PROSPERO DI AQUITANIA

PROSPER OF AQUITANIA. - Gallo-Roman theologian, born at the end of the 4th century, died around 455.

He composed, around 426, his *Carmen de ingratis* in 1002 hexameters (PL 51, 91-148), which is a defense of the ideas of St. Augustine on Grace and predestination against certain monks of Marseilles and Lerins, and there he takes up the arguments already set forth in his letter to Rufinus (ibid., 77-90).

In 428 he requested some supplementary explanations directly from St. Augustine (ibid., 67-74), who replied to him with *De praedestinatione sanctorum* and *De dono perseverantiae* (which originally formed a single work), of which P. made an apology in his *Pro Augustino responsiones ad excerptas Genuensium* (ibid., 187-202) in response to some doubts expressed by two priests of Genoa, Camillus and Theodore. P. would also have desired a formal condemnation of the ideas professed in Marseilles and Lerins; but he obtained from Pope Celestine only an appeal to concord (ibid. 50, 528-30), which, moreover, had no effect: Cassian, in fact, published his *Collationes*, Vincent of Lerins his *Commonitorium*, and Arnobius the Younger his *Praedestinatus*. P. replied, passionately defending his master, with *De Gratia et libero arbitrio contra Collatorem* (ibid. 51, 213-76), *Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Gallorum calumniantium* (ibid. 155-74), and *Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Vincentianarum* (ibid., 177-86), works composed around 432-34.

After 435, P. settled in Rome, where he published his *Expositiones super psalmos* (ibid., 277-426) and very probably also some *Capitula* appended to the 21st letter of Celestine. In 450 he returned to the problem of Grace in his *De vocatione omnium gentium* (ibid.