[Pro Augustino responsiones ad capitula obiectionum Vincenianarum and two other tracts]

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PROSPER AQUITANUS. Responsiones. AUGUSTINUS. Responsiones acl. Dulcitium.

THIS book is part oi a larger work, consisting oi tractS oi eight authors, and published b3 the Brothers of the Common Lile Fratres Vitae Communis) about 148o at BruSSel S. Sometimes ali theSe tracts are found in onevolume: ano somelimes the individual tracts occur Separalely. The book recently acquired by the Library has three of the traeis: St. Augustine's answersto Vincent of Lerins, and to certain questions rat Sed by two priesis from Genoa Responsiones contra Objectiones vincentianaS: Responsiones ad excerpta de genuensi civitate missa . Dulcitius was appotnted High Commissioner for Africa in 419. He was immediat ely drawn into the Donatist controversy, which had then been ragine foryears. It should be remembered that one of the main doctrines of Donati sin so called alter Bishop Donatus. who had lived abo ut a hundred years earlier - was that the emcacy of the Sacraments depended on the minister'spersonat State of grace. The Catholics, on the other hand. belleved that thecharacter of the minister had no influence in the matter. Sacramenta per se esse Sancta, non Per homines . . .'). The clero in Africa were about equalty divideo be- tween the two leachings. In η II Μarcellinus, Dulcitius's predecessor, helda conferen e of ali the bishops of Carthage, whicli decided in favor of the Catholics. Thereupon, in an edici, Marcellinus ordered the Donati sis to renounce their heresies. Recalcitrants were to be severely punished: freeiraen wereto be fined and flaves beaten; the cler were to be deported and theirchurches turneo over to the Catholics. However, the controversy clid notitie down: some of the Donatist bishops hecame even more violent in their opposition. Gaudentius, Bishop of Tamuga. to whom Dulcitius aderessed a very moderate letter Oi persuasion, threatened that ii the edict were en orced he would burn himself and his floch, with the church over their head s. Dul citius sent Gaudentius's letter to Augustine, heming him to refute it and toinstruct him as to hat he should reply to the heretios . Augustine's an-Swers - Responsiones - are printed in the volume here described. Ηe toto the High Commissioner that no account must be taken Oi Gaudentius'sthreais: and that he should not be deterred by fear of ruining some unliappywretches from protecting the safety oi others. Then Augustine elucidatessthose passages of Scripture aliout whicli Dulcitius had rat sed questions. Prosper of Aquitat ne, whose two tracts are also included in the volume was Augustine's chi ei disciple. He was a layman who never took Orclers, but who Soon hecam e famous for the exemplary character of his life . Bornprobably at Bordeaux in σ3, he lived in the fouili os France, mainly at Marseilles. Ηe early became a devotee of the great Bishop of Hippo, Without ever having seen him. Embroiled in disputes with many of the cler , he decided in 428 to write to Augustine, ashing for his guidance in regard to someos his teachings. He potnted out that pious men osten questioned Augustine's doctrine os predestination, thinking that predestination leads the had tore klessness, and the good to indifference. 'Vliat, thereiore, was the relation belween predestination and foreknowledge ZAugustine answereo with his treatise De predestinatione Sanctorum. BypredeStination, he argued, God foresees those things which He means to clo: whereas by ioreknowledge He knows even such things as Ηe Himself willnot do. In the second tract, entilled De dono perseverantiae, he assertest thalit is God who gives the virtve of perseverance: and further that God's jud: ments are unSearchable: of two Child ren equalty affected by original sin Hetakes the one and leaves the other; of two adult unbellevers He calis the oneand not the other. Having received enlightenment on these potnis, Prosper, in his turn, directed severat Responsioues to his adversaries. Two oi these are in the volume: the one aderessed to Vincent of Lerins and the other to the Genoapriesis. Vincent, Undavnted. replied in his Commonitorium AH to Memo ) in Which he laid down certain rules whereby to distinguisti true faith from heresy. Ηe accused Augustine ot innovations: he belleved in development, buthe thought that it should not be one-sicled. Vincent Was one of thoSe Who, although condemning the teachings of Pelagius, did not want to go to VeX- tremes.' They acceptet the doctrines of original sin and the need of grace: but they resented Augustine's theories - especialty as advocated by Prosper- about, predestination. Prosper composed a number of other works, too, among them a long poem, in one thousand hexameterS, Against the Uustrat esul - namely, the Pelagians. He also compiled a collection of 392 Sentences, drawn irom Augustine's workS. His Chronicies, in which he continued St. Jerome's history clown to 455, i Sespecialty Valuable as regarcls contemporary evenis. By that time he was living in Rome, where he had gone as a close adviser to Pope Leo I. Incleed, itis thought that many of the letters of the Pontifi were written by Prosper. Hedi ed in 463: and such was his reputation for sanctity that he was later canoniged. Typographicatly the volume is very interesting, aS the produci of theon ly press that was at work at Brusseis in the fifteenth century. The Broth-ers of the Common Lile established their press in the city in March I475, operat ing it for twelve years. They published, in ali, about forty books. Bought in June I935.