cumstance two other passages from St. Augustine. In the first, this Father, speaking to the Pelagians,[1] says: "As regards your cause two councils have been sent to the Apostolic See. Rescripts have returned; the case is finished — may it please God that also the errour be so!"
The advocates of the Papacy thus translate this passage: "Rome has spoken — the case is finished; Roma locuta est — causa finita est." This expression, Rome has spoken — Roma locuta est, is a mere invention. It does not occur in St. Augustine. The other — the case is finished — is there. We shall presently see what it means.
The second passage, similar to the first, is thus conceived: "Your cause is finished," he said to the Pelagians,[2] "by a competent judgment of the bishops in general; there is nothing for you to do except to submit to the sentence that has been given; or to repress your restless turbulence if you cannot submit!"
The first text dates back to the year 419, when the Pelagians had been condemned by two African councils and by Pope Innocent I. The second is of the year 421, when eighteen Pelagian bishops had appealed from this sentence to a general council. According to this text, say the Romish theologians, the condemnation of the Pope, confirming that of the African councils, had a doctrinal authority from which there was no appeal to a general council, and therefore Rome enjoyed a superiour and final authority in dogmatic questions.
These inferences are not just. In the first place, St. Augustine did not regard a sentence of Rome as final. Thus, speaking of the question of rebaptism, he asserts that St. Cyprian had a right to oppose his belief to that of Pope Stephen; and he says that he himself would not give so positive an opinion on that point if a general council had not settled it.[3] At the same time he admits
