A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

§ 84. The Pelagian Controversy 505we believe that we are able to do the same, we who have beentaught through Christ's grace, and born again to be better men;and we who by His blood have been reconciled and purified, andby His example incited to more perfect righteousness, ought tobe better than they who were before the Law, better than theywho were under the law.(e) Marius Mercator, Commonitorium super nomine Cælestii,ch. 1. (MSL, 48:67.) Cf. Kirch, nn. 737 ff.The Council of Carthage and the opinions of Cælestius condemnedat that council, 411.Marius Mercator, a friend and supporter of Augustine, wasone of the most determined opponents of Pelagianism, as alsoof Nestorianism. His dates are not well determined. In 418he sent works to Augustine to be examined by the latter, andhe seems to have lived until after the Council of Chalcedon,451. The work from which the selection is taken was written,429, in Greek, and translated and republished in Latin, 431or 432. With the following should be compared Augustine'sDe Gratia Christi et Peccato Originali, II, 2f., and Ep. 175:6;157:3, 22.A certain Cælestius, a eunuch from his mother's womb, a discipleand auditor of Pelagius, left Rome about twenty years ago andcame to Carthage, the metropolis of all Africa, and there he wasaccused of the following heads before Aurelius, bishop of that [461]city, by a complaint from a certain Paulinus, a deacon of BishopAmbrose of Milan, of sacred memory, as the record of the actsstands in which the same complaint is inserted (a copy of theacts of the council we have in our hands) that he not only taughtthis himself, but also sent in different directions throughout theprovinces those who agreed with him to disseminate among thepeople these things, that is: