{"prosper-carmen-ingratis/1":{"o":"Unde voluntatis sanctæ subsistat orige, / Unde animis pietas insit, et unde fides: / Adversum ingratos falsa et virtute superbos, / Centenis decies versibus excolui. / Quos si tranquilla studeas cognoscere cura, / Tutus ab adverso turbine, lector, eris, / Nec libertate arbitrii rapiere rebellis, / Ulla nec audebis dona negare Dei. / Sed bona quae tibi suat, a operante fatebere Christo, / Non esse I. merite sumpta, sed ad meritum. / CONGENITÆ in Christo gentis mihi / castus ab alto / insinuatus amor, proprias excedere vires / Me jubet, atque pias accendere carmine mentes. / Ne post confecturo celebris victoria bellum, / Securos animos incauta pace resolvat: / Ceu metus eliso jam nullus ab hoste supersit, / Nec caput attriti virosum palpitet anguis. Unde igitur commenta mali sopita resurgant, / Quemve ipso de fine dotum nova promat origo, / Da fari, Pater omnipotens, artemque malignam / Pandere, prostratus qua rursum nititur error. DOGMA quod antiqui satiatum felle draconis, / Pestifero vomuit coluber sermone Britannus, / Hac primos homines eretos ditione ferebat; / Ut seu præscriptum mandatum transgrederentur, / Sive inculpati, servata lege, manerent, / Mortem istam prorsus, qua carnem vita relinquit, / Oppeterent; quæ non peccato parta, sed ipso / Instituente Deo, comes esset fixa creatis. / Progenitos igitur nullum traxisse reatum / De patribus, neque dissimiles nunc nascier illo","t":"[Preface]\nWhence the origin of a holy will arises,\nwhence piety is in souls, and whence faith:\nthis, against the ungrateful, proud of a false virtue,\nI have worked out in ten times a hundred verses.\nIf you take care to learn them with a quiet mind,\nyou will be safe, reader, from the hostile whirlwind;\nyou will not be swept away, a rebel, by freedom of choice,\nnor will you dare to deny any of God's gifts.\nBut you will confess that the good things that are yours, by Christ's working,\nare not taken up from merit, but toward merit.\n\n[The poem]\nLove for the race made kin in Christ, a chaste love\ninstilled from on high, bids me go beyond my own strength\nand kindle pious minds with song,\nlest, after a famous victory has finished the war,\nit relax secure spirits with a careless peace,\nas though, the enemy being crushed, no fear remained\nand the venomous head of the trampled snake no longer quivered.\nWhence, then, the lulled inventions of evil rise again,\nand what deceit a new origin brings forth from their very end,\ngrant me to tell, almighty Father, and to lay bare\nthe malicious art by which error, laid low, strives up again.\nThe dogma which, steeped in the gall of the ancient dragon,\nthe British serpent vomited out in pestilent speech,\nheld that the first humans were made on this condition:\nthat whether they transgressed the command laid down\nor remained blameless, keeping the law,\nthey would in any case meet this death by which life leaves the flesh;\nwhich was not born of sin, but by God's own\nordaining was fixed as the companion of what he created.\nTherefore, it said, their offspring drew no guilt\nfrom their fathers, and are not now born unlike that","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 1 (PL 51:93–95; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/1)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/121":{"o":"Cumque foris rabies avidorum exclusa luporum / Frenderet, inque omnes mendacia verteret artes: / Ne mentes ullarum ovium corrumpere posset, / Neu dubia obliquis turbaret corda querelis; / Istius ore viri fecit Deus; istius ore / Flumina librorum mundum effluxere per omnem, / Quae miles humilesque bibunt, campisque animorum / Certant vitalis doctrinae immittere rivos. JAMQUE procellosæ disjecto turbine noctis, / Heu! nova bella, novi partus oriuntur in ipso / Securae matris gremio: quae crescere natis / Visa sibi, discors horret consurgere germen, / Degeneres pavitans inimico ex semine foetus, / In quibus ante diu, specie fallente, benignus / Errarat genitricis amor, cum obducta decoris / Moribus, externæ stirpis tegeretur origo. / Sic VERIS subeunt falsa, et descrimine caeco, / Fronte placent, quae fine latent; sic laudis amore / Virtutum studium corrumpitur, atque ab honesto / Principio in vitium exitur plerumque tumoris: / Quo quidam inflantur nunc turpiter, atque perempti / Dogmatis exstinctas tentant animare favillas; / Dum libertatem arbitrii, affectumque volendi / In naturalis motus virtute locantes, / Tam bona quemque docent sectari posse suopte / Ingenio, quam posse subest cuique in mala / ferri. QUOD qui confirmas, quinam distabis ab illis, / Qui dicunt, nullo peccati vulnere læsum / Naturale bonum, cumque illo lumine nasci / Nunc omnes homines, quod primis ingeneralum est?","t":"And when the rage of the greedy wolves, shut out,\ngnashed outside, and turned its lies to every art,\nlest it should corrupt the minds of any sheep\nor disturb wavering hearts with crooked complaints,\nGod acted through this man's mouth; through this man's mouth\nrivers of books flowed out through all the world,\nwhich the meek and humble drink, and in the fields of souls\nthey strive to let in the streams of life-giving teaching.\nAnd now, when the whirlwind of the stormy night had been scattered,\nalas! new wars, new births arise in the very\nbosom of the secure mother: she, who seemed to herself\nto grow through her children, shudders to see a discordant shoot rise up,\ntrembling at degenerate offspring from enemy seed,\nin whom for a long time, by a deceiving appearance, the kindly\nlove of the mother had erred, while, covered by the beauty\nof their conduct, the origin of a foreign stock was hidden.\nSo do false things creep in beneath true ones, and by a blind confusion\nthey please at the front which lie hidden at the end; so by the love of praise\nthe zeal for virtues is corrupted, and from an honorable\nbeginning one often passes into the vice of swelling pride:\nby which some are now shamefully puffed up, and try\nto blow alive the extinguished sparks of a dogma that was destroyed,\nwhile, placing freedom of choice and the disposition to will\nin the strength of a natural motion,\nthey teach that each person can pursue good things by his own\nability, as much as it lies with each to be carried into evil.\nYou who affirm this, in what will you differ from those\nwho say that natural good was hurt by no wound of sin,\nand that all men are now born with that light\nwhich was inborn in the first?","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 121 (PL 51:103; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/121)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/151":{"o":"An vero excerpis quædam, quae parte recisa / Suscipias, cordisque sinu purgata recondas? / Dic igitur quidnam inde probes, quid vero refutes, / Et de damnatis quid sit quod crimine solvas. / An dextram pacis palam dare te pudet hosti? / Nec tutum est ulla pulsos ex parte tueri / Simpliciter? Quos non dubitas excludere templo, / Pelle animo. Nova te discordia dividit abs te: / Corde foves, quod in ore premis: conjungere. / amicis / Mentibus, et tecum cupidis componere foedus / Lege tua; jam parce tuis, et congrue pactis. ECCE pererratis terrarum finibus adsunt, / Implentesque tuas lacrymosis questubus aures / Incipiunt: Pulsi mundo, nullaque recepti / Sede vagi, tandem fama exhortante redimus, / Quaeque placent vobis amplectimur: edita nobis / Doctrinæ vestræ est pietas; nihil inficiando / Discutimus: liceat vobiscum jungere sensum. / Immortalem hominem factum si creditis, et nos / Credimus, inciderit mortem peccando, suamque / Progeniem culpa et letho devinxerit omnem: / Nullus non egeat sacro baptismate Christi, / Infantesque etiam purgentur fonte lavacri: / Dum nostri decus arbitrii, lumenque creatum / Principio, quod sponte potest insistere rectis, / Manserit illæsum, nec viribus absit ab illis, / Quas, condente Deo, generaliter omnis in Adam / I Suscepit natura hominis, nec suppetat ulli / I De non accepta arbitrii virtute querela: / Cum sine delectu seu Lex, seu Gratia Christi","t":"Or do you pick out certain things which, with part cut away,\nyou may accept and store, purged, in the bosom of your heart?\nTell us, then, what you approve from it and what you reject,\nand which of the condemned things you release from the charge.\nAre you ashamed to give the enemy the right hand of peace openly?\nAnd is it not safe to defend, in any part, those who were driven out,\nsimply? Those whom you do not hesitate to exclude from the temple,\ndrive from your mind. A new discord divides you from yourself:\nyou cherish in your heart what you hold down in your mouth. Join yourself to friendly\nminds, and with those who desire it make a treaty\non your own terms; spare your own now, and agree to the pacts.