ABSTRACT
The two epigrams and the passage from the poem De Ingratis (On the Ungrateful People) translated below are taken from the work of Prosper of Aquitaine who was active in the second quarter of the fifth century. From his hand we have not only this long poem and the 106 epigrams on sayings taken from Augustine’s works, but also 392 prose sayings from the same source (Liber sententiarum), a number of letters, theological works, expositions on the Psalms, a work entitled De vocatione omnium gentium (The Calling of All Nations) in which the author argues that God wishes all men to be saved, and the Chronica, a history of the world. It used to be thought that Prosper was also the author of the Carmen de Providentia Divina (Poem on Divine Providence), a poem of 972 lines of elegiac couplets and hexameters, in which the problem of providence is discussed in the context of God’s creation of the world and in relation to the recent invasions by Vandals and Goths into Gaul, but this attribution is now discredited. Most of Prosper’s works are concerned with defending and disseminating Augustine’s teachings, especially those on grace and free-will. Gennadius tells us that though Prosper was born in Aquitaine, he moved to Marseilles where he became involved in the semi-Pelagian controversy that erupted around 426 with its epicentre in southern Gaul. After Augustine’s death in 430 Prosper continued to work to disseminate Augustine’s teachings, transforming them and making them acceptable. He moved to Rome and spent the last years of his life working for Pope Leo the Great.
