Saint Prosper of Aquitaine
Doctor of the Church c. 390 – c. 455
Feast – June 25
“Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings.” (1 Peter 5, 8-9)
The devil is an intelligent creature, he will use every opportunity to distort people. In good times an easy-going attitude, jealousy and pride are among his tools, in bad times anger is probably his favorite. For his manipulation to work it must address some kind difficulties people are facing. Sometimes they are false challenges, like climate change, where the solution is a totalitarian government run by elites (children of the devil). Other times they are real, like difficulties with comprehending the doctrine of the Trinity which led to the heresy of Arianism which was an easy explanation.
Around 380 the British monk and theologian Pelagius moved to Rome. In Rome he found that few in society shared his commitment to an ascetic lifestyle. Enjoying the reputation of austerity, St. Augustine called him a “saintly man,” he became a highly regarded spiritual director for both clergy and laity and soon gained a considerable following in Rome, his closest collaborator was a lawyer named Celestius. Pelagius increased his enthusiasm for moralism and formed his theology around it. He began to teach a very strict, rigid moralism, regarded the moral strength of man’s will, when steeled by asceticism, as sufficient in itself to desire and to attain the loftiest ideal of virtue and emphasizing a natural human ability to attain salvation. To prove his point, he denied the vast consequences of original sin, limiting it to a bad example which Adam set for next generations. By doing so he denied reality. When God created the world, He established a certain order. God created the first male and female, Adam and Eve, and God said to them: Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the livinarhg things that crawl on the earth. (Genesis 1: 27-28)
Adam and Eve having kids is the model family. In spiritual warfare the father is the first protector of the family, the second line of defense is the mother. When the father and mother commit a deadly sin and fall under the power of devil, (which happened with Adam and Eve) the children have no spiritual protection, their original nature turns into something which is popularly called “human nature.” This way the sin of Adam has been passed upon all. The chain, the avalanche of sinful activities follows through next generations until order is restored, which is impossible without God’s intervention. By proclaiming that man has the ability to attain salvation without the aid of divine grace Pelagius proudly told God, I don’t need Your help, ignoring the truth that God created everything, and everything depends on Him.
Then he attacked St. Augustine of Hippo who humbly praised and fully credited God for guiding him step by step from the swamps of sin into the safe lands of holiness in his autobiographical work Confessions.
Pelagius attacked the theology of divine grace on the grounds that it imperiled the entire moral law. In his opinion the value of Christ’s redemption was limited mainly to instruction and example, which the Savior threw into the balance as a counterweight against Adam’s wicked example.
After the fall of Rome to the Visigoths in 410, Pelagius and Celestius went to Africa then two years later left for Palestine. In 415 he was accused of heresy at the synod of Jerusalem but succeeded in avoiding censure. Then he wrote De libero arbitrio (“On Free Will”), which resulted in the condemnation of his teaching by two African councils and in 417 Pope Innocent I excommunicated Pelagius and Celestius. Pope Innocent’s successor St. Zosimus, after renewed investigation at the council of Carthage in 418 confirmed the council’s nine canons condemning Pelagius’s teachings.
Canon 1 “If any man says that Adam, the first man, was created mortal, so that whether he sinned or not he would have died, not as the wages of sin, but through the necessity of nature, let him be anathema.”
Canon 2 “If any man says that new-born children need not be baptized, or that they should indeed be baptized for the remission of sins, but that they have in them no original sin inherited from Adam which must be washed away in the bath of regeneration, so that in their ease the formula of baptism ‘for the remission of sins’ must not be taken literally, but figuratively, let him be anathema.”
Canon 3 “If any man says that in the kingdom of heaven or elsewhere there is a certain middle place, where children who die unbaptized live in bliss (beate vivant), whereas without baptism they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, that is, into eternal life, let him be anathema.”
Canon 4 “If any man says that the grace of God, by which man is justified through Jesus Christ, is only effectual for the forgiveness of sins already committed but is of no avail for avoiding sin in the future, let him be anathema.”
Canon 5 “If any man says that this grace only helps not to sin, in so far that by it we obtain a better insight into the Divine commands, and learn what we should desire and avoid, but does not also give the power gladly to do and to fulfill what we have seen to be good, let him be anathema.”
Canon 6 “If any man says that the grace of justification was given us in order that we might the more easily fulfill that which we are bound to do by the power of free will, so that we could, even without grace, only not so easily, fulfill the Divine commands, let him be anathema.”
Canon 7 “If any man understands the words of the Apostle: ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,’ to mean that we must acknowledge ourselves to be sinners only out of humility, not because we are really such, let him be anathema.”
Canon 8 “If any man says that the saints pronounce the words of the Lord’s Prayer, ‘forgive us our trespasses,’ not for themselves, because for them this petition is unnecessary, but for others, and that therefore it is, ‘forgive us,’ not ‘me,’ let him be anathema.”
Canon 9 “If any man says that the saints only pronounce these words, ‘forgive us our trespasses,’ out of humility, not in their literal meaning, let him be anathema.”
Shortly after the council of Carthage, Pelagius died and his heresy appeared to vanish with him. However, a few years later a softer version reappeared in southern France (Gaul).