\nBehold, having wandered through the ends of the earth, they are here,\nand, filling your ears with tearful complaints,\nthey begin: \"Driven from the world, received in no\nplace, wanderers, at last, urged on by report, we return,\nand we embrace what pleases you: the piety of your teaching\nhas been set out to us; we dispute nothing by denying it.\nLet us join our view with yours.\nIf you believe that man was made immortal, we too\nbelieve it; that he fell into death by sinning, and bound\nall his offspring by guilt and death;\nthat there is no one who does not need the holy baptism of Christ,\nand that infants too are cleansed in the font of the washing:\nprovided only that the glory of our choice, and the light created\nin the beginning, which of its own accord can stand firm in right things,\nremain unhurt, and be not absent from those strengths\nwhich, by God's founding, all human nature received generally\nin Adam; and that no one have any\ncomplaint of a power of choice not received:\nsince, without distinction, whether the Law or the grace of Christ","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 151 (PL 51:105; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/151)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/181":{"o":"Omnem hominem salvare velit: donumque vocantis / Sic sit propositum, ut nullus non possit ad illud / Libertate sua, proprioque vigore venire: / Sitque salus dignis salvari ex fonte volendi. / Hæc si vestra fides, vestra est doctrina, remotis / Quae vestro exemplo rejecimus. addite sanctis / Nos gregibus, tandemque boni deffendite vestros. TALIA submissus si defleat hostis apud te, / Quid referes? quo te affectu comperta movebunt? / Consultas, trepidas, nutas, cunctaris et hæres, / Quove anceps se præcipitet sententia volvis. / Injustum est animis cognatis non dare pacem: / Et quos una fides, eadem sapientia nectit, / His communem aditum sanctorum ad sancta negare. / Jungere sed foedus cum talibus, et violare / Sanctorum decreta Patrum, regumque piorum / Scriptas lege Dei leges contemnere, multum / Hostile est, nimiumque audax et perniciosum. ERGO Petri solium Romam, et Carthaginis altae / Concilium repetant humiles, eademque perorent, / Quae frustra hic trepido sunt deplorata favori. / Sed cum mille senum prudentia pervigil (olim / Perspectum notumque tenens, quod tota nefandæ / Hæreseos summa exigua sub parte tegatur, / De qua plena mali labes renovetur et omne / Commenti corpus per singula membra resurgat); / Antiquas adhibentem artes rejecerit hostem, / Limitibusque suis steterit censura salubris: / Numquid non justus, poterit dolor abdita cordis / Rumpere, et in tales miseros excire querelas, / Ut dicant: Quænam ista, Patres, in cordibus almis / Justitia est? quo fine graves, quo fine severi,","t":"wills to save every man; and that the gift of the one who calls\nbe so set before us that there is no one who cannot come to it\nby his own freedom and his own strength;\nand that salvation belong to those worthy to be saved from the spring of their willing.\nIf this is your faith and your teaching, with the things removed\nwhich we have rejected after your example, add us to the holy\nflocks, and at last, good men, defend your own.\"\nIf the enemy, humbled, were to weep such things before you,\nwhat would you answer? With what feeling would they move you once learned?\nYou deliberate, you tremble, you waver, you delay and hesitate,\nand you turn over which way your doubtful opinion should throw itself.\nIt is unjust not to give peace to kindred minds,\nand to deny to those whom one faith and the same wisdom bind\nthe common access of the saints to holy things.\nBut to join a treaty with such men, and to violate\nthe decrees of the holy Fathers, and to despise the laws of pious kings,\nwritten by the law of God, is most\nhostile, and too bold and ruinous.\nLet them, then, humbly seek again Peter's throne at Rome and the council\nof lofty Carthage, and plead there the same things\nthat were lamented here in vain to a fearful favor.\nBut when the watchful prudence of a thousand elders (long since\nhaving perceived and holding it known that the whole sum of the wicked\nheresy may be hidden under a small part,\nfrom which the full stain of evil may be renewed and the whole\nbody of the invention rise again through its single members)\nhas rejected the enemy plying his old arts,\nand the healthful censure has stood within its bounds:\nwill not a just grief be able to break open the hidden places of the heart,\nand stir the wretches to such complaints\nthat they say: \"What justice is this, Fathers, in your kindly\nhearts? To what end, so harsh, to what end so severe,","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 181 (PL 51:107; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/181)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/211":{"o":"Claudere terrarum nobis persistitis orbem? / Nosne sumus toto mundo, quorum undique vobis / Sit suspecta fides, quos non tolerare queatis, / Si nostra a vestro vel syllaba dissonet ore? / Non verbis jam nos argumentisve tuemur; / Judicium exemplo petimus. Quod pace manente, / Libera multorum vox astruit, hoc sine bello / Cedatur nobis. Non nostra inventa fovemus, / Nec primis studii' insistimus: ecce recisum est / Unde olim certamen erat, vestrisque reversi / Cedimus, et quæcumque illis placuere, proponamus. / Quid superest culpæ? Quo nos decet usque repelli? / Si vero hæc etiam, quæ nos pia ducimus, absunt / A veris, et vestra illis bene cura repugnat; / Cur extra invidiam pænamque erroris habentur / Qui damnata docent, et per clara oppida tuti, / His magnos implent populos, quas nos perhibentes / Plectimur, et nulla sinimur consistere terra? / Hæc in pontificum sancto deprompta senatu, / Quam curam exigerent, et quae decreti moverent, / Perspicis. An quoniam culpa securus operta, / Non premeris synodo, nec te pœnæ metus urget, / Spernis propositi speciem terroris, et isthæc, / Plena velut vanis simulacris somnia rides? / Ergo gerendorum evenio, et fine remoto, / Hæc tantum in medium quae jam sunt gesta vocemus: / Ut fac ite et illis quale hoc sit discutiatur, / Quod disceptantes dudum in diversa movemur. / INTER multa suis quae.tradidit hæresiarches / (Quod cognoscis), ait, naturam quæ bona facta est,","t":"do you persist in closing the circle of the earth to us?\nAre we the only ones in the whole world whose faith is everywhere\nsuspect to you, whom you cannot tolerate\nif even a syllable of ours sounds different from your mouth?\nWe no longer defend ourselves by words or arguments;\nwe ask for judgment by precedent. What, while peace remains,\nthe free voice of many asserts, let that be granted to us\nwithout war. We do not cherish our own inventions,\nnor do we hold to our first pursuits: see, what was once\nthe point of conflict has been cut away; we have turned back\nand yield to yours, and whatever has pleased them we put forward.\nWhat guilt remains? How far must we be driven back?\nBut if these things too, which we count pious, are far\nfrom the truth, and your care rightly fights against them,\nwhy are those held free of ill-will and of the penalty of error\nwho teach condemned things and, safe through famous towns,\nfill great peoples with the very things for asserting which we\nare punished and allowed to stand in no land?\"\nYou see what care these things, brought before the holy senate of bishops,\nwould demand, and what decrees they would provoke.\nOr, because you are secure in your hidden fault,\nare not pressed by a synod, and no fear of punishment drives you,\ndo you scorn the spectre of the terror I have set out, and laugh at these things\nas dreams full of empty phantoms?\nThen let us set aside what is still to be done and its outcome,\nand bring into the open only what has already been done,\nso that it may easily be discussed, even with them, what this is\nover which we have long been moved in different directions in dispute.