Causa finita est.
Late in 416 synods were held in Carthage and Mileve condemning Pelagianism. On January 27, 417, Innocent wrote to the Africans, approving their councils and condemning Pelagianism, incidentally stating the supreme authority of the Roman See and requiring that nothing should ever be definitively settled without consulting the Apostolic See (text of passage in Denziger. ed. 1911, n. 100). September 23 of the same year, about the time when Pelagius and Cælestius were at Rome with Zosimus seeking to rehabilitate themselves in the West, Augustine delivered a sermon in which he made the following statement. It is the basis of the famous phrase Roma locuta, causa finita est, a saying which is apocryphal, however, and not found in the works of Augustine.
What, therefore, is said concerning the Jews, that we see in them [i.e., the Pelagians]. They have the zeal for God; I bear witness, that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Why is it not according to knowledge? Because, being ignorant of the justice of God and wishing to establish their own, they are not subject to the righteousness of God [Rom. 10:2 f.]. My brethren, have patience with me.
When you find such, do not conceal them, let there be not false mercy in you. Most certainly when you find such, do not conceal them. Refute those contradicting, and those resisting bring to me. For already two councils about this case have been sent to the Apostolic See, whence also rescripts have come. The case has been ended; would that the error might some time end! Therefore let us warn them that they pay attention; let us teach them that they may be instructed; let us pray that they may be changed.
(h) Zosimus, III Ep. ad Episcopos Africæ de causa Cælestii A. D. 417. (MSL, 45:1721.) Cf. Bruckner, op. cit., n. 28.
Fragments of his later Epistula tractoria together with other letters may be found in Bruckner, op. cit.
Likewise Pelagius sent letters also containing an extended justification of himself, to which he added a profession of his faith, what he condemned and what he followed, without any dissimulation, so that all subtilities of interpretation might be avoided. There was a public recitation of these. They contained all things like those which Cælestius had previously presented and expressed in the same sense and drawn up in the same thoughts. Would that some of you, dearest brethren, could have been present at the reading of the letters. What was the joy of the holy men who were present; what was the admiration of each of them! Some of them could scarcely restrain themselves from tears and weeping, that such men of absolutely correct faith could have been suspected. Was there a single place in which the grace of God or his aid was omitted?
(i) Council of Carthage, A. D. 418, Canons. Bruns, I, 188.
These canons of the Council of Carthage, A. D. 418, were incorporated in the Codex Canon Ecclesiæ Africanæ adopted at the Council of Carthage A. D. 419. The numbers given in brackets are the numbers in that Codex. Interprovincial councils were known in North Africa as “general councils.”
In the consulate of the most glorious emperors, Honorius for the twelfth time and Theodosius for the eighth, on the calends of May, at Carthage in the Secretarium of the Basilica of Faustus, when Bishop Aurelius presided over the general council, the deacons standing by, it pleased all the bishops, whose names and subscriptions are indicated, met together in the holy synod of the church of Carthage: