08/17/2026
Pope Saint Innocent I (401-417)
In requirendis (417)
(Translated from Latin to English)
LETTER 181
Written probably at the same time.
Innocent to the Fathers of the Council of Carthage, praising them for having consulted him on troubling matters of faith (nn. 1–2): he confirms their doctrine and judgment against the Pelagian heresy—which is like a rotting disease in the body of the Church, inasmuch as it opposes grace and places salvation in free will, through which the human race fell into guilt (nn. 3–7). Heretics of this kind must be removed from the Church, but received again if they come to their senses (nn. 8–9).
INNOCENT, TO AURELIUS AND ALL THE HOLY BISHOPS WHO WERE PRESENT AT THE COUNCIL OF THE CHURCH OF CARTHAGE, MOST BELOVED BROTHERS, GREETINGS IN THE LORD.
The Authority of the Apostolic See Over Regional Councils
In inquiring into divine matters—which ought to be treated with all solicitude by priests, and especially by a true, just, and Catholic council—preserving the examples of ancient tradition and mindful of ecclesiastical discipline, you have confirmed the vigor of our religion by true reason no less now in consulting than previously when pronouncing judgment. For you approved that the matter be referred to our judgment, knowing what is due to the Apostolic See, since all of us placed in this position desire to follow the Apostle himself, from whom the episcopate itself and the entire authority of this name arose. Following him, we know how to condemn evil things as well as to approve what is praiseworthy. Indeed, by observing the ordinances of the Fathers in your priestly duty, you do not judge that they should be trampled upon, since they decreed—not by human, but by divine judgment—that whatever was transacted, even in separate and distant provinces, should not be considered settled until it reached the knowledge of this See. Thus, by the full authority of this See, any just pronouncement might be confirmed, and from here the other churches (just as all waters proceed from their original source, and pure streams flow from an uncorrupted head throughout the diverse regions of the whole world) might receive what they should prescribe, whom they should cleanse, and whom—as stained with unshakeable filth—the water worthy of clean bodies should avoid.
The Ancient Rule of Consulting the Roman Pontiff on Troubling Matters of Faith
2. I rejoice, therefore, dearest brothers, that you have sent letters to us through our brother and fellow-bishop Julius, and that, while caring for those churches over which you preside, you demonstrate your solicitude for the benefit of all, and ask that what is profitable for all churches across the entire world be decreed at once. Thus, the Church, established upon her own rules and strengthened by the decree of this just pronouncement by which she may beware of them, will not have to fear such men who—equipped, or rather destroyed, by perverse subtleties of words, disputing under the pretense of the Catholic faith and exhaling a pestilential poison so as to corrupt to a worse state the hearts of right-thinking people—seek to overthrow the entire discipline of true dogma.
Heresy, as a Rotting Plague in the Body of the Church, Must Be Cured
3. A cure must therefore be applied swiftly, lest this execrable disease creep further into souls. Just as a physician, when he sees some ailment in this earthly body, considers it a great proof of his skill if someone who was despaired of quickly recovers through his intervention; or when he sees a festering wound, applies poultices or other remedies to close the wound that had developed; and if, persisting, it cannot be healed, he cuts away with the knife what was causing harm so that it does not corrupt the rest of the body with its rot, thereby keeping the remainder whole and untouched. Therefore, that which has crept in like a wound upon an exceedingly pure and healthy body must be cut away, lest, if it is wiped away too slowly, the uncontainable foul dregs of this evil settle into the very vitals.
The Pelagian Heresy: An Impious and Barbarous Dogma
4. For what right thing can we think of the minds of those who imagine that they owe it to themselves that they are good, and do not consider Him whose grace they daily receive? But already such men receive no grace from God, since they are confident that they can attain so much without Him, as those who ask it of Him can scarcely deserve to receive. For what can be so unjust, so barbarous, so ignorant of all religion, and so hostile to Christian minds, as to deny that you owe whatever you receive in daily grace to Him to whom you yourself confess you owe your very birth? Shall you, then, be superior in providing for yourself than He who made you so that you might exist can be in you? And when you think you owe to Him the fact that you are alive, how do you not think you owe to Him the fact that, by receiving His daily grace, you live in such a godly manner? And you who deny that we need divine assistance, as though we were entirely perfected by our own capacity—how do we not provoke His help against ourselves, when we claim to be able to be such on our own?
Rejecting God's Help Does Injury to the Creator
5. For whoever denies the assistance of God, I would like to ask what he says: that we do not deserve it, or that He cannot provide it? Or that there is nothing on account of which each person ought to ask for it? That God is able to do this, His very works testify; and that we need daily assistance, we cannot deny. For whether we are living well, we call upon it so that we may live better and more holily; or if, thinking wickedly, we turn away from good things, we need His help all the more so that we may return to the right path. For what could appear so deadly, so headlong toward a fall, so exposed to all dangers, as to think that what free will we received when we were born can alone suffice for us, and seek nothing further from the Lord—that is, forgetting our Maker, to disown His power so as to show ourselves free, as though He who made you free at your origin has nothing more that He can give? They do not know that unless the grace of God, implored with earnest prayers, descends upon us, we can by no means attempt to overcome the errors of earthly defilement and the worldly body, since it is not free will, but the help of God alone that can make us equal to the task of resisting.