\nAmong the many things which the heresiarch handed down to his followers\n(as you know), he says that the nature which was made good","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 211 (PL 51:107; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/211)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/241":{"o":"Nullis cum vitiis in quoquam omnino creari, / Nec cuiquam primi culpam nocuisse parentis, / Et quoniam tales nascantur nunc quoque, qualis / Ile fuit nostri generis pater ante reatum: / Posse hominem sine peccato decurrere vitam, / Si velit, ut potuit nullo delinquere primus / Libertate sua. Nempe hæc damnata fateris / Conciliis, mundique manu. Connectit et illud / Idem auctor, quod lex ita sanctos miserit olim / Cœlorum in regnum, sicut nunc gratia mittit. / Hoc quoque judicio sancto scis esse peremptum. / Objectum est aliud ipsum dixisse magistrum: / Quod meritis hominum tribuatur gratia Christi, / Quantum quisque Dei donis se fecerit aptum. / Sed nimus adversum hoc fidei, nimiumque repugnans / Esse videns, dixit se non ita credere, et illos / Damnari dignos quorum mens ista teneret. / Quo cernis, cum judicibus damnantibus ista / Consensisse reum, nec quemquam hoc posse tueri, / Quæ tamen ipse suis rursum excoluisse libellis / Delegitur, reprobum in sensum fallendo reversus. NUNC igitur, quoniam quid nostris displicuisset / Ostensum est, quam sana fides sit vestra patescat. / Gratia qua Christi populus sumus, hoc cohibetur / Limite vobiscum, et formam hanc ascribitis illi, / Ut cunctos vocet illa quidem, invitetque; nec ullum / Præteriens, studeat communem afferre salutem / Omnibus, et totum peccato absolvere mundum. / Sed proprio quemque arbitrio parere vocanti, / Judicioque suo, mota se extendere mente","t":"is created in no one at all with any vices,\nand that the guilt of the first parent harmed no one;\nand that, since men are now born such as\nthe father of our race was before his guilt,\na man can run through life without sin\nif he wills, just as the first man could, by his freedom,\ncommit no offense. Indeed, you confess that these things were condemned\nby councils and by the hand of the world. The same author\nadds this as well: that the law once sent the saints\ninto the kingdom of heaven just as grace sends them now.\nThis too, you know, was destroyed by holy judgment.\nIt was objected that the master himself had said another thing:\nthat the grace of Christ is given according to men's merits,\nin proportion as each has made himself fit for God's gifts.\nBut seeing this to be too contrary to the faith and too\nrepugnant, he said he did not believe so, and that those\nwhose minds held it deserved to be condemned.\nBy this you see that the accused agreed with the judges\nwho condemned these things, and that no one can defend them;\nyet he himself is found to have cultivated them again in his books,\nreturning by deceit to a reprobate mind.\nNow, then, since it has been shown what displeased our side,\nlet it appear how sound your faith is.\nThe grace by which we are Christ's people is confined\nby you within this limit, and you ascribe to it this form:\nthat it calls all, indeed, and invites them, and, passing over\nnone, strives to bring a common salvation\nto all and to absolve the whole world from sin;\nbut that each one by his own choice obeys the one who calls,\nand by his own judgment, his mind moved, stretches himself","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 241 (PL 51:107; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/241)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/271":{"o":"Ad lucem oblatam, quæ so non subtrahat ulli, / Sed cupidos recti juvet, illustretque volentes. / HinC adjutoris Domini bonitate magistra, / Crescere virtutum studia, ut quod quisque petendum Mandatis didicit, jugi sectetur amore. / Esse autem edoctis istam communiter æquam / Libertatem animis, ut cursum explere beatum / Persistendo queant; finem effectumque petitum / Dante Deo, ingentis qui numquam desit honestis. / Sed quia non idem est cunctis vigor, et variarum / Illecebris rerum trahitur dispersa voluntas; / Sponte aliquos vitiis succumbere, qui potuissent / A lapsu revocare pedem, stabilesque manere. / JAM quia summatim, ut potuit, sententia vestra / Decursa est: Dic unde probes quod gratia Christi / Nullum omnino hominem de cunctis qui generantur / Prætereat, cui non regnum vitamque beatam / Impertire velit? Nec enim vel tempore nostro / Omnibus in terris jam certum est insinuatum / Christi evangelium: ne dicam exordia doni / NonujUijisse simul toto decurrere mundo. / Idemad cunctos ferri sunt jussa: sed uno / Tempore non agitur, quod tempore dicitur uno. / Dumque suis aditus Domino pandente ministris, / Crescunt primitiæ, fuerint omnino necesse est / Quasdam terrarum partes, ubi gratia nondum / Corda hominum tenebris absolverat impietatis, / Et dira innumeri demersi nocte peribant, / Cum multæ accepto fulgerent lumine mentes. eAN bonitas divina quidem non destitit omnes / Velle vocare homines, sed non simul apta fuerunt / Corda, quibus possent conferri dona salutis;","t":"toward the light offered, which withdraws itself from no one,\nbut helps those who desire the right and enlightens those who will.\nHence, with the goodness of the Lord as helper and teacher,\nthe zeal for virtues grows, so that what each has learned from the commandments\nmust be sought, he pursues with unbroken love.\nMoreover, you say that this freedom is common and equal\nto souls that have been taught, so that they can complete the blessed course\nby persevering, and the end they sought is accomplished\nby the gift of God, who never fails the upright.\nBut since not all have the same vigor, and the will,\nscattered, is drawn by the allurements of various things,\nsome of their own accord succumb to vices, who could have\ncalled back their foot from the fall and stood firm.\nNow, since your view has been run through in summary, as well as could be,\ntell me how you prove that the grace of Christ\npasses over no man at all of all who are born,\nto whom it would not wish to impart the kingdom and the blessed life.\nFor not even in our own time has the gospel of Christ\nbeen surely made known in all lands, not to say\nthat the beginnings of the gift did not run through the whole world at once.\nThe commands were given to carry it to all alike; but\nwhat is said at one time is not done at one time.\nAnd while, as the Lord opens the way for his ministers,\nthe firstfruits grow, there must surely have been\nsome parts of the earth where grace had not yet\nfreed men's hearts from the darkness of impiety,\nand countless men perished, sunk in dread night,\nwhile many minds shone with the light they had received.\nOr did the divine goodness indeed not cease to will\nto call all men, but the hearts were not at once fit\nto which the gifts of salvation could be given,","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 271 (PL 51:111; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/271)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/301":{"o":"Dum morum obsistit feritas truculenta magistris, / Difficilesque aditu transcurrit gratia gentes: / Ut quoniam lucem offerri voluisset, et ipsis / Demonstrare Deus; sua quemque adversa voluntas, / Arguat, et culpa obstringat, quia lumine primo / Per vitia oppresso, sit facta indigna secundo? / Quod si firmatur, nequidquam plectimus illos, / Qui nullum innatum vitium nascentibus aiunt, / Incolumique omnes cum libertate creari: / Gratia quos Christi meritorum examine justo / Eligat, et dignos vita vocet, accipiatque. / Namque utrumque simul sapitis, qui dicitis, Omnes / Omnibus oblatum potuisse apprendere munus, / Naturae quoniam non sit detracta facultas, / Nec sine justitia pereant qui mentis honorem / Sordibus obruerint vitiorum, ut lumen ab alto / Emissum indigna nollet requiescere sede. / Sic. quod nascendo est unum, distare volendo; / Ut meritum ad paucos, naturaque spectet ad / omnes. SED tamen haec aliqua si vis ratione tueri, / Et credi tam stulta cupis, jam pande quid hoc sit, / Quod bonus omnipotensque Deus, non omnia subdit / Corda sibi, pariterque omnes jubet esse fideles? / Nam si nemo usquam est quem non velit esse redemptum: / Haud dubie impletur quidquid vult summa potestas. / Non omnes autem salvantur, magnaque pars est / Quæ sedet in tenebris mortis, nec vivificatur. / An varii motus animorum talia gignunt, / Libertasque facit causam non omnibus unam? / Ergo hominis valida arbitrio divina voluntas,","t":"while the savage wildness of their ways resists the teachers,\nand grace runs past nations hard to approach:\nso that, since God had wished to offer the light to them too\nand to show it, each one's own hostile will\naccuses him and binds him with guilt, because, the first light\nhaving been crushed by his vices, he has been made unworthy of the second?\nBut if this is affirmed, in vain do we punish those\nwho say that no vice is inborn in those who are born,\nand that all are created with their freedom unharmed;\nwhom the grace of Christ, by a just weighing of merits,\nchooses, calls as worthy to life, and receives.\nFor you hold both views at once when you say that all\ncould have grasped the gift offered to all,\nsince the faculty of nature has not been taken away,\nand that those do not perish without justice who have buried\nthe honor of the mind in the filth of vices, so that the light sent\nfrom on high would not rest in an unworthy seat.