray by greed, or corrupted by men's evil beliefs: and thus that if any one, seeking his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ , neglect to return to his own people and church, he may be reckoned out of the pale both in respect of promotion and of the bond of communion. But do not doubt, beloved, that we must be somewhat sorely moved if, as we think not, our decrees for the maintenance of the canons and the integrity of the faith be neglected: because the short-comings of the lower orders are to be laid at the door of none so much as of those slothful and remiss rulers who often foster much pestilence by shrinking from the application of a stringent remedy. About this page Source. Translated by Charles Lett Feltoe. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 12. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3604001.htm>. Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) 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