Many
Catholic apologists appeal to a purported saying of Augustine from sermon 131, “Rome
has spoken, the case is closed!” Firstly, Augustine never said such a thing.
Furthermore, while trying to salvage belief in Roman Primacy (as understood in
light of Vatican I [1870]), one Catholic apologist admitted that sermon 131 and
Augustine’s comments therein should be understood in a more nuanced manner:
The views of Pelagius proved to be quite popular
among many people and continued to spread, inevitably arousing opposition. The
great St. Augustine of Hippo composed a number of incisive tracts against
Pelagianism. In due course, two councils held in different parts of Africa
condemned the views of Pelagius; in 416, one African council expressly renewed
a condemnation of Pelagius that had been decided upon by an African council in
412. The African bishops then forwarded their judgments to Rome.
Pope St. Innocent I replied to the African
bishops the following year, accepting the decisions of the two African
councils. Concerning this reply, St. Augustine wrote: “Already two synods have
sent to the Apostolic See concerning this affair. The rescripts have come from
here. The cause is finished (causa finita est). Would that at last the error were finished too!” (Sermo CXXXI).
This incident was ostensibly the origin of
the widely quoted statement regularly attributed to Augustine: Roma locuta est, causa finita est (“Rome
has spoken, the cause is finished”; meaning the matter is settled). It should
be evident from both the text and the context that what St. Augustine actually
said was slightly different than what the statement is generally taken to mean.
Augustine seems to have been referring to the whole process: two African
councils had considered the views of Pelagius and correctly judged him to be in
error. Following this, the only possible court of appeal, the bishop of Rome,
confirmed the judgment of the African councils; the appeal process was
accordingly exhausted, and it time for the heretics to desist as well—they stood
no chance of ever persuading the Church of their aberrant views in the face of
a Roman judgment upholding a legitimate Church synod.
The matter was indeed settled—not just because “Rome had spoken”, but
because the whole Church process for arriving at correct doctrine had been gone
through and the rest had gone against the Pelagians. Thus, what Augustine actually
meant in this case was more nuanced than what is usually meant when the saying Roma locuta est, causa finita est is
quoted. (Kenneth D. Whitehead, One, Holy,
Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church was the Catholic Church [San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000], 272-73, emphasis in original)