\nSo what is one in being born, you say, differs in willing,\nso that merit regards the few, and nature regards\nall. But if you wish to defend these things by any reasoning,\nand want such foolish things to be believed, explain now what this is:\nthat the good and almighty God does not subject all\nhearts to himself and command all alike to be faithful?\nFor if there is no one anywhere whom he does not will to be redeemed,\nwithout doubt whatever the highest power wills is fulfilled.\nBut not all are saved, and a great part\nsits in the darkness of death and is not made alive.\nOr do the varied motions of souls produce such things,\nand freedom makes the cause not one for all?\nThen the divine will is strong by man's choice,","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 301 (PL 51:113; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/301)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/31":{"o":"Ortu primorum, qui libertate male usi / Peccarunt, forma nocui, non semine proli. / Posse autem insontes omnes virtutis in arce / Vitam agere, et menti ingenitum servare decorem: / Arbitrio quoniam subsistat recta volentis. / Naturalis bonos, Lexque insita cordibus intus / Hoc moneat, quod scripta foris: cui gratia Christi / Addita perfugium lapsis generaliter in se / Condiderit, sacro si vellent fonte novari: / Ut sponte attractum venia solvente reatum, / Sponte sua in vires proprias natura rediret; / Quoque per errores esset spoliata vigore, / Hunc servare semel posset purgata receptum. / Tam dives vero hoc donum baptismatis esse, / Et tam multa homini conferri fœdere in isto, / Ut parvis etiam, vitioque carentibus omni / Congruat, ut qui sunt geniti bene, sint meliores, / Naturaeque bonum adjecto illustretur honore. / Nullum autem ex cunctis exsortem muneris hujus, / Judicio genitum esse Dei; sed quemque mereri / Libertate sua, ut capiat promissa vocantis, / Quae sint aversis indebita, debita rectis. TALIA cum demens late diffunderet error, / Commentisque rudes traheret lethalibus aures, / Affuit; exhortante Deo, provisa per orbem / Sanctorum pia cura Patrum, non dispare motu / Conficiens diros jaculis coelestibus hostes. / Iisdem namque simul decretis Spiritus unus / Intonuit. Pestem subeuntem prima recidit / Sedes ROMA Petri; quæ pastoralis honoris / Facta caput mundo, quidquid non possidet armis,","t":"origin of the first parents, who, using their freedom badly,\nsinned, harming their offspring by example, not by seed.\nAll, it said, can live innocent in the citadel of virtue\nand keep the inborn beauty of the mind,\nsince uprightness rests in the choice of the one who wills.\nNatural good, and a law set within hearts,\nteach this inwardly, as the written law does outwardly; and the grace of Christ,\nadded to these, established in itself a refuge for the fallen generally,\nif they were willing to be renewed in the holy font:\nso that, once pardon had loosed the guilt contracted by free will,\nnature might of its own accord return to its own strength,\nand the vigor of which it had been stripped by errors\nit could, once cleansed, keep after receiving it once.\nSo rich, they say, is this gift of baptism,\nand so much is conferred on man in this covenant,\nthat it suits even little ones, who lack all fault,\nso that those who are well born may be better,\nand the good of nature be made glorious by added honor.\nNone of all men, they say, was born by God's judgment\nshut out from this gift; but each one merits\nby his own freedom to take hold of the promises of the one who calls,\nwhich are not owed to those who turn away, but owed to the upright.\nWhen mad error was spreading such things far and wide,\nand drawing untaught ears with deadly inventions,\nthere came, at God's urging, the pious care of the holy Fathers,\nprovided throughout the world, moving as one,\ndestroying the fierce enemies with heavenly darts.\nFor with the same decrees the one Spirit\nthundered. The plague as it crept in was first cut down\nby Rome, the see of Peter, which, made the head of the world\nfor pastoral honor, whatever it does not possess by arms","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 31 (PL 51:97; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/31)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/331":{"o":"Aut etiam invalida est, operis cui finis in illo est. / Quem frustra juvisse vel ii, nisi præferat ille / Affectum cujus comitetur gratia cursum. eAT si, dimota certandi nube, serenis / Quæ sunt vera oculis mecum intueare modeste, / Et vetera exemplis manifestis plena videbis / Sæcula, et in nostro cognosces tempore multa / Quae doceant virtute Dei conversa illorum / Corda, quibus recti nihil umquam insederat, et quæ / Nullum justitiae signum sensumve gerebant. / Namque ut nunc saevas gentes et barbara regna, / Igno prius aut spreti nova gratia Christi / Attrahit, et terra templum sibi condit in omni: / Sic prius immites populos urbesque rebelles, / Vincente obstantes animos pietate, subegit. / Non hoc consilio tantum hortatuque benigno / Suadens atque docens, quasi normam Legis haberet / Gratia; sed mutans intus mentem, atque reformans, / Vasque novum ei fracto fingens, virtute creandi. / Non istud monitus Legis, non verba prophetæ, / Non præstata sibi præstat natura; sed unus / Quod fecit, reficit. Percurrat Apostolus orbem; / Prædicet, hortetur, plantet, riget, increpet, instet, / Quaque viam verbo reseratam invenerit, intret: / Ut tamen his studiis auditor promoveatur, / Non doctor, neque discipulus, sed gratia sola / Efficit, inque graves addit plantaria fructus. / Hæc semen fidei radicem affigere menti. / Eque sinu cordis validum jubet edere germen. / Hæc maturandam segetem servatque fovetque; / Ne lolium et tribuli, et vanæ dominentur avenæ:","t":"or even weak, if the completion of its work lies in man,\nwhom it would have wished in vain to help unless he showed beforehand\nthe disposition whose course grace accompanies.\nBut if, the cloud of contention removed, you look modestly with me\nwith serene eyes on what is true, you will see the ancient\nages full of plain examples, and in our own time you will recognize many things\nthat teach that by God's power the hearts of those were converted\nin whom nothing upright had ever lodged, and which\nbore no sign or sense of justice.\nFor as now the new grace of Christ draws savage nations\nand barbarian kingdoms, formerly ignorant or scornful of it,\nand founds a temple for itself in every land,\nso before it subdued untamed peoples and rebellious cities,\npiety conquering the minds that resisted.\nIt did this not only by counsel and kind exhortation,\npersuading and teaching, as though grace had the pattern of the Law;\nbut by changing the mind within and reforming it,\nand fashioning a new vessel from the broken one by the power of creating.\nNot the warnings of the Law, not the words of the prophet,\nnot nature supplies this, for it cannot supply what was given to it; but the One\nwho made, remakes. Let the Apostle run through the world;\nlet him preach, exhort, plant, water, rebuke, insist,\nand enter wherever he finds the way opened for the word:\nyet that the hearer may be advanced by these efforts,\nit is not the teacher, nor the disciple, but grace alone\nthat effects it, and adds heavy fruit to the plantings.\nGrace bids the seed of faith fix its root in the mind,\nand from the bosom of the heart put forth a strong shoot.\nGrace guards and fosters the crop as it ripens,\nlest darnel and thistles and empty wild oats prevail;","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 331 (PL 51:113; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/331)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/361":{"o":"Ne ventus frangat. torrens trahat, æstus adurat: / Neu cum se nimium læta et præfortis in altum / Extulerit, turpi procumbat strata ruina. ET nos ista, inquis, sentimus de bonitate / Ac virtute Dei: quae ni foveatque regatque / Quos vocat, et tutos peccato præstet ab omni; / Non sua servabit quemquam prudentia, nec se / Perficiet solis naturæ viribus ullis. / Sed quia jam in nobis et velle et nolle creatum est, / Arbitriique sui quo vult intendere motus / Libertas accita potest, patuitque per aurem / Judicio cordis, quo mundum proposuisset / Consilio servare Deus: mens excita longum / Excutiat somnum; seque illi subdat et aptet, / Qui cupidam ei fidam promissa in gaudia ducat. / Illic est nobiscum quod te sentire ferebas? / Hæc sincera fides? Hæc Christi gratia tecum est? / Cujus opus, fixo distinctum limite, totum / Extra hominem statuis clausa penitus fore mentis: / Vixque Deum sensus carnis permittis adire, / Per quos sumpta foris animus dijudicet itus, / Seque ferat quoquo librata examina pondus / Presserit arbitrii: veluti cum voce loquentis, / Aut rerum actarum specie, quas vidimus, aut quas / Legimus, exoritur secreta cordis in aula, / Nunc amor, aut odium, nunc spes, metus, ira, dolorque: / Nec tamen hos motus scriptor, narrator, et auctor / Insevere animo ( quamvis forte hæc quoque vellent); / Sed de perceptis mens judex sponte movetur, / Et pro more suo, quantum se exercuit istis, / Transit in affectum quem confirmaverit et se,","t":"lest the wind break it, the torrent sweep it away, the heat scorch it;\nor lest, when it has lifted itself too joyful and over-strong on high,\nit fall, laid low in shameful ruin.