the hanks of rivers for their oratories, and ibis point of agreement i- one of the grounds on which we are pro- ceeding. But ii will hold equally good, whether the Israelitish captives billowed, in this, the example of
whom Prosper names a- adversaries of Si. Augustine were, like Cassian. Semi -Pelagians. The heroics ot this Cassian Prosper exposed in a work which be suh- scqiiently (about A. 1). 4:!(» l composed : /'« fi rutin l)ii
their fathers, or whether, as is more probable, their et Libero Arbitrio contra Collatorem. Prosper, still be-
circumstances in Babylon led to ibis choice. It is fore St. Augustine's death, wrote several works against
not unlikely that this led to a similar choice in after- the Pelagians, and especially the Semi-Pelagians. To
times, and particularly iii foreign countries. The poor these works of controversy belong his poem /'< Tngra-
captives of Babylon had perhaps no other covering or //'.-■. so highly admired by the Jansenists, and a letter in
even enclosure than I he willows of the brook; and thus a certain I bilious. Alter (he death of Si. Augustine, his
may they have been driven, when seeking to worship master and friend. Prosper resumed with increased ar-
the God of (heir fathers, into the woody margins of dor his struggle against the Semi -Pelagians and the Babylon's many rivers. Meeting in such places, as they defence of Augustine. Pur ibis purpose he wrote Re- had been accustomed to do in the oratories of their na- sponsiones ad capitula calumniantium >',. *. .1 ugvstimim) tiveland.it is not wonderful that many tender associa- Gallorum; Responsiones ad capiti/iu iilij<rti<iiiiim \'iu-
tions should be renewed."
After the return of the .lews from the Babylonian captivity, synagogue worship was much enlarged and improved, w hile oratories gradually diminished in num-
ii in. and Pro Augustino Responsiones ad /■>- cerpta qua dt Genuensi CivitaU sunt missa. In I.". I Prosper, with his friend Hilary, made a journey to Rome, where they saw pope Cele-tine I. and com-
ber ami importance. Hence, in later times, oratories plained that several priests at Marseilles taught erro-
were chiefly found in countries beyond the land of Is- neous doctrines without being rebuked by the Gallican
rael. Under the R an government synagogues were bishops, whereupon the pontiff addressed his well-known
discountenanced, but oratories, or places of meeting for letter of censure to those dignitaries I Epistola ad Epi-
devotional exercises, were generally permitted all over scopos Gallorum), praising highly the doctrine of St
the empire. Dr. Lardner thinks thai the synagogue. Augustine, and denouncing the heresy of Cassian, as
mentioned in Acts vi, 9 was really an oraton ; and Jo- well as those who -In mid either favor it by adoption or
Bephus -peaks of a very large one in i he city of ["iberias. But ii was chiefly in foreign parts that proseucha in later ti - wen- found. Josephus, in detailing the de- cree passed in favor of the Jews at Halicarnassua, says,
'•We have decreed that as many men and women of the .bw- a- an- willing bo in do ma\ celebrate I In ii
li\ suffering it- propagation. Armed with this author- ity, Prosper ami Hilan returned home, and from the numerous controversial tracts which they issued about ibis lime, ii appears that they must have been con- -lanily watchful ami active in defence of orthodoxy. Nothing very definite i- known of Prosper after his re-
Sabbaths and perform their holy offices according to turn from Rome with Hilary, except that we cue ter
i he .lew i-i, law-: ami may make their proseucha a i the controversial tract -of w hich he was the author. Among
sea-side, according to the custom of their forefathers." these arc h, Gratia /><i '/ Libero Irbitrio Liber, in
Gardner, Faiths of aU Vations, -. \ . See Riddle, reply to the doctrines of Cassian respecting free-will, as
Christum intiquities (see Index i; Stillingfleet, Works, laid down in the thirteenth of hi- Collationes Patrum,
vol. i: and the monographs cited by Yblbeding, Index whence the piece i- frequently entitled /'• <,,,iti,i /hi
Programmatum,ji.76. See Chapel; Oratory. adversus Collatorem, written about A.D. 182: Psolmo-
Prosper, St., Burnamed Aquitanus or Aquitanius, rum a Cusqut ad CL Erpositio, assigned by tin Bene-
PROSPERITY
665
PROSTITUTE
dictihe editors to A.D. 433, but placed by Schonemann and others before A.D. 424 : — Sententiurum ex Operibus S. Augustini dtlibatarum Liber units, compiled about A.D. 451. He is commemorated by the Church of Rome on June 25. The whole of the above will be. found in the Benedictine edition of the works of Augustine ; the epis- tle is numbered ccxxv, and is placed immediately before another upon the same subject by Hilary; the remain- ing tracts are all included in the appendix to vol. x. If we believe Gennadius (De Vir. Must. c. 84), Prosper was, after 440, called to Home by pope Leo I, and be- came the secretary of that pontiff. We have no posi- tive knowledge of the year of his death : it falls be- tween 455 and 4G3. There are other writings of Pros- per, among which we mention 106 small poems (epi- grammata), in which an equal number of moral and other passages of St. Augustine are poetically developed ; a universal history, which reaches to the year 455, and of which we find the best and most complete reproduc- tion and explanation in Led. Antiq. Basnag. Cams. vol. i, etc. The trearise De Vocatione Gentium belongs probably to those works which have been erroneously attributed to Prosper: it gives a milder color to the hard assertions of Augustine and Prosper. For a list and description of the character of these spurious writ- ings, see Smith, Did. of Gr. and Rom. Biog. and My- thol. s. v. The best edition of Prosper's works is the Benedictine by Lebrun de Marette and Mangeant (Par. 1711, fol.). For a record of the time when Prosper's different monographs first appeared in print, see also Smith's Dictionary. Full information with regard to the interminable controversies arising out of the works of Prosper is contained in the notes and dissertations of the Benedictines, in the dissertations of Quesnel and the Ballerini in their respective editions of the works of Leo the Great, and in a rare volume, De Viris Ope- ribus SS. Patrum Leonis Magni et Prosperi Aquitani Dissertationes criticee, etc. (Par. 1089, 4to), by Josephus Antelmius, to which Quesnel put forth a reply in the A////I an riilt .< I'aris'n n.« s. vol. viii and xv (August, 1639), and Aiitelmius a reply in two Kjiistolre ])nabus Epistolm P. Quesnelli Partibus Responsorim (Par. 1690, 4to). See Tillemont, Mem. vol. xvi ; Oudin, De Script. Eccl. ; Schrockh, Kirchengesch. vol. xv-xviii; Fleury, Hist. Bed.; Dbllinger, Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte ; Ha- genbach, Hist, of Doctrines (see Index) ; Neander, Ch. Hist, ii, (330 sq. ; Hist, of Dogmas, ii, 375 sq. ; Gieseler, Ch. Hist, i, 226 sq.; Schaff, Ch. Hist, iii, 859 sq.; Biihr, Die christl.-romische Theol. p. 366 sq. ; Wiggers, Aug. et Pelag. ii, 136 sq. (J. H. W.)