To Count Narses, on the Book Against the Presbyter Athanasius

Gregory to Narses, and so on. [a]

Your love, wanting to learn our opinion, has taken the trouble to write and ask what we think of the book against the presbyter Athanasius that was sent to us. We have read some parts of it thoroughly, and we find that he has fallen into the teaching of Mani. But the man who marked certain places in it as heretical, with a sign set beside them, himself slips into the Pelagian heresy. For he has marked as heretical certain places that are expressed in a catholic way and are entirely orthodox. For where it is written that when Adam sinned his soul died, the writer goes on to show in what sense it is said to have died, namely, that it lost the blessedness of its condition. Whoever denies this is not a catholic. For God had said: “In the hour you eat of it, you will die in death.” Now when Adam ate of the forbidden tree, we know that he did not die in the body, since after this he fathered children and lived many years. If, then, he did not die in the soul, the impious conclusion follows that he who foretold that Adam would die on the day he sinned was himself lying. But we must understand that death happens in two ways: either by ceasing to live, or with regard to the manner of living. So when man’s soul is said to have died in eating the forbidden thing, this is meant not in the sense of ceasing to live, but with regard to the manner of living: that he who had been created to live happily in joy would afterward live in pain. The man, then, who marked this passage as heretical in the book my brother the bishop John sent me is a Pelagian. For his view is plainly that of Pelagius, which the apostle Paul clearly refutes in his letters. I need not quote the particular passages in the apostle’s letter, since I am writing to one who knows them. But Pelagius, who was condemned in the Synod of Ephesus, held this view in order to show that our redemption by Christ was not real. For if we did not die in the soul through Adam, our redemption was not real, which it would be impious to say. Further, having examined the acts of the Synod of Ephesus, we find nothing at all about Adelphius and Sava and the others who are said to have been condemned there. And we think that, just as the Synod of Chalcedon was falsified in one place by the church of Constantinople, something of the kind has been done with the Synod of Ephesus. So let your love search thoroughly for old copies of the acts of this synod, and see whether anything of the kind is found there. Send me whatever copy you find, and I will return it as soon as I have read it. For recent copies are not entirely to be trusted, and that is why I have been in doubt and have not yet wanted to reply in this case to my brother the bishop John, whom I mentioned. And the Roman copies are much more accurate than the Greek ones, since, just as we do not have your cleverness, neither do we have any forgeries. [b]

Now as for the presbyter John, know that his case has been decided in a synod. By it I have clearly found that his opponents have wanted, and long tried, to make him out a heretic, but have failed entirely.

Greet in my name your friends, who are ours; ours too, who are yours, greet you warmly through me. May Almighty God protect you with his hand in the midst of so many thorns, so that you may gather unhurt the flowers the Lord has chosen.