\n\"We too,\" you say, \"hold these things of the goodness\nand power of God: that unless it fosters and rules\nthose it calls, and keeps them safe from every sin,\nno one's own prudence will preserve him, nor will he\naccomplish anything by the strength of nature alone.\nBut since willing and not willing have already been created in us,\nand the freedom of one's own choice, once summoned, can direct\nits motion where it wills, and it has been made known through the ear\nto the judgment of the heart by what counsel God had purposed\nto save the world, let the mind, aroused, shake off its long\nsleep, and submit and fit itself to him\nwho leads the eager and faithful into the promised joys.\"\nIs this where you stand with us, as you claimed to think?\nIs this sincere faith? Is this the grace of Christ you hold?\nIts work you mark off by a fixed boundary and set wholly\noutside man, shut out entirely from the door of the mind;\nyou scarcely allow God to reach the senses of the flesh,\nby which the mind judges what it takes in from outside\nand moves itself wherever the balanced scales of choice\nhave pressed down the weight: as when, from the voice of a speaker,\nor from the sight of things done which we have seen, or which\nwe have read, there arises in the secret hall of the heart\nnow love or hatred, now hope, fear, anger, and grief;\nand yet the writer, the narrator, and the author\ndid not plant these motions in the mind (though perhaps they wished to);\nbut the mind, as judge, is moved of its own accord by what it has perceived,\nand, after its own manner, as far as it exercises itself on these things,\npasses into the disposition it has confirmed for itself,","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 361 (PL 51:115; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/361)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/391":{"o":"Illa volendo sequens, istis nolendo resistens. / At vero Omnipotens hominem cum gratia salvat, / Ipsa suum consummat opus; cui tempus agendi / Semper adest quæ gesta velit: non moribus illi / Fit mora, non causis anceps suspenditur ullis. / Nec quod sola potest, cura officioque ministri / Exsequitur, famulisve vicem committit agendi. / Qui quamvis multa admoveant mandata vocantis; / Pulsant. non intrant animas. Deus ergo sepultos / Suscitat, et solvit peccati compede vinctos. / Ille obscuratis dat cordibus intellectum; / Ille ex injustis justos facit, indit amorem / Quo redametur amans, et amor quem conserit ipse est. / Hunc itaque affectum, quo sumunt mortui vitam, / Quo tenebræ fiunt lumen, quo immunda nitescunt, / Quo stulti sapere incipiunt, ægrique valescunt, / Nemo alii dat, nemo sibi, non littera Legis, / Nec naturalis sapientia, quæ semel acta / In præceps, labi novit, consurgere nescit, / Et licet eximias studeat pollere per artes, / Ingeniumque bonum generosis moribus ornet; / Cæca tamen finem ad mortis per devia currit, / Nec vitæ æternæ veros acquirere fructus / De falsa virtute potest, vanamque decoris / Occidui speciem, mortali perdit in ævo. / Omne etenim probitatis opus, nisi semine veræ / Exoritur fidei, peccatum est, inque reatum / Vertitur, et sterilis cumulat sibi gloria pænam. USQUE adeo donum est quod credimus, et data gratis / Gratia, non merita ditat mercede vocatos: / Nec justorum operum discernit facta; sed omnes","t":"following those things by willing, resisting these by not willing.\nBut when the Almighty saves a man by grace,\ngrace itself completes its own work; the time of acting\nis always at hand for what it wills to do: no delay comes to it\nfrom a man's ways, it is not held in suspense, uncertain, by any causes.\nNor does it carry out by the care and service of a minister\nwhat it alone can do, or hand the task of acting to servants.\nThey, though they bring many commands of the one who calls,\nknock, but do not enter souls. God, then, raises\nthe buried, and frees those bound in the fetter of sin.\nHe gives understanding to darkened hearts;\nhe makes the unjust just; he puts in the love\nby which the lover is loved in return, and the love he sows is himself.\nThis disposition, then, by which the dead take life,\nby which darkness becomes light, by which the unclean shine,\nby which fools begin to be wise and the sick grow well,\nno one gives to another, no one to himself; not the letter of the Law,\nnor natural wisdom, which, once driven headlong,\nknows how to slip but not how to rise again;\nand though it strives to be strong through outstanding arts,\nand adorns a good mind with noble conduct,\nyet, blind, it runs through trackless ways to the end of death,\nand cannot gain the true fruits of eternal life\nfrom a false virtue, and it loses the empty show of a beauty\nthat sets, in a mortal age.\nFor every work of goodness, unless it springs from the seed of true\nfaith, is sin, and is turned into guilt,\nand a barren glory heaps up punishment for itself.\nSo truly is what we believe a gift, and grace given freely\ndoes not enrich those it calls with a reward for merits;\nnor does it judge between the deeds of just works; but all","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 391 (PL 51:117; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/391)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/421":{"o":"Sola ex immundis mundos fluit, utque legentem / Lectus amet, non hoc studio, sed munere sumit. / Nam si spectatrix meritorum est gratia, et illis / Se tribuit, quorum est animus purgatior, et quos / Per libertatem arbitrii sibi repperit aptos, / Insontes tantum, justosque assumere solos / Debuit, et veri cupidos ac recta volentes. / Perversos autem, et scelerum assuetudine turpes / Deturbare procul, lucemque negare tenebris. / Atqui Salvator mundi non præmia justis / Solvere, nec sanis venit conferre medelam / Sed quod dispersum exciderat, fractum atque jacebat, / Quærere; et inventum reparare, addere curæ. DENIQUE ne quisquam ex morum splendore putetur / Censeri, aut fidei merito ad bona summa vocari, / Ceu non divino sit munere mentibus ipsa / Inspirata fides; recole innumerabile vulgus / Retro senum et juvenum, qui cæca turpiter usi / Libertate animi, per cultus dæmoniorum, / Per magicas artes, per amorem rapta tenendi, / Per stupra, per cædes vitam duxere nefandam: / Et tamen incumbente obitu, jam limite in ipso / Extremi flatus, miserantem nocte remota / Cognovere Deum; purgatorisque lavacri / Munere, nulla mali linquentis signa prioris, / Exempti mundo mutarunt tartara solio. / Quæ merita hic numeras? Si praecedentia cernas, / Impia; si quæris post addito, nulla fuerunt. / Si vero merito ascribis, voluisse renasci: / Nempe utero fidei parta est tam recta voluntas. / Porro fidem quis dat, nisi gratia? sic bene velle","t":"it alone makes clean out of unclean; and that the one chosen may love\nthe one who chose him, he receives this not by effort but by gift.\nFor if grace were a spectator of merits, and gave itself\nto those whose mind is purer, and whom\nit found fit for itself through freedom of choice,\nit ought to have taken up only the innocent and only the just,\nthose eager for the truth and willing what is right;\nand the perverse and those foul from the habit of crimes\nit ought to have driven far off, and denied light to darkness.\nBut the Savior of the world came not to pay rewards to the just,\nnor to bring healing to the healthy,\nbut to seek what had fallen away, scattered, broken, and lying,\nand to restore what was found and give it into care.\nFinally, lest anyone be thought to be rated by the splendor\nof his conduct, or called to the highest goods by the merit of faith,\nas if faith itself were not breathed into minds\nby divine gift: recall the countless throng\nof old and young in times past, who, using shamefully\nthe blind freedom of the mind, through the worship of demons,\nthrough magic arts, through love of keeping what was stolen,\nthrough sexual immorality, through murders, led a wicked life;\nand yet, when death was upon them, at the very edge\nof the last breath, their night removed, they came to know\nGod in his mercy; and by the gift of the cleansing washing,\nwith no signs left of their former evil,\ntaken from the world, they exchanged Tartarus for a throne.