XIX. How the aforesaid Honorius first, and afterwards John,
wrote letters to the nation of the Scots, concerning the
observance of Easter, and the Pelagian heresy. [640 A.D.]
CHAP. XIX.
THE same Pope Honorius also wrote to the Scots, whom he had found to err in the
observance of the holy Festival of Easter, as has been shown above, with
subtlety of argument exhorting them not to think themselves, few as they were,
and placed in the utmost borders of the earth, wiser than all the ancient and
modern Churches of Christ, throughout the world; and not to celebrate a
different Easter, contrary to the Paschal calculation and the decrees of all the
bishops upon earth sitting in synod. Likewise John, who succeeded Severinus,
successor to the same Honorius, being yet but Pope elect, sent to them letters
of great authority and erudition for the purpose of correcting the same error;
evidently showing, that Easter Sunday is to be found between the fifteenth of
the moon and the twenty-first, as was approved in the Council of Nicaea He also
in the same epistle admonished them to guard against the Pelagian heresy, and
reject it, for he had been informed that it was again springing up among them.
The beginning of the epistle was as follows:
To our most beloved and most holy Tomianus, Columbanus, Cromanus, Dinnaus, and
Baithanus, bishops; to Cromanus, Ernianus, Laistranus, Scellanus, and Segenus,
priests; to Saranus and the rest of the Scottish doctors and abbots, Hilarus,
the arch-presbyter, and vice-gerent of the holy Apostolic See; John, the deacon,
and elect in the name of God; likewise John, the chief of the notaries and
vicegerent of the holy Apostolic See, and John, the servant of God, and
counsellor of the same Apostolic See. The writings which were brought by the
bearers to Pope Severinus, of holy memory, were left, when he departed from the
light of this world, without an answer to the questions contained in them. Lest
any obscurity should long remain undispelled in a matter of so great moment, we
opened the same, and found that some in your province, endeavouring to revive a
new heresy out of an old one, contrary to the orthodox faith, do through the
darkness of their minds reject our Easter, when Christ was sacrificed; and
contend that the same should be kept with the Hebrews on the fourteenth of the
moon."
By this beginning of the epistle it evidently appears that this heresy arose
among them in very late times, and that not all their nation, but only some of
them, were involved in the same.
After having laid down the manner of keeping Easter, they add this concerning
the Pelagians in the same epistle:
"And we have also learnt that the poison of the Pelagian heresy again springs up
among you; we, therefore, exhort you, that you put away from your thoughts all
such venomous and superstitious wickedness. For you cannot be ignorant how that
execrable heresy has been condemned; for it has not only been abolished these
two hundred years, but it is also daily condemned by us and buried under our
perpetual ban; and we exhort you not to rake up the ashes of those whose weapons
have been burnt. For who would not detest that insolent and impious assertion,
'That man can live without sin of his own free will, and not through the grace
of God?' And in the first place, it is blasphemous folly to say that man is
without sin, which none can be, but only the one Mediator between God and men,
the Man Christ Jesus, Who was conceived and born without sin; for all other men,
being born in original sin, are known to bear the mark of Adam's transgression,
even whilst they are without actual sin, according to the saying of the prophet,
'For behold, I was conceived in iniquity; and in sin did my mother give birth to
me.'
