Codex 54

[A Copy of the Proceedings taken against the Doctrines of Nestorius by the Bishops of the West]

Read a work attacking the heresy of Pelagius and Coelestius, entitled A Copy of the Proceedings taken against the Doctrines of Nestorius by the Bishops of the West.It states that the Nestorian and Coelestian heresies were identical without doubt, quoting as its authority a letter of Cyril of Alexandria 1a to the emperor Theodosius. The Coelestians, speaking of the body or the members of Christ, that is, the Church, audaciously deny that it is God (that is, the Holy Spirit) who distributes to each man severally, as He wills, faith and all that is necessary to life, piety, and salvation; according to them, the nature of man as constituted----which by sin and transgression fell from blessedness and was separated from God and handed over to death----both invites and repels the Holy Spirit in accordance with free will. The Nestorians hold and venture to assert the same opinion concerning the head of the body, Christ. Since Christ shares our nature and God wishes all men alike to be saved, they say that every one of his own free will can amend his error and make himself worthy of God; wherefore He who was born of Mary was not Himself the Word, but, by reason of the nobility of His natural will, He had the Word accompanying, sharing the condition of sonship by nobleness alone and similarity of name.

This Pelagian or Coelestian heresy flourished not only in the East, but also spread over the West. At Carthage in Africa it was detected and refuted by Aurelius and Augustine, and publicly condemned at various synods. Those who held these opinions were expelled from the Church as heretics, when Theophilus was bishop of Alexandria1b and Innocent bishop of Rome,[1] by Roman, African, and other Western bishops. At the synod held in Palestine,[2] however, at which fourteen bishops attended, Pelagius was acquitted. Some of the charges brought against him he utterly denied as foolish and anathematized, while he admitted having made certain other statements, not however in the sense attributed to them by his accusers, but rather in conformity with the doctrines of the Catholic Church. His accusers were Neporus [3] and Lazarus,[4]two bishops of Gaul, who were not present at the inquiry, having obtained permission to absent themselves in consequence of the illness of one of them. So Augustine states in his letters to Aurelius, bishop of Carthage.

After the death of the holy Augustine certain of the clergy began to reassert these impious doctrines. They began to speak evil of Augustine and falsely accused him of denying free will; but bishop Coelestine checked the renewal of this slander, writing to the bishops of the country in defence of that godlike man and against those who had set this heresy on foot again. As time went on, and these heretics, after having abjured their own doctrines, were received again into the Church, the scandal was again revived by them, and had to be put down before it went further by bishop Septimus,[5] who wrote to Leo, pope at that time and a fervent opponent of these impious doctrines. Not long afterwards, when the shameless heresy again sprang up from an evil root, certain persons at Rome openly expressed themselves in favour of it. But Prosper,[6] truly a man of God, in his pamphlets against them, soon crushed them, while Leo still occupied the papal throne. The heresy was also condemned at the holy synod of Ephesus.[7] John, patriarch of Alexandria, in his Apologiato Gelasius, bishop of Rome,[8] anathematized not only the Pelagian heresy, but Pelagius and Coelestius themselves, together with Julian,[9] who was known to have succeeded them in the leadership of this sect.