\nWhat merits do you count here? If you look at those that went before,\nthey were impious; if you seek those added afterward, there were none.\nIf you ascribe it to merit that they willed to be reborn,\nsurely so right a will was brought forth from the womb of faith.\nAnd who gives faith, if not grace? So it is that willing well","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 421 (PL 51:117; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/421)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/451":{"o":"Gratia dat tribuendo fidem quæ credita scat, / Quæque voluntatis meritum creet, ipsaque solo / Nascatur spirante Deo, mentemque reformans, / De cinere algenti sopitum suscitet ignem. / Ergo voluntatis genitrix, operumque creatrix / Non est ex merito; quoniam quod non fit ab illa, / Non bene fit: QUEM non recto via limite ducit; / Quanto plus graditur, tanto longinquius errat. / Sive igitur meritum, credens exsistere posse / Ante fidem, donas virtutibus impietatis; / Sive illam vis esse tuam, non munere dantis / Sumptam, sed genitam de libertate volendi; / Nullum habet in vobis salvatrix gratia sedem, / Inflato exclusa arbitrio, quod fronte superba / Erigitis, spatio ut gravius majore ruatis. DIVINORUM operum quod ponitis in redimendis / Principium? Mandata Dei facere ante lavacrum, / Nosse et amare Deum, promissis credere Christi, / Quaerere, pulsare, et petere, proprium omnibus esse / Asseritis, qui se studeant aptare vocanti. / Anne ab aquis divina manus renovare receptos / Incipit, et vitae causa est sua cuique voluntas; / Ut merces operum sit gratia judiciumque / De pretio, quo quod donum perhibetur ematur! / An vero auxilium verbo Deus inchoat, et se / Voce ministrorum mundo declarat in omni: / Ut pulsante aures sermone illecta voluntas, / Judicio præcurrat opem, nec gratia jam sit / Gratia; quae legis fungens vice, jure monentis / Solum agat, atque agro cum plantatore ministret,","t":"grace gives, by granting faith, which, once believed, heals,\nwhich creates the merit of the will, and is itself born\nby the breath of God alone, and, reforming the mind,\nrouses the sleeping fire from the cold ash.\nTherefore the mother of the will and the creator of works\nis not from merit; since what is not done by it\nis not done well. Whom the way does not lead along a straight line,\nthe further he walks, the further he strays.\nWhether, then, believing that merit can exist\nbefore faith, you give it to the virtues of impiety;\nor you wish faith to be your own, not received by the gift of the giver\nbut born of the freedom of willing:\nsaving grace has no seat among you,\nshut out by a puffed-up choice, which with proud brow\nyou raise up, only to fall the more heavily from a greater height.\nWhat beginning do you set for the divine works in those\nto be redeemed? To do God's commands before the washing,\nto know and love God, to believe the promises of Christ,\nto seek, to knock, and to ask, you assert, is the proper act of all\nwho strive to make themselves fit for the one who calls.\nDoes the divine hand only begin to renew those received\nfrom the waters, and is each one's own will the cause of his life,\nso that grace is the wage of works, and a judgment\nof price, by which what is called a gift is bought?\nOr does God begin his help with the word, and declare himself\nby the voice of his ministers in all the world,\nso that the will, enticed by speech knocking at the ears,\nruns ahead of his help by its own judgment, and grace is no longer\ngrace; which, doing the office of the law, acts only by the right\nof one who warns, and serves the field along with the planter,","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 451 (PL 51:119; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/451)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/481":{"o":"Terraque seminibus det, non Deus, incrementum; / Ubere ceu gleba subsistat, et arte colentis / Exoritura seges; neque quidquam cordis in arvo / Præsulcet divina manus, quo temperet æquor / Edomitum, faciatque satis gaudere novales? Talibus assumptis inimico ex dogmate, nonne / Perspicuum est quantum damnatos confoveatis? / Dum cuique, ad verae capienda exordia vitæ, / Naturam affectum fidei conferre docetis; / Dumque aliud non est vobiscum gratia quam Lex, / Quamque propheta monens, et quam doctrina ministri. / Scilicet ut tale arbitrium generaliter insit / Semine damnato genitis in corpore mortis, / Quale habuit nondum peccati lege subactus / Primus homo; et nullum in prolem de vulnere vulnus / Transierit, nisi corpoream per conditionem: / Quæ sic exterius respondeat, ut nihil intus / Imminuat, teneatque suum substantia mentis / Splendorem; et nulla pœnali nocte prematur. ADDITE quod superest tumidi, ruituraque valli Congerite, et causis causas aptate sequentes. / Et quia nil primae periit virtutis apud vos, / Dicite ab illæsis animis procedere veram / Justitiam, Deo dignam, cœloque locandam: / Ut frustra Christus sit mortuus. Edite multos / Arte et sponte sua sanctos ab origine mundi, / Absque Deo placuisse Deo: decretaque Legis / Tunc data, cum pejor mos et corruptior ætas / Terrore instanti et formidine mortis egeret. / Dicite plecentes apices, mortisque ministros / Huc explesse operis quod gratia vivificatrix.","t":"and the earth gives the increase to the seeds, not God;\nas if the clod stood by its own fertility, and by the skill of the tiller\nthe crop were to spring up; and the divine hand did not\nfirst furrow anything in the field of the heart, to work the tamed\nplain and make the fallow land rejoice in what is sown?\nWith such things taken over from the hostile dogma, is it not\nplain how much you cherish those who were condemned?\nYou teach that, for taking up the beginnings of true life,\nnature confers on each the disposition of faith;\nand with you grace is nothing other than the Law,\nthan the prophet's warning, than the minister's teaching.\nThat is to say, that the same choice is present in general\nin those born of condemned seed in the body of death\nas the first man had when not yet subdued by the law\nof sin; and that no wound passed from his wound to his offspring\nexcept through the bodily condition,\nwhich answers to it outwardly in such a way that within it lessens\nnothing, and the substance of the mind keeps its own\nsplendor and is pressed by no penal night.\nAdd what remains of your swollen rampart, soon to fall;\nheap it up, and fit consequent causes to causes.\nAnd since nothing of the first virtue has perished among you,\nsay that true righteousness proceeds from unharmed souls,\nworthy of God and to be set in heaven:\nso that Christ died in vain. Put forward many saints\nfrom the origin of the world who by skill and of their own accord\npleased God without God; and that the decrees of the Law\nwere given at a time when worse ways and a more corrupt age\nneeded the terror of threats and the fear of death.\nSay that the punishing letters and the ministers of death\nfulfilled here the work that life-giving grace","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 481 (PL 51:121; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/481)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/511":{"o":"Nunc agite, et quoniam fuerit sine lege voluntas / Libera, quam scripti munibat pagina cordis; / Sic vitam æternam acquiri potuisse, vacante / Hac ope quæ legem supereminet, ut sine lege / Ex naturali ponit virtute capessi: / Nunc autem sæclis vergentibus in mala multa, / Crevisse auxilium; non quo cessante, salutem / Non caperet per difficiles natura labores; / Sed quo conatus operum affectusque juvante, / Propositam citius ferret mens libera palmam. / Dicite, cum infantes renovantur, non renovari / Insontes animas, et sola carne renasci / Exterius lotos, non exsistentibus illis / Internis maculis: quoniam licet edere rectæ / Signa voluntatis nequeant, tamen hoc magis omni / Sorde vacent, super auctoris quod conditionem / De proprio nihil addiderint quod fons aboleret. HÆC si non vestris spirant de cordibus, et vos / Non cum damnatis eadem ratis extulit alto / Mergendos pelago, submittite vela tumoris, / Nobiscumque humiles placido consistite portu. / Edite constanter naturæ vulnera victæ, / Exutam virtute animam, cæcataque cordis Lumina, et in pœnam propriam jaculis superatis / Armatum arbitrium, numquam consurgere posse, / Inque novos lapsus semper nitendo revolvi: / Cui sua sit laqueus sapientia, morsque subactum / Detineat, nisi vera salus ex munere Christi / Adsit, et oppressam dignetur gratia mentem. AN vestrum sublimem animum pudet ista fateri, / Ne sub tam multis morbis sit vilior æger? / Cum nihil ex omni maorum dote supersit / Quo medici mereatur opem, et mercede valescat.","t":"now performs; and that, since the will was free\nwithout the law, fortified by the page written on the heart,\neternal life could thus have been gained, without\nthis help that rises above the law, just as you claim that without the law\nit is grasped by natural virtue;\nbut that now, as the ages sank into many evils,\nthe help has increased: not as though, without it,\nnature could not take hold of salvation through hard labors,\nbut so that, with it aiding the efforts and dispositions for works,\nthe free mind might carry off the prize set before it more quickly.