Prosper of Aquitaine
390 CE–463 CE · Aquitaine
Prosper of Aquitaine (c. 390–c. 463) was a Latin theologian, lay monk, and the most ardent defender of Augustinian theology in the generation after Augustine's death. Writing from Marseille amid the Semi-Pelagian controversies, he championed Augustine's teaching on grace and predestination against John Cassian and the monks of southern Gaul, and later settled in Rome as a close aide — likely secretary — to Pope Leo I, by c. 435–440. He coined the influential liturgical axiom *ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi* ("let the law of prayer establish the law of belief"), which in later transmission was reversed and recast as the abbreviated *lex orandi, lex credendi* (with *supplicandi* replaced by *orandi*). As the first continuator of Jerome's universal chronicle and the probable author of *De vocatione omnium gentium*, he became a vital conduit of Augustinian thought to the medieval West.
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AquitaineFrance
What they did here
Prosper was born in the Roman province of Aquitaine in southwestern Gaul; his precise hometown is unknown, and Bordeaux is often suggested as a likely site of his early education.
About Aquitaine
Aquitaine, a region of southwestern France. The theologian Prosper of Aquitaine, a lay defender of Augustine's teaching on grace, came from the region in the early 5th century.
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Prosper of Aquitaine’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
In the same tradition
John Cassian, Salvian of Marseille, Pope Leo the Great, Pope St. Hilarius, Pope St. Sixtus III
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Prosper of Aquitaine’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.