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.]
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.'