Council of Ephesus, 431

norance, and presume to oppose the very pious disputers, and, although they do not hesitate to anathematize Pelagius and also Caelestius, nevertheless contradict our teachers, as if they overstepped the necessary limit, and profess to follow and approve only those [doctrines] which the most sacred See of the Blessed Apostle PETER has sanctioned and taught against the enemies of the grace of God through the office of its leaders, it has become necessary to inquire diligently as to what the rulers of the Roman Church judged concerning the heresy which had arisen in their times, and in opposition to the most harmful [heretics] what the defenders of free will decreed should be thought with regard to the grace of God. Thus, too, we have added certain opinions of the African Councils, which the apostolic high-priests have assuredly made their own when they approved [them]. In order therefore that [those] who doubt in any [matter] may be the more fully instructed, we are making public the definitions of the Holy Fathers in a brief catalogue, in which, if anyone is not a little contentious, he will recognize that the organic union of all reasonings depends upon this concise [catalogue] of supporting authorities, and no reason for contradiction remains to him, if he believes and speaks with the Catholics.

130. Chapter 1. In the transgression of Adam all men lost their "natural power"¹ and innocence, and no one can rise from the depth of that ruin through free will, unless the grace of a merciful God raise him up, [according as] Pope INNOCENT of blessed memory proclaimed and said in his letter² to the Council of Carthage:³ "For he, having once braved every consequence of free choice, while he used his goods too unadvisedly, fell and was overwhelmed in the depth of his transgression, and found no [way] by which he was able to rise from it; and beguiled forever by his own liberty he would have lain prostrate by the weight of this ruin, if the coming of Christ had not afterwards lifted him up by virtue of His grace, who through the purification of a new regeneration washed away in the bath of His baptism every past sin."

131. Chapter 2. For no one is good of himself, unless He gives [him] a participation of Himself, who alone is good.

In the same writings the opinion of the same pontiff bears witness to this, stating:⁴ "Shall we after this judge anything to be right in the minds of those who think they owe to themselves the fact that they are

[continued from previous page] c. 22–32 [ML 83, 1232–1234], Gennadius Massil., De eccl. dogmatibus, c. 30 [ML 58 987 D].