\nSay that when infants are renewed, innocent souls\nare not renewed, and that they are reborn in the flesh only,\nwashed outwardly, there being no inner\nstains in them: since, though they cannot show signs\nof a right will, yet they are the more free of all\nfilth in that, beyond the condition given by their maker,\nthey have added nothing of their own for the font to abolish.\nIf these things do not breathe from your hearts, and the same ship\nhas not carried you out to the deep with the condemned,\nto be sunk in the sea, lower the sails of your pride,\nand stand humbly with us in the calm harbor.\nDeclare steadfastly the wounds of conquered nature,\nthe soul stripped of virtue, the blinded eyes of the heart,\nand the choice armed for its own punishment with the very darts that overcame it,\nso that it can never rise,\nand by its striving is always rolled back into new falls;\nfor which its own wisdom is a snare, and death holds it\nsubdued, unless true salvation from the gift of Christ\nis present, and grace counts the crushed mind worthy.\nOr is your lofty spirit ashamed to confess these things,\nlest the sick man be held cheaper under so many diseases,\nsince nothing at all of his dowry of virtues is left\nby which he might merit the physician's help and get well for a fee?","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 511 (PL 51:123; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/511)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/541":{"o":"Ergo in castra gradum revocate hostilia, et illis / Addite vos, quorum ingenio et fallacibus armis / Luditis ejusdem vibrantes spicula linguæ. / Exsultate bonis naturæ, et mentis honorem; / Omnibus a sæculis illæsum stare docete. / Ne vos in totum retegatis dogmate nudo, / Corporeo tantum decurrere tramite pœnam / Peccati perhibete, animi nihil imminuentem. / Vulnere transfixos absolvite crimine, et ipsam / Justitiam accusate Dei, transire sinentis / Supplicium, quo non vultis transire reatum. / SED non injustus Deus est: manifestaque Pauli / Vox docet, uno omnes homines cecidisse ruente; / In quo tota simul series prostrata populorum / Deperiit, nec habet quisquam quo surgere possit / Ad vitam, sacro nisi rursum nascitur ortu- / Quotquot enim summo justos numeratis ab ævo, / Hac ope non dubium est salvatos, quam modo toto / Latius Omnipotens exercet gratia mundo, HÆC, sicut dictum est, non judex est meritorum, / Quæ nisi plena malis non invenit: et nisi donet / Quæ bona sunt, nihil efficiet bene cæca voluntas. / Hæc ut cujusquam studio affectuque petatur, / Ipsa agit, et cunctis dux est venientibus ad se: / Perque ipsam nisi curratur, non itur ad ipsam. / Ergo ad iter per iter ferimur: sine lumine lumen / Nemo videt: vitam sine vita inquirere mors est. / Currere currentum si non, et velle volentum est: Nec vitiis pœnam deberi, aut præmia laudi, / Si vel naturam obstrictam mala velle necesse est, / Vel nostro ascribi nequeunt bene gesta labori. / NUMQUID non eadem sapiunt, eademque perorant","t":"Then take your step back into the enemy's camp, and join\nthose with whose wit and deceitful arms\nyou play, brandishing the darts of the same tongue.\nExult in the goods of nature, and teach that the honor\nof the mind has stood unharmed through all the ages.\nAnd, so as not to uncover yourselves wholly with the naked dogma,\ndeclare that the punishment of sin runs only along\na bodily path, diminishing nothing of the soul.\nAcquit of guilt those pierced through by the wound, and accuse\nthe very justice of God, who lets the punishment pass on\nwhere you will not let the guilt pass on.\nBut God is not unjust; and the plain voice\nof Paul teaches that all men fell when the one fell;\nin whom the whole line of peoples, laid low together,\nperished, and no one has the means to rise\nto life unless he is born again by a holy birth.\nFor as many as you count righteous from the earliest age,\nthere is no doubt they were saved by this help which now\nthe almighty grace exercises more widely in the whole world.\nThis grace, as has been said, is not a judge of merits,\nwhich it finds only full of evils; and unless it gives\nwhat is good, the blind will will do nothing well.\nThat it may be sought by anyone's zeal and longing,\ngrace itself acts, and it is the guide of all who come to it;\nand unless one runs through it, one does not come to it.\nSo we are carried to the way by the way: without light\nno one sees the light: to seek life without life is death.\n\"If running is not of those who run, nor willing of those who will,\" you say,\n\"then neither is punishment owed to vices nor reward to praise,\nif either nature is bound and must will evil,\nor good deeds cannot be ascribed to our labor.\"\nDo not those masters of yours think the same things and plead the same,","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 541 (PL 51:123; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/541)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/571":{"o":"Vestri illi, quorum ructatis verba, magistri? / Sed quia consimili cognata superbia questu / Prompsit, et vobis nunc respondetur et illis. Inviolata Dei quondam et sublimis imago / In primo cuncti fuimus patre, dum nemore almo / Degit, et edicto parens cavet arbore ab una. / At postquam rupta mandati lege, superbum / Consilium mixtum invidiæ de fonte recepit, / Corruit, et cuncti simul in genitore cadente / Corruimus: transcurrit enim virosa per omnes / Peccati ebrietas, corrupti et cordis in alvo / Persistit, cruda fervet carbunculus esca. / Hinc animi vigor obtusus, caligine tetra / Induitur, nec fert divinæ fulgura lucis / Lumen iners: hinc arbitrium per devia lapsum / Claudicat, et cæcis conatibus inque ligatis / Motus inest, non error abest. Manet ergo voluntas / Semper amans aliquid quo se ferat, et labyrintho / Fallitur, ambages dubiarum ingressa viarum: / Vana cupit, vanis tumet et timet; omnimodaque / Mobilitate ruens in vulnera vulnere surgit. Hoc itaque arbitrium cum sanat gratia, tolli / Dicitis, et perimi vi aspirante putatis. / Quid mirum rabido si corde phreneticus æger / Morbum amat, et pellit medicum? Cognoscito tandem / Antiqui commenta doli, et desuescite captas / Aures vipereo rursum præbere susurro. / Parcite de fractis præcerpere noxia poma / Arbitrii ramis: non hæc vos esca reformat, / Nec speciem angelici nutrit cibus ille decoris. / Sed vetitorum avidos, et tetra bile tumentes, / De fastiditæ procul abripit arbore vitæ.","t":"those masters of yours, whose words you belch out?\nBut since a kindred pride has uttered a like complaint,\nthe answer is now given both to you and to them.\nWe all were once God's inviolate and lofty image\nin our first father, while he lived in the nourishing grove\nand, obeying the command, kept away from one tree.\nBut after he broke the law of the command and took in\na proud counsel mixed from the fountain of envy,\nhe fell, and we all fell together in our falling parent:\nfor the venomous drunkenness of sin runs through all,\nand stays in the belly of the corrupted heart,\nan inflamed boil seething from raw food.\nHence the vigor of the mind is dulled and clothed\nin foul darkness, and its sluggish eye cannot bear\nthe lightning of the divine light; hence choice, slipping through trackless ways,\nlimps, and in its blind and fettered efforts\nthere is motion, but error is not absent. So the will remains\never loving something to carry itself toward, and is deceived\nin a labyrinth, having entered the windings of uncertain roads:\nit desires vain things, swells and fears with vain things; and, rushing\nwith every kind of restlessness, it rises from wound into wounds.\nSo when grace heals this choice, you say it is taken away,\nand you think it is destroyed by the force that breathes on it.