Today the Church remembers St. Prosper of Aquitaine, Theologian.
Ora pro nobis.
Saint Prosper, "The Eradicator of Heresies," as Saint Photios calls him, was born in the Aquitaine region of Gaul around the year 390 AD. He was a renowned lay theologian, although few details of his life are known. We do know that he was married.
We know Saint Prosper chiefly from his writings. A contemporary writer described him as "a holy and venerable man." This wise man seems to have spent his life embroiled in controversies with heretics. For the semi-Pelagians in particular, Saint Prosper was one of their most fearsome adversaries. His chief fame rests not on his historical works, but on his activities and writings as a theologian and an aggressive propagator of the Augustinian doctrine of grace. It is no doubt that Prosper holds a place in the ranks of the moulders of theological understanding of the doctrine of grace.
By 417 AD, he arrived in Marseilles as a refugee from Aquitaine in the aftermath of the Gothic invasions of Gaul. Prosper played a vital role in the Pelagian controversy in southern Gaul in the 420's. With the help of Augustine and Pope Celestine, Prosper was able to put down revolutions of the Pelagian Christians.
In 429 AD, he was corresponding with Augustine. In 431 he appeared in Rome to appeal to Pope Celestine I regarding the teachings of Augustine; there is no further trace of him until 440, the first year of the pontificate of Pope Leo I, who had been in Gaul, where he may have met Prosper.
His chief work was his De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio, “On the grace of God and free will”(432), written against John Cassian's Collatio. He also induced Pope Celestine to publish an open letter to the bishops of Gaul, Epistola ad episcopos Gallorum against some members of the Gaulish Church. He had earlier opened a correspondence with Augustine, along with his friend Hilary (not Hilary of Arles), and although he did not meet him personally, his enthusiasm for the great theologian led him to make an abridgment of his commentary on the Psalms, as well as a collection of sentences from his works—probably the first dogmatic compilation of that class in which Peter Lombard's Liber sententiarum is the best-known example. He also put into elegiac metre, in 106 epigrams, some of Augustine's theological dicta.
In Saint Prosper, science was joined to virtue. It is evident that he applied himself to literature, and especially to acquiring knowledge of Holy Scripture. He was no less an expert in human sciences than he was in theology. He excelled particularly in mathematics, astronomy, and chronology. His great learning and holiness made him well known throughout the entire Church.
In a poem to his wife, he wrote: "Lift me up again if I fall; correct yourself if I point out some fault. Let it never be sufficient for us to be one body, let us also be one soul." By 428, Saint Prosper persuaded his wife to become a nun, and he entered a monastery at Marseilles.
When Saint Leo the Great was chosen as the Bishop of Rome in 440 AD, he sent for Prosper to become his secretary. Many historians believe that the admirable treatise "On the Incarnation of the Word," which is ascribed to Saint Leo, is actually the work of Saint Prosper. It is possible, however, that Saint Leo may have reworked it in his own style. Prosper gives detailed coverage of political events. He covers Attila's invasions of Gaul (451) and Italy (452) in lengthy entries under their respective years.
His writings and those of St. Augustine were pivotal during the Council of Orange in 529 AD in defining the doctrine of grace and the final repudiation of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism.
Saint Prosper died in Rome, c. 464 AD.
O God, by your Holy Spirit you give to some the word of wisdom, to others the word of knowledge, and to others the word of faith: We praise your Name for the gifts of grace manifested in your servant Prosper, and we pray that your Church may never be destitute of such gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
