α) There is a distinction between the “beginning of faith” (_initium fidei_, _affectus credulitatis_) and “increase in faith” (_augmentum fidei_). The former depends entirely on the will, while the latter, like faith itself, requires the grace of Christ.
β) Nature can merit grace by its own efforts, though this natural merit (_meritum naturae_) is founded on equity only (_meritum de congruo_), and does not confer a right in strict justice, as Pelagius contended.
γ) Free-will, after justification, can of its own power secure the gift of final perseverance (_donum perseverantiae_); which consequently is not a special grace, but a purely natural achievement.
δ) The bestowal or denial of baptismal grace in the case of infants, who can have no previous _merita de congruo_, depends on their hypothetical future merits or demerits as foreseen by God from all eternity.(298)
b) Informed of these errors by his disciples, St. Augustine energetically set to work, and in spite of his advanced age wrote two books against the Semipelagians, entitled respectively, _De Praedestinatione Sanctorum_ and _De Dono Perseverantiae_. The new teaching was not yet, however, regarded as formally heretical, and Augustine treated his opponents with great consideration, in fact he humbly acknowledged that he himself had professed similar errors before his consecration (A. D. 394).(299)
After Augustine’s death, Prosper and Hilary went to Rome and interested Pope Celestine in their cause. In a dogmatic letter addressed to the Bishops of Gaul, the Pontiff formally approved the teaching of St. Augustine on grace and original sin, but left open such other “more profound and difficult incidental questions” as predestination and the manner in which grace operates in the soul.(300) But as this papal letter (called “_Indiculus_”) was an instruction rather than an ex-cathedra definition, the controversy continued until, nearly a century later (A. D. 529), the Second Council of Orange, convoked by St. Caesarius of Arles, formally condemned the Semipelagian heresy. This council, or at least its first eight canons,(301) received the solemn approbation of Pope Boniface II (A. D. 530) and thus became vested with ecumenical authority.(302)