Gelasius, bishop, to all the bishops throughout Picenum, greetings in the Lord.1

The Bishops of Picenum Are Charged with Negligence for Allowing Heresy to Flourish

We have grieved until now at the barbaric invasions devastating the provinces nearest to the City, and the savage tempest of wars; but as much as we have discovered among the very heat of these recent calamities, the devil has inflicted a more destructive ruin upon Christian minds than bodily hostility has upon their persons. This principally concerns the priests of those regions, who by such great negligence and such great dissembling of the ministry they have undertaken neglect the governance of the souls committed to them, so that they even allow them to be torn apart by the most trifling beasts before their very eyes with impunity — indeed, by fostering creeping wickedness and acquiescing in the corrupters of the faithful, they not only fail to restrain them but provide them with the nourishment of their own example of perdition. What then would such bishops do if — God forbid — some new pestilence of previously unknown origin were to break out, or if more acute minds, or craftier intellects, or some learning of secular doctrines were to produce the sacrilegious utterances of cunning blasphemies — these same bishops who do not so much as recall or refute the worn-out fictions of the old error, fictions already convicted both by the great teachers of the Churches and by our own age as well, and who do not even reject them when they are put forward by the unlearned and foolish?

We give thanks to Almighty God, because through persons of this kind He examines the hearts of His own; for these [persons] do not know the very poison which they are speaking. For what would the leaders of the people do against craftier enemies of the faith, when they willingly submit to the unlearned? For even if there was such utter sloth in the rulers of the Lord’s flock that they could neither understand nor restrain so vile and dull a person, they ought rather by pastoral care to have sought from Us the things to be investigated, than to submit their will without deliberation to absurd persuasions. For a man named Seneca has been presented to Us,2 a pitiable old man who is not only wholly alien to all learning but also completely foreign even to common understanding — plunged into the Pelagian morass (as is written of certain ones in the Apocalypse, Rev. 16), like one of the frogs wallowing shamelessly in that filth, who could never find a way to emerge from it, since he abandons the purity of Catholic truth. The more he attempts to raise himself through the slippery ground of falsehood, the more he is overwhelmed, enclosed in its muddy pits — being one of those of whom the Apostle Peter says: These, like irrational animals, born naturally for capture and destruction, blaspheming in those things which they do not understand, will perish in their own corruption, receiving the wages of unrighteousness (2 Pet. 2:12). For truly his mind is so stolid and obtuse that concerning the poisons which he has wickedly drunk in and vomited up, he is able neither to receive any account at all nor to render one. But hardened by diabolical blindness and already handed over to himself, he is condemned by the fatal obstinacy of his own heart; nor does anything remain for him except that our God — who said that what seems impossible to men is easy with Him (Matt. 19:26) — might pierce such a mind with powerful compunction, so that, according to the blessed Apostle Paul, he may recover from the snares of the devil by which he is held captive (2 Tim. 2:26), by the sentence of divine judgment.

The First Head: Children Are Born Subject to Original Sin

Many things concerning Pelagian doctrines which had not even occurred to that man in dreams, We have rather brought to light and exposed — things which We have shown were long ago convicted. These very things which the same man appeared to put forward, We have shown were long ago brought into the open by the heretical Pelagians and competently refuted by Catholic preachers. We have proven that Pelagius, Coelestius, Julian, and many others — men of oratorical eloquence — were convicted in this assertion and struck down not only by ecclesiastical constitutions but also by imperial decrees. Therefore We have established that this man cannot sustain his position in matters in which those great and distinguished men were overthrown — he who can neither grasp the very things disputed by them, even when they are understood, nor construct anything similar by eloquence. But, as it is said, a diabolical mind possessed by inspiration, coming to the depths of evil, consents to no remedy (Prov. 18:3).

