139 See Augustin, above, De Naturâ et Gratiâ, c. 75 [lxiii.].
1 For the persons addressed, see above, in Book i. c. 1, of On the Grace of Christ.
2 See above, On the Grace of Christ, ch. 35.
3 See Concerning the Proceedings of Pelagius, ch. 23.
4 Pelagius, at Diospolis, condemned this position of Coelestius. Hence the comparative restraint of Pelagius, and the greater freedom in holding the error which is here attributed to Coelestius.
5 De traduce peccati, the technical phrase to express the conveyance by birth of original sin.
6 This Paulinus, according to Mercator (Commonit. super nomine Coelestii), was the deacon of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, and the author of his biography, which he wrote at the instance of Augustin. According to his own showing, he lived in Africa, and wrote the Life of Ambrose when John was pretorian prefect, i.e. either in the year 412, or 413, or 422. The trial mentioned in the text took place about the commencement of the year 412, according to Augustin's letter to Pope Innocent (See Augustin's letter, 175, 1. 6). See above, in the treatise On the Proceedings of Pelagius, 23.
7 Mercator (Commonit. adv. Haeres. Pelagii) informs us that a certain Syrian called Rufinus introduced the discussion against original sin and its transmission into Rome in the pontificate of Anastasius. According to some, this was the Rufinus of Aquileia, whom Jerome (in Epist. ad Ctesiphont.) notices as the precursor of Pelagius in his error about the sinless nature of man; according, however, to others, it is the other Rufinus, mentioned by Jerome in his 66th Epistle, who is possibly the same as he who rejects the transmission of original sin in a treatise On Faith, which J. Sismondi published as the work of Rufinus, a presbyter of the province of Palestine. It is, at any rate, hardly possible to suppose that the Aquileian Rufinus either went to Rome, or lodged there with Pammachius, in the time of Pope Anastasius.
8 See above, On the Grace of Christ, ch. 36.
11 Albina, Pinianus, and Melania. Literally, they are here addressed as "your Love."
12 Epistle 177, in the collection of Augustin's letters.
13 Innocent's letter occurs amongst the epistles of Augustin, letter 183. 3, 4.
14 Compare On the Proceedings of Pelagius, chs. 16, 23.
15 See On the Proceedings of Pelagius, ch. 24.
16 Possidius, in his Life of Augustin, ch. 18, says: "Even the most pious Emperor Honorius, upon hearing that the weighty sentence of the catholic Church of God had been pronounced against them, in pursuance of the same, determined that they should be regarded as heretics, under condemnation by his own laws." These enactments are printed by the Benedictine editors in the second part of their Appendix.
20 See above, in the preface to the treatise On the Perfection of a Righteous Man, towards the end.