Throughout the Whole Psalter David Pleads for God's Help
6. For if he cries out that he needs divine help, who would not rightly seek it if free will were of more benefit to anyone—especially when that blessed man, already chosen by the Lord, had need of nothing; yet he thus prays to God, begging: “Be my helper; forsake me not, neither despise me, O God of my salvation”—we claim free will for ourselves, but he asks God to be his helper! We say that our being born can suffice, while he implores God that he may not be forsaken! Do we not, I ask, clearly learn what we ought to pray for, when that man, so greatly blessed (as we said above), earnestly desires not to be despised? For those who affirm those doctrines must necessarily censure these prayers. Let David be accused of being ignorant of prayer and unaware of his own nature—he who, knowing how much was in his nature, prostrated in prayer, seeks God as his helper and constant helper, nor is it enough for him that He be a constant helper, but he prays that He may never despise him, and throughout the entire body of the Psalter he proclaims and cries out this very thing! If, then, so great a man confessed that it was as necessary to teach this as to say it continually, how do Pelagius and Caelestius—setting aside all response of the Psalms and casting aside such doctrine—trust that they will persuade anyone that we neither ought to seek the help of God nor need it, when all the saints testify that they can do nothing without it?
Man, Debased by Free Will, Is Freed by Grace
7. For having experienced free will long ago, while he used his blessings rather imprudently, man fell and was plunged into the depths of transgression; and he found no way whereby he might rise from there; and, deceived forever by his own freedom, he would have lain crushed beneath the weight of this ruin, had not the coming of Christ later raised him up by His grace: who, through the purification of a new rebirth, cleansed every past fault in the bath of His baptism, and, establishing his state so that he might proceed more uprightly and stably, nevertheless did not withhold His grace for the future. For although He had redeemed man from past sins, yet knowing that he could sin again, He reserved many things for his restoration, whereby He might correct him even after these things: He provides daily remedies, and unless we strive relying and trusting upon them, we will by no means be able to overcome human errors. For it must be that by whose help we conquer, without His help we are conquered again. But I could say more, were it not clear that you have said everything.
Those Following Pelagian Perversity Must Be Removed From the Church
8. Whoever, therefore, is seen to agree with this opinion, wherein he says that we do not need divine assistance, proves himself an enemy of the Catholic faith and ungrateful for God's benefits. For such men are not worthy of our communion, which they have defiled by preaching in this manner. Indeed, by following of their own accord what they speak, they have fled far away from true religion. For since our entire profession consists in this, and in our daily prayers we do nothing other than seek how we may obtain the mercy of God, how can we tolerate those who boast of such things? What great error, I ask, blinds their hearts, so that if they themselves perceive no grace of God (because they are neither worthy nor deserving), they do not even consider in others what divine grace daily bestows upon each one? These men are indeed most worthy of all blindness, who have not even left to themselves the possibility of believing that they can be recalled from errors by divine help. For by denying this assistance, they have taken it away not from others, but utterly from themselves. They must be torn away and removed far from the vitals of the Church, lest, seizing upon many for a longer time, an incurable error should later grow. For if they remain unpunished for long, they will inevitably lead many into this perversity of their mind and deceive the innocent, or rather the imprudent, who follow the Catholic faith. For they will think that those whom they still see remaining in the Church hold orthodox views.
The Church Is Ready to Spare Reformed Heretics
9. Let the diseased wound, therefore, be separated from the healthy body, and, with the breath of the raging disease removed, let what is genuine endure more securely, and let a purer flock be cleansed from the contagion of this evil sheep. Let the perfection of the whole body remain undefiled—which we know you follow and uphold in this pronouncement against them, and which we preserve together with you in equal assent. Yet if they invoke upon themselves some help of God (which they have hitherto denied) and recognize that they need His assistance so that they may be freed from this stain into which they had fallen by the crookedness of their own heart—and, as if drawn into the light out of foul darkness, with all things removed and renounced by which their whole vision was defiled and darkened from beholding the truth, let them condemn these things which they have hitherto held; and, yielding their minds at last to sound disputations and being somewhat corrected from this stain, let them submit and surrender themselves to true counsels to be healed. If they do this, it will be within the power of the bishops to assist them to some degree and to provide some remedy for such wounds, which the Church is not accustomed to deny to the fallen when they come to their senses: so that, recalled from their precipices, they may be gathered back inside the sheepfold of the Lord; lest, being placed outside and shut out from so great a protective fortress of faith, they be exposed to all dangers, to be torn and devoured by the teeth of wolves, whom they cannot resist with this perversity of doctrine by which they provoked them against themselves. But it is evident that sufficient answer has been given to your warnings, which so abound with examples of our law; nor do we think anything remains for us to say, since it is evident that nothing was omitted by you, nothing suppressed, by which they might be refuted and recognized as completely convicted. And for this reason no further scriptural testimonies are set forth by us, because your report is full of them, and it is well established that so many most learned priests have said everything, nor is it proper to believe that you passed over anything that could advance the cause.
(And in another hand:) Farewell, brothers.
Pope Innocent I, "In requirendis" [Epistola 181], 417, Augustinus.it, accessed August 17, 2026, https://www.augustinus.it/latino/lettere/lettera_184_testo.htm.