Wherefore, out of the innumerable kinds of blasphemies which the authors of the Pelagian heresy have heaped together, three — which this pitiable old man especially adopted for himself — We have judged must not be kept silent, so that they may be set forth more openly once laid bare, and with God destroying them, may be more easily seen as overturned. In the womb, they say, infants are created by divine work in their mothers, and therefore they do not think it just that what God makes without any involvement of their own actions should be bound by anyone’s sin; and they make God unjust if things are made guilty before they are born. They put forward this as if it were the most acute argument of their dogma, not noticing that those first parents of the human race — born of no parents at all, but created from the innocent matter of clay, and purely and sincerely compacted by the power of divine art, and made rational — followed the seducer the devil by their own will and were infected with depraved desires through the excess of transgression. In these first parents, human nature indeed sinned, and human nature was made corrupt — having received without doubt the evil it had not known before — which, departing from the good and right, manifestly falls back into the inclination to evil and wickedness by the very course of the consequence of things.

Such, then, the first parents of our substance became — they made themselves passible and corruptible, violating the gifts of the divine condition to such a degree that they were punished with the penalty of death. For it is not held in doubt that they were dead on the day they were made mortal.3 Therefore whatever those parents brought forth from their own stock is indeed the work of God, according to the institution of nature, but not without the contagion of that evil which they drew upon themselves by their own transgression; and certainly this same contagion of evil is not a divine work. Therefore it is not a fault from the creation of God, but what nature collected by its own voluntary movement; and even from nature vitiated through itself, God indeed carries out the institution of His own creation — but the creation brings forth the fault, which it received not from the institution of the Creator but which it assumed through the Fall of its own transgression. For if those first human beings, born of no parents as has been said, and formed without any contagion, were able through the ambition of illicit presumption to corrupt themselves and to join the work of diabolical fraud to the work of God, why is it surprising if they — themselves depraved — have produced a depraved offspring?

Is it not the case that, although God indeed created the human substance as free by His own creation, nevertheless even among human laws a servitude acceding from without naturally renders it bound and liable? They are born liable from their origin, and from a servile condition they are begotten in bondage; they become bound by birth before they are even begotten. If this happens concerning things placed outside nature, how much more is it not surprising that it should occur in those things by which the human substance itself is recognized as depraved? And through this, just as the human substance made itself polluted from a sincere institution by the guilty will of depraved acts, so it brought forth offspring and progeny of its own nature, stained by the guilty will of its own acts — because it begot such offspring as it had rendered itself through the excess of transgression. And therefore it brings forth from itself not only what God well established, but also what it wrongly and inconsequently added.

Moreover, that an inner quality of desire is able to alter nature is confirmed by the authority of divine Scripture. For as Jacob was pasturing his flock (Gen. 30), the flock committed to him, when the varied rods were set before the watering channels, while it drank, attracted by sensory delight, conceived what it did not possess by nature, and transmitted into its offspring through the senses what it had not received in its creation. This, indeed, was done figuratively at that time — both signifying what would come to pass in the flocks of the Church, and, as God foresaw the calumnies of the Pelagians, preparing understanding for the contests to be stirred up by His faithful. Divine testimonies, the ecclesiastical mysteries themselves, and the tradition of the Catholic teachers handed down from the Lord Himself the Savior all testify to the tarnished origins of human generation. Hence the prophet cries out: Who will boast that he has a pure heart, or that he is clean from sin? Not even the infant whose life is one day upon the earth (cf. Prov. 20:9; Job 14:4–5).4 And again Scripture says: Who can make clean what is conceived of unclean seed? Is it not You alone? (Job 14:4). And elsewhere: For the seed was cursed (Wis. 12:11). Nor does the prophet David fail to testify: In iniquities was I conceived, and in sins did my mother bear me (Ps. 50:7). And if he says this, who else would claim to have been begotten otherwise?

