To Florus 3.101
After putting forward one passage from the brief preface of my earlier work as though to attack it, and adding his claim about his god as the potter of sinners, he accuses me. Let his own words display how consistent and straightforward he is:
‘It is not, then, as you say while deceiving yourself and others, that anyone who says humans have free will or that God creates newborn children is called a Caelestian and Pelagian. The catholic faith says these things too. But anyone who says humans have free will to worship God rightly without God’s help, and anyone who calls God the creator of newborn children in such a way as to deny that he redeems infants from the devil’s power, is called a Caelestian and Pelagian. Both of us, therefore, say that humans have free will and God is the creator of newborn children. That is not why you are Caelestians and Pelagians. But that anyone is free to do good without God’s help, and that infants are not rescued from the power of darkness and thus transferred into God’s kingdom—these are your claims. That is why you are Caelestians and Pelagians’ (Augustine, Marriage and Sexual Desire 2.8; compare Colossians 1:13).
I have frequently shown you floundering in the swamp of your irreverence and fear; a sensible reader surely will not doubt it.
Latin
Igitur postquam sibi unum de praefatiuncola prioris operis mei caput, quod quasi impugnaret, obiecit illudque de figulo peccatorum Deo suo subdidit, me arguit; quam sane constanter et pure ipsius eloquiis publicetur: Non itaque, sicut te atque alios fallens loqueris, si quis aut liberum in hominibus arbitrium aut Deum esse nascentium conditorem dixerit, Caelestianus et Pelagianus vocatur, ista quippe et catholica fides dicit. Sed si quis ad colendum recte Deum sine ipsius adiutorio dicit esse in hominibus liberum arbitrium et quisquis ita dicit Deum nascentium conditorem, ut parvulorum neget a potestate diaboli redemptorem, ipse Caelestianus et Pelagianus vocatur. Liberum itaque arbitrium esse in hominibus et Deum esse nascentium conditorem utrique dicimus; non hinc estis Caelestiani et Pelagiani. Liberum autem esse quemquam ad agendum bonum sine adiutorio Dei et non erui parvulos a potestate tenebrarum, et sic transferri in regnum Dei [n126] hoc vos dicitis; hinc estis Caelestiani et Pelagiani [n127] . Natare te quidem in impietatis tuae et formidinis palude frequenter ostendi nec super hoc dubitaturum prudentem constat esse lectorem.