The monks who resided at Marseilles and on the neighboring island of Lerinum, called Massilians, well known throughout the Christian world as holy and virtuous men, conspicuous for their learning and asceticism, heartily acquiesced in the condemnation of Pelagianism by the Synod of Carthage (418) and the “Tractoria” of Pope Zosimus, and also in the doctrines of original sin and grace. However, they also concluded that St. Augustine in his teaching concerning the necessity and gratuity especially of prevenient grace far overshot the mark. John Cassian, abbot of the monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles had endeavored in his thirteenth conference to demonstrate from Biblical examples that while grace often preceded the will, on the other hand the will frequently preceded grace. This started the theological movement which was in reality something between Augustine’s teachings on grace and those of the heretical monk Pelagius called “relics of the Pelagians” and today is known as Semi-Pelagianism. Semi-Pelagianism was less extreme, but it still denied important points of the faith. Its basic claims were: (1) the beginning of faith (though not faith itself or its increase) could be accomplished by the human will alone, unaided by grace; (2) in a loose sense, the sanctifying grace man receives from God can be merited by natural human effort, unaided by actual grace; (3) once a man has been justified, he does not need additional grace from God in order to persevere until the end of life.
In 417 in the aftermath of the Gothic invasions of Gaul, a layman, a refugee from Aquitaine born in Lemovices c. 390, educated at Bordeaux, named Prosper settled with the monks at Marseilles. He showed himself as man of high morals, purity and sanctity of manners, eloquence, and zeal. Being in the center of growing opposition to the teachings of St. Augustine regarding divine grace, in search of truth and clarity he reached out to the bishop of Hippo, who responded with letters that are now known as “On the Predestination of the Saints” and “On the Gift of Perseverance.” Thus the battle of his life began, the battle which extended over a hundred years and ended with condemnation of Semi-Pelagianism as heresy at the Ecumenical Council of Orange in 529. His arguments, which were based on the writings of St. Augustine, lead to his sainthood and title as a Doctor of the Church. The condemnation of Semi-Pelagianism was reaffirmed in 1546 by the Council of Trent.
During his fight, St. Prosper threw himself with passion into the religious controversies by defending St. Augustine and propagating orthodoxy. In 430 he wrote a 1000-line polemical poem against Pelagianism, Adversus ingratos, (facing ingratitude). A year later and accompanied by his friend Hilary, St. Prosper traveled to Rome to gain the support of Pope St. Celestine I against Semi-Pelagianism and to ask him to proclaim the truth of St. Augustine’s teachings. He also convinced the Pope to publish an open letter to the bishops of Gaul, against some members of the Gaulish Church. In 432 St. Prosper created his chief work De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio (God’s grace and free will).
Between 435 and 442 he wrote Capitulla, a simple list of ten doctrinal points asserting the efficacy and necessity of God’s Grace, each separately supported by papal statements. It was a strong defense of an essential Augustinian doctrine, but straightforward to make it easy to understand and accept.
When in September 440 St. Leo the Great became Pope, he called St. Prosper to Rome and made him his secretary employing him in the most important affairs of the Church. He assisted the Pope with correspondence dealing with Nestorian heresy.
Being of great virtue and possessing extraordinary talents and learning, St. Prosper dealt with delicate questions with remarkable insight.
St. Prosper was primarily responsible for crushing the Pelagian heresy. Its complete overthrow is said to be due to his zeal, learning, and unwearied endeavors. The date of his death remains uncertain, but he was still alive in 455, the date at which his Chronicle concludes.
References and Excerpts:
[1] A. Augustin, “A TREATISE ON THE PREDESTINATION OF THE SAINTS,” p. 28.
[2] “Pelagius,” Wikipedia. May 08, 2022. Accessed: Jun. 02, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pelagius&oldid=1086775098
[3] “Pelagius | Biography, Beliefs, & Facts | Britannica.” https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pelagius-Christian-theologian (accessed Jun. 02, 2022).
[4] “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pelagius and Pelagianism.” https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11604a.htm (accessed Jun. 02, 2022).
[5] “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Semipelagianism.” https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13703a.htm (accessed Jun. 02, 2022).
[6] “Semi-Pelagianism – New World Encyclopedia.” https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Semi-Pelagianism (accessed Jun. 02, 2022).
[7] “What is semi-Pelagianism? | EWTN,” EWTN Global Catholic Television Network. https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/what-is-semipelagianism-978 (accessed Jun. 02, 2022).
[8] “Prosper of Aquitaine,” Wikipedia. Feb. 07, 2022. Accessed: Jun. 02, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Prosper_of_Aquitaine&oldid=1070510459
[9] C. Online, “St. Prosper of Aquitaine – Saints & Angels,” Catholic Online. https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=884 (accessed Jun. 02, 2022).
[10] “Saint Prosper of Aquitaine, Doctor of the Church.” https://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_prosper_of_aquitaine.html (accessed Jun. 02, 2022).
[11] “St. Prosper of Aquitaine ca. 390-455 — Classical Christianity.” https://classicalchristianity.com/category/bysaint/st-prosper-of-aquitaine-ca-390-455/ (accessed Jun. 02, 2022).