The blessed Apostle Paul likewise declares: And we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest (Eph. 2:3). Concerning this wrath, as We said above, the Gospel says: Whoever believes and is baptized will have eternal life; but whoever does not believe is already judged, and the wrath of God abides on him (John 3:36). It is that wrath of which it was said: On the day you eat of it, you shall die the death (Gen. 2:17). The Lord Jesus Christ Himself solemnly declares with heavenly voice: Whoever has not eaten the flesh of the Son of Man and drunk His blood has no life in himself (John 6:53) — where we see no one exempted. Nor has anyone dared to say that a little child, without this saving sacrament, can be led to eternal life; and without that life, there is no doubt that it remains in perpetual death. Why, then, is an infant bound by this lot if it has no sin at all? And would not God (far from it!) appear the more unjust, if a penalty is inflicted where there is no fault? Therefore, since by its own acts it is held bound by no guilt, nothing remains except that it is polluted by its corrupt birth alone; and unless it has been cleansed by participation in the Christian mystery, it cannot attain to perpetual life.

Hence infants are exorcized and catechized; and because to the work of God, in which they are well established by their Author, the work of diabolical malice has acceded, they are, as the Apostle teaches, rescued from the power of darkness (Col. 1:13) and transferred to the lot of the Son of God, and to legitimate purification. For if the first generation, which God had instituted as good, had not come into guilt through transgression and become reprobate, a second generation would not have needed to be provided. Therefore the blessed Apostle Paul says: As through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death; so death passed to all men, in whom all sinned (Rom. 5:12); and shortly after: Therefore, as through one man’s offense condemnation came upon all men, so also through one man’s righteousness justification of life came upon all men (Rom. 5:18). As he says all came into condemnation — meaning surely those begotten of Adam — so he affirms that all come to justification of life, but only those reborn in the mystery of Christ. The deadly doctrine of the Pelagian heresy has been convicted by these innumerable proofs and by our forebears, and can now be convicted by their abundant learning; nor should it trouble the simple, who, if they do not understand, may content themselves with believing according to the form of the Church — and if anyone desires to know more, it will be fitting for him to inquire.

The Second Head: Children Who Die Without Baptism Cannot Attain Eternal Life

Concerning infants, moreover — of whom he asserts that they cannot be condemned for original sin alone without the sacred baptism — the proposition is sufficiently impious and profane; for although no Christian is ignorant that infants fresh from their mothers’ wombs are baptized for the remission of sins (which the Catholic Church assuredly celebrates not falsely but truly, lest — God forbid — she should appear to lie in the heavenly mysteries), it follows, therefore, since they have no sins of their own, that in them original sins alone are undoubtedly to be remitted. And so, as it is by baptism that all attain eternal life even with sins remitted, it follows that with sins unremitted they cannot attain to eternal life.

Hence the Lord also, as We said above, says (which assuredly does not apply except to the baptized): Whoever has not eaten the flesh of the Son of Man and drunk His blood will have no life in himself (John 6:53). And to be without perpetual life — what is this but to be established in everlasting death? Although the kingdom of heaven and eternal life are the same, nevertheless, so that by the providence of God all the wickedness of the Pelagians might be cut off, it was not only said: Whoever is not born again of water and the Holy Spirit shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven (John 3:5); it was also said equally: Whoever has not eaten the flesh of the Son of Man and drunk His blood will have no life in himself. No one doubts that this was said of eternal life, because many who do not eat this sacrament appear to have the present life.

There is therefore nothing in what they say — that unbaptized infants are only unable to go into the kingdom of heaven, but are not punished with perpetual damnation — since without baptism they can neither eat nor drink the body and blood of Christ; and without this they cannot have life in themselves; and without life they are destined to be nothing other than dead. Let them say, then, that those are established in perpetual death, if they are not reckoned to be damned. Let them remove from the midst that I-know-not-what third place which they contrive to deceive little ones. And since we read only of a right side and a left side, let them not leave those without baptism to remain in the region of the left, but let them allow the baptized, by saving sacred regeneration, to be transferred to the right.

