143 This term corresponds somewhat to our Sir; but Augustine here refers to its more expressive meaning of Master, or Lord.
145 Tuoe Benignitatis Epistola is more than "your kind letter." "Benignitas" is a complimentary abstract title addressed to the correspondent.
148 Ch. 16. At the synod of Diospolis. The proceedings before John, bishop of Jerusalem, were not duly registered. See above, 39.
154 This point, however, was definitely settled a year or two afterwards, at a council held in Carthage. (See its Canons 6-8.) See also above, the Preface to the treatise On the Perfection of Man's Righteousness.
157 This trial was held at Carthage, before the Bishop Aurelius (to whom Augustine dedicated he present treatise), at the beginning of the year 412, as appears from the letter to Innocentius among Augustine's Epistles, 175, Nos. 1 and 6..
158 This happened in the year 415, in the month of December, at Diospolis.
159 Isa. viii. 20. See above, 2.
162 Matt. xxv. 46. See above, 9.
164 Dan. vii. 18. See above, 13.
176 He here refers to a letter (32) of Pope Innocent to John, Bishop of Jerusalem. It thus commences: "Plunder, slaughter, incendiary fire, every atrocity of the maddest kind have been deplored by the noble and holy virgins Eustochium and Paula, as having been perpetrated, at the devil's instigation, in several places of your diocese," etc. An epistle by the same writer (33) addressed to Jerome, begins with these words: "The apostle testifies that contention never did any good to the Church."
177 From this it follows that we must refer his books On the Grace of Christ and On Original Sin to the year 418; for it was in this year that the Pelagian heresy was condemned by the pope Zosimus. Somewhat earlier there was held a general council of the bishops of Africa at Carthage, to take measures against the heresy,-the precise date of which council is May 1st of this year 418. Augustine, on account of this council, was detained at Carthage, and his stay in that city was longer than usual, as one may learn from the 94th canon of the council, or from the Codex Canonum of the Church of Africa, canon 127, as well as from his epistle (193, sec. 1) to Mercator And it was in this interval of time, before he started for Mauritania Caesariensis, that he wrote these two books for Albina, Pinianus, and Melania: accordingly, in his Retractations, he places them just previous to the time of his proceedings with Emeritus, which were concluded at Caesarea on the 20th of September in this very year 418. Julianus, in his work addressed to Turbantius, calumniously attacked a passage in the book On the Grace of Christ; the passage is defended by Augustine in his work against Julianus, iv. 8. 47, where he mentions this first book, addressed to the holy Pinianus, as he calls him, and gives its title as "Concerning Grace, in opposition to Pelagius." [Albina, with her son-in-law Pinianus, and her daughter Melania, by whose questions Augustine was led to write this work, constituted an interesting family of ascetics, which had formerly lived in Africa, but at this time were in Palestine; Pinianus at the head of a monastery, and his wife an inmate of a convent.-W.]