Folio 84

Council of Ephesus, 431

printed p. 52 · pdf p. 84

Condemnation of the Pelagians1

126. Can. 1. Whether a metropolitan of the province after revolting against the holy and ecumenical synod . . . , heeded or will heed the (opinions) of Celestius, this person is in no wise able to accomplish anything against the bishops of the province, since thereafter he is debarred by the synod from all ecclesiastical communion and is rendered inefficacious. . . .

127. Can. 4. But if some of the clergy should rebel, and dare to hold the opinions of Nestorius or Celestius either in private or in public, it has been judged by the holy synod that they too are deposed.

The Authority of St. Augustine2

[From Ep. (21) "Apostolici Verba Praecepti" to the bishops of the Gauls, May 15 (?), 431]

128. Chapter 2. We have always held Augustine a man of holy memory because of his life and also of his services in our communion, nor has even report ever sullied him with unfavorable suspicion. We recall him as having once been a man of such great knowledge that even by my predecessors in the past he was always accounted among the best teachers.3

The Catalog or the Authoritative Statements of the Past Bishops of the Holy See4 Concerning the Grace of God

129. Because some, who glory in the name of Catholic, linger in the con-demned view of heretics whether through perverseness or through ig-

  1. ACOec I, I, 3 p. 27 f.; Msi IV 1471 C ff.; Hrd I 1621 D; cf. Hfl II 205 ff. ↩

  2. Cst 1187 C ff.; Jf 381 c. Add.; ML 50, 530 A; Msi IV 455 E ff.; Hrd I 1254 B ff. ↩

  3. In the same way the authority of St. Augustine is commended by Boniface II in his epistle to the Fathers of Orange, and he was reckoned among the Fathers, who had written correctly about grace. Note, however, what is said by St. Celestine, c. 173 of this epistle, the words of St. HORMISDAS to the Defendant [see n. 173a], proposition 30 condemned by ALEXANDER VIII [see n. 1320], and the admonition of PIUS XI, encyclical "Ad salutem," 22 Apr., 1930, lest "the authority of Augustine speaking be preferred even to the supreme authority of the Church teaching" [AAS 22 (1930) 204], finally the words of Augustine himself De dono perseverantiae, chapter 21: "I would not wish anyone so to esteem my (writings) that he would follow me except in those matters in which he has clearly seen I do not err: for on this account I am now composing books in which I have undertaken to examine my works, so that I may show that I myself have not conformed to myself in all things" [ML 45, 1027 f.]. ↩

  4. They seem to have been collected at Rome by St. Prosper of Aquitaine (according to M. Cappuyns, Revue Bénédictine 41 [1929] 156 ff.) shortly after CELESTINE I, between 435 and 442, and, about the year 500 to have been recognized universally as the genuine doctrine of the Apostolic See: cf. Epist. Petri Diaconi (year 520), c. 8, n. 7 [ML 45, 1775], and Brachiarius (7th century) De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus, ↩