The Third Head: Grace Is Necessary for Salvation; Free Will Cannot Merit Without Grace

In the third chapter We set forth the follies of the Pelagians — already known and refuted throughout the whole world — by which they say that man, by free will (which he himself corrupted, defiled, and lost), with the goodness of nature supporting him, is made blessed. But from the blessedness of paradise, where the substance had been constituted good, it could never have been expelled unless its own good had been lost — and hence, having been made mortal because through transgression it had passed from good to evil, and had given itself over from divine participation to diabolical deeds, it was fittingly addicted to its deceiver, to whom it had willingly assented; therefore it was excluded from the love of its own happiness, and condemned by the heavenly voice to thorns and thistles and manifold miseries. Which penalty of just judgment — so grave and harsh — would never have been inflicted upon one persevering in good, nor would it be shown fittingly brought upon anything except evil.

Behold — without divine help (which, while placed in that blessedness, man is never read to have sought) the natural good was not able to profit man: not only did it fail to make him blessed, but when he trusted in this alone and did not turn back to its Giver, he rather lost blessedness itself and took up the beginning of all evils. And how would they have blessedness conferred by the very free will which, having been badly used, fell back into perpetual servitude — as it is written: Whoever commits sin is the servant of sin (John 8:34); by whom a man is overcome, to him he is made a slave (2 Pet. 2:19)? Is not this the natural presumption which has descended to the laws of detestable captivity, which Holy Scripture thus records: A heavy yoke is upon the children of Adam, from the day of their coming forth from their mother’s womb until the day of their burial in the mother of all (Sir. 40:1)? From this yoke our Lord Jesus Christ alone has redeemed the human race by the exchange of His passion, and has delivered us by the change of a new birth. For He alone came to seek and to save what was lost (Matt. 18:11) — that the liberty which had been cast down by rash pride might be restored and renewed through grace; and that the choice of human will, as by following the devil it had earned eternal captivity, so by following the author of reformed liberty might return to the lost reward.

Hence the Lord Himself says: When the Son shall make you free, then shall you truly be free (John 8:36). And the blessed Apostle Paul explains: When you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness — that is, alien from righteousness — but now, having been freed from sin, you have become servants of righteousness (Rom. 6:20, 22); and again, the same Apostle: The freedom with which Christ has made us free (Gal. 5:1). Does not the chosen vessel also affirm: It is God who works in you both to will and to work according to good will (Phil. 2:13)? — lest God be thought to work to will and to work even in an evil will.

There is, moreover, a peculiar poison of the Pelagians, long since worn out, by which they think that the grace of God can be conferred according to the merits of men. Far be this from the minds of Christians! — since the Apostle testifies: Grace is what is given freely; otherwise, if from works, grace is no longer grace (Rom. 11:6), because then it is the requital of a debt, not the expenditure of what has received the name of grace. What Christian would dare to say that he has any good without grace, when the teacher of the Gentiles cries out, briefly enclosing in himself all gifts: By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain (1 Cor. 15:10) — to show that he did not precede the gift of grace but followed it? And he indicates that he was a cooperator with grace by following it: I labored more abundantly than all of them. But fearing lest he seem to presume concerning himself, he added: yet not I, but the grace of God with me. He did not say, “I and the grace of God with me,” but placed grace first, putting himself after. And what good can be had without grace, when faith itself is through grace, as the same Apostle teaches us: I obtained mercy, that I might be faithful (1 Tim. 1:13)? And divine mercy is nothing other than grace.

Let us also hear how he instructs the Church: By grace you have been saved through faith (Eph. 2:8) — setting forth that the beginning of salvation and of faith has started from grace, as he continues: and this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not from works, lest anyone should boast (Eph. 2:8–9). And elsewhere he pronounces generally and absolutely: What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? (1 Cor. 4:7). Who can list every instance? — by which it is evidently apparent that it is not by the choice of natural liberty that grace is earned, but rather that it is received through grace, so that man, from the servitude which he had merited by sinning, may be mercifully released.

