This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Find out more about our use of cookies here.

Click here to read at earlychurchtexts.com in the original Latin (with dictionary lookup links). The English translation below is from the Kidd, Documents Illustrative of the History of the Church, Vol. 2.

earlychurchtexts.com

• Is like an electronic encyclopedia of the first five centuries of Church History, with extensive links (subscription version only) to information on around 800 people and themes, and around 230 Church Councils;

• Is a Reader in Early Christian History and Theology with 250+, with over 2,200 printable pages, carefully prepared on-site texts (Greek and/or Latin with English translation alongside) from the first five centuries of the life of the Church. These cover a range of significant themes and represent several authors (a sample text is here and a complete list of on-site texts here). All have dictionary lookup links. There is also an introduction to each text (to help in understanding its context and significance) together with background notes linked with the text, carefully prepared printable versions, a site search engine and many other helpful features;

• Gives easy access to complete Greek and Latin texts which are in the public domain and translations (where found available) from the first five centuries. There are carefully indexed links to authors and their works, including an index of commentaries, homilies etc. by biblical book. Nearly all of the Greek and Latin texts from this period contained in the Migne Patrologia series are covered. Some other sources are also used. The texts used are the scanned versions available at Google Books and elsewhere. A distinctive feature of the Early Church Texts website is that where English translations have been found available online they can easily be read immediately alongside the original Greek and Latin. (A complete list of authors represented is here. A sample text is here.)

Try out the feature rich subscription version of the Early Church Texts website for just $5 for a trial period or $30 for a year ($15 student rate). Click here for more information. Check out the video demo of the site. Click here to go to the Early Church Texts Home Page for the publicly available version of the site which has just the original Greek and Latin texts with dictionary lookup links.

The Early Church Texts Webmaster is an Amazon Associate and earns from qualifying purchases - i.e. a small commission on purchases made at Amazon when following the Amazon links below.

The Pelagian heresy, at this present time the most recent of all, owes its rise to the monk Pelagius. Caelestius followed him so closely as his teacher, that their adherents are also called Caelestians. These men are such opponents of the grace of God . . . that without it, as they believe, man can do all the commandments of God. But, if this were true, God would evidently have said in vain, “Without me, ye can do nothing.” After a time, Pelagius was accused by the brethren of ascribing nothing to the grace of God for the purpose of keeping His commandments. He admitted the charge so far as, not indeed to put grace before free-will, but to supplant it by calculated cunning, and to say that it was given to men in order that whey they are commanded to do by their free-will they may the more easily be able to accomplish with the help of grace. Of course, by saying “the more easily be able” he wished it to be believed that, though with more difficulty, still men are able without grace to do the commandments of God. That grace, however, without which we cannot do anything that is good, they say consists simply in free-will, which, without any preceding merits of ours, our nature received from Him: God merely assisting us by His law and doctrine in order that we may learn what to do and what we ought to hope for, not in order that, by the gift of His Spirit, we may do what we have learned ought to be done. They confess in this way there is given to us divine knowledge whereby ignorance is dispelled, but they deny that love is given to us whereby we may lead a religious life: so that whereas knowledge, which, without love puffeth up, is the gift of God, love itself, which edifieth so that knowledge should not puff up, is not the gift of God. They empty of their meaning the prayers which the Church makes: whether for the unbelieving and those that refused the doctrine of God, that they may return to God; or for the faithful, that faith may be increased in them and that they may persevere therein. These things, they argue, a man does not receive from God, but from himself; and they say that the grace of God, whereby we are delivered from irreligion, is given us according to our merits. This [doctrine], indeed, Pelagius, at his trial before the bishops in Palestine, when he was afraid of being condemned, was forced to condemn; but, in his later writings, he is found to teach it. They even go so far as to say that the life of the righteous in this world has no sin, and thus the Church of Christ in this mortal state is so perfected as to be altogether “without spot or wrinkle. ” As if it were not the Church of Christ throughout the world which cries to God, “Forgive us our trespasses.” They also deny that infants, born according to Adam after the flesh, contract by their first [sc. Natural] birth the infection of the ancient death. So they assert that they are born without any bond of original sin: with the result, of course, that there is in them nothing that has to be released at their Second [or New] Birth. The reason why they are baptized is that by their New Birth they be adopted and admitted into the kingdom of God, carried from good to better—not, by that renewal, delivered from any evil of ancient entail. For even if they are not baptized, they promise them eternal life and bliss of a sort, though not within the kingdom of God. Adam also himself, they say, even if he had not sinned, would have undergone bodily death; though, if he so died, it would have been due not to the deserts of his guilt, but to the conditions of his nature. Several other things are charged against them. But these are especially the points on which it may be understood how all, or nearly all, the rest depend.