The redemption of this mystery was prepared by eternal providence before the foundation of the world: whether when the law had not yet been set forth, or under the legal observance, by figurative signs and sacrifices the ancient origin of all holy men and holy women was cleansed, and to all the just, through the spirit of grace and through this mystery to be adored from afar, the remedies of eternal salvation came. The fullness of this, manifested to the nations in Christ, purifies the world, and renews it, and truly makes them partakers of perpetual blessedness.

The Closing Charge Against the Bishops of Picenum

Wherefore We accuse most severely Our brothers and fellow bishops, especially those governing the Church of the Lord throughout the provinces of Picenum, who not only did not deter the wicked discourse of that most foolish old man and abject person, but even nourished it by their own consent.5 Who would hear? Who would endure that bishops allowed a certain unworthy corpse to deprive of communion a presbyter who would not acquiesce in hearing him? How was such a man either received by anyone, or patiently heard — one who moreover, being gladly received, laid down rules that servants of God should mingle with consecrated virgins in the most shameful assembly? For even when spiritual souls are without such associations, they are assailed by imaginary enticements, as by the sight of the other sex — how much more vehemently would those who are unwilling be illicitly incited by such arrangements? Still greater wickedness grows, so that under the very gaze and presence of the bishops, a dying fly (as it is written) that destroys the sweetness of the ointment (cf. Eccles. 10:1) would contend to tear apart Jerome and Augustine of blessed memory, those lights of the ecclesiastical teachers.6

But why should we marvel that the leaders of the Churches neglect these things, when it is manifest — as We have heard from many — that they do all things contrary to the canons, and everywhere mix up everything contrary to apostolic discipline (1 Cor. 14); ordaining without the rules being kept, and permitting not only monks but even ministers of the Church, in company with women, to wander away to foreign parts and return again, and to be promoted by other bishops into the clerical militia? When each of these taken singly is not to be tolerated, who can endure that so many and such great crimes should be perpetrated — which, not undeservedly furnishing a spectacle to Gentiles, Jews, and heretics, would seem (God forbid) to tend toward the destruction of religion itself? And fittingly will that saying of the Apostle apply to those who do these things: The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles on your account (Rom. 2:24).

Directives: Exclusion from Communion, Separated Dwellings, Canon Enforcement

Let it suffice, then, that these things have been committed until now, and may God be appeased as human affairs are managed with more solicitude for divine things. Let no promoter of the aforesaid pestilence be found anywhere; and let no one find access to the Church or any participation in Catholic communion who prefers to follow the fellowship of heretics by a wicked profession; and let those with whom he is shown to have previously had harmful dealings — unless they come to their senses and withdraw from his society — be removed from ecclesiastical service and punished with devout retribution, that an example may be furnished to others to beware; let him approach no one, nor let any be permitted anywhere to speak the blasphemies of a heresy long since condemned. Let devout practice be exercised with circumspection, with the dwellings of men and women kept separate, as the holy purpose requires.7 Contrary to the constitutions of the canons (Nic. cc. 9, 10), let no one be permitted to ecclesiastical office — the governors of each province being put on notice that they will find no pardon for past errors if they henceforth dissemble about avoiding those that have been disclosed. And no occasion for excuses will remain hereafter for any bishop who, after the present precepts — which We have judged must be sent through Romulus the deacon, whose diligence for the Catholic faith and vigilance for religion We have most approvingly commended — is found to be either contemptuous or negligent concerning all these matters.8

Closing: The Governance of the Apostolic See Requires Both Solicitude and the Exercise of Divinely Given Power

For just as it pertains to the governance of the Apostolic See to minister the solicitude owed to all the Churches fittingly, so it is necessary that it not dissemble the power divinely handed down to it against the contumacious and negligent.9

Given on the Kalends of November, in the consulship of Albinus, vir clarissimus.10