\nWhat wonder if the frenzied sick man, with raving heart,\nloves his disease and drives away the physician? Recognize at last\nthe inventions of the ancient deceit, and unlearn the habit of offering\nyour captured ears again to the viper's whisper.\nStop plucking harmful fruit from the broken\nbranches of choice: this food does not reform you,\nnor does that food nourish the beauty of angelic glory.\nRather it snatches those greedy for forbidden things, and swollen with foul bile,\nfar away from the tree of life they despised.","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 571 (PL 51:127; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/571)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/601":{"o":"Hujus ope et fructu vescendum est, ut revalescens / Languida mens, etiam propriis bene viribus uti / Possit, et in Christo inveniat quod perdidit in se. NON igitur, quisquis terreni veste parentis / Exueris, priscum naturæ perdis honorem, / Sed recipis: sic acquirens quibus ante carebas, / Ut tua sint, si collatis utare modeste, / Et quod habes, hoc te acceptum fatearis habere. / Fons igitur meriti est lucis Pater; inde quod in nos / Fluxerit, hoc nobis majorum est causa bonorum, / Dum largitori sua reddimus, aeque relatis / Augemur, nostrumque bonum fit gloria dantis. / SED qui judicium arbitrii, meritumque tueris, / Quique hominum studiis ascribis dona vocantis: / Infantum discerne animos, et dissere quales / Affectus, qualesque habeant haec pectora motus. / Da teneris mores, et libertate volendi / Instrue, vix auræ tenuis lactisque capaces. / Nulla tibi arbitrii respondent signa, nec ullis / Dissociare pares meritis potes: omnibus una est / Natura, et pariter nequeunt bona vel mala velle. / Et tamen ex istis miseratrix gratia quosdam / Eligit, et rursum genitos baptismate transfert / In regnum æternum, multis in morte relictis, / Quorum causa fuit similis de vulnere eodem. NEC meritis istud poteris aptare parentum: / Ceu pia profuerit redimendis cura bonorum, / Abstuleritque aliis aliena ignavia vitam; / Cum videas multos sanctis genitoribus ortos, / Nullo salvari studio potuisse suorum: / Expositisque aliis ob turpia crimina matrum, / Missam externorum curam, quae stercore raptos","t":"On its help and fruit we must feed, so that the weak mind,\nregaining strength, may also be able to use its own strength well,\nand find in Christ what it lost in itself.\nSo then, whoever you are who are stripped of the garment of your earthly parent,\nyou do not lose the ancient honor of nature,\nbut receive it back: acquiring what you lacked before\nin such a way that it is yours, if you use what was conferred modestly,\nand confess that what you have you have as received.\nThe fountain of merit, then, is the Father of lights; what has flowed\nfrom there into us becomes for us the cause of greater goods,\nwhile we return to the giver what is his, and are increased\nby what we return, and our good becomes the glory of the giver.\nBut you who defend the judgment of choice and merit,\nand ascribe to men's efforts the gifts of the one who calls:\ndistinguish the souls of infants, and explain what\ndispositions and what motions these breasts have.\nGive the tender ones a character, and equip with the freedom of willing\nthose who can scarcely take in thin air and milk.\nNo signs of choice answer you, nor can you\nseparate equals by any merits: all have one\nnature, and alike they cannot will either good or evil.\nAnd yet from these, merciful grace chooses some,\nand, born again by baptism, carries them over\ninto the eternal kingdom, while many are left in death\nwhose case was the same, from the same wound.\nNor can you fit this to the merits of parents,\nas though the pious care of the good helped those to be redeemed,\nand the negligence of others took life away from others;\nfor you see many born of holy parents\nwho could not be saved by any zeal of their own families;\nand for others, exposed because of the shameful crimes of their mothers,\nthe care of strangers was sent, which, snatching them from the dunghill,","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 601 (PL 51:127; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/601)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/61":{"o":"Relligione tenet. Non segnior inde ORIENTIS / Rectorum cura emicuit: captumque nefandi / Dogmatis auctorem constrinxit lege benigna / Commentum damnare suum; nisi corpore Christi / Abjungi et sancto mallet grege dissociari. / Lene quidem hoc, nimiumque malos tolerasse ' videtur / Judicium: sed sancta fides examine in illo / Vicit oborturam diro de semine prolem. / Prospectum namque est divino et munere / cautum, Ut licet instantem declinans bestia pœnam, / Perfidiæ secum sensus tenuisset eosdem; / Ipsa tamen proprium germen damnando necaret, / Ore malam exstinguens sobolem, quam protulit ore. Tunc etiam Bethlei praeclari Dominii hospes, / Hebræo simul et Graio, Latioque venustus / Eloquio, morum exemplum, mundique magister / HIERONYMUS, libris valde excellentibus hostem / Dissecuit, noscique dedit quo turbine veram / Vellent exortæ lucem obscurare tenebrae. / Quid loquar, et curam magna quam gessit in urbe / Constantinopoli, docto bonus ore sacerdos / ATTICUS, antiqua legatos haereticorum / Confutando fide? De qua tunc impia corda, / Quamvis se obducta tegerent velamine forma / Judicii, et tacitae tulerant tormenta repulsae. Prætereo quanto fuerit bene mota tumultu / Clara EPHESOS, non passa suis consistere tectis / Vasa irae, et morbi flatus, et semina mortis: / Quaque fide tellus etiam TRINACRIA fervens, / Agmen vipereum propriis exegerit oris. Tu causam fidei flagrantius, AFRICA, nostræ / Exsequeris; tecumque suum jungente vigorem / Juris apostolici solio, fera viscera belli","t":"it holds by religion. Nor was the care of the rulers of the East\nslower to shine forth: it bound the captured author of the wicked\ndogma by a kindly law to condemn his own invention,\nunless he preferred to be cut off from the body of Christ\nand separated from the holy flock.\nThis judgment seems indeed lenient, and to have borne too much with the wicked;\nbut holy faith in that trial\novercame the brood that was to spring from the dire seed.\nFor it was foreseen and guarded by divine gift\nthat, though the beast, dodging the penalty that threatened it,\nhad kept the same treacherous views within itself,\nit would yet kill its own shoot by condemning it,\nextinguishing with its mouth the evil brood it had brought forth with its mouth.\nThen too the guest of the Lord's renowned Bethlehem,\ngraceful in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin\neloquence, an example of conduct and teacher of the world,\nJerome, dissected the enemy in most excellent books,\nand made known with what whirlwind the darkness that had arisen\nwished to obscure the true light.\nWhat shall I say of the care that in the great city\nof Constantinople the good bishop Atticus bore with learned mouth,\nrefuting the envoys of the heretics\nwith the ancient faith? From it, then, the impious hearts,\nthough they covered themselves with the veil of a feigned show\nof judgment, bore also the torments of a silent rebuff.\nI pass over with what great tumult famous Ephesus was rightly stirred,\nnot suffering to remain under its roofs\nthe vessels of wrath, the breath of disease, and the seeds of death;\nand with what faith the land of Trinacria too, burning with zeal,\ndrove the viperous troop from its shores.\nYou, Africa, pursue the cause of our faith\nmore ardently; and, with the throne of apostolic law\njoining its vigor to yours, the fierce entrails of the war","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 61 (PL 51:99; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/61)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/631":{"o":"Per fontem vitae coelesti traderet aulæ. Quid si diversum hunc finem, quo gratia Christi / Unum alio pereunte legit, donatque salute, / In geminis etiam videas? quod dividis uno / Tempore conceptos atque uno tempore natos, / Non ullos potes arbitrii prætendere motus. / Cessat opus, cessat meritum, nihil editur impar. / Sed Deus et tales discernit, quo mage Christi / Excellat bonitas, quæ sola est causa vocatis / Et fidei et meriti: quoniam Sapientia dives / Hoc etiam tribuit multis, ut sancta operatis, / In finem vitæ, fieret de munere merces. NON autem recte, nec vere dicitur, illos / Qui sunt exsortes divini muneris, et quos / Gratia neglexit degentes mortis in umbra, / Peccati non esse reos, quia recta gerendi / Non data sit virtus. Naturæ compede vinctos / Procubuisse negant, nec ab uno germine credunt / Omnigenam prolem cum pœna et crimine nasci. / Quod qui non renuit, videt hujus pondera culpæ / Tam valida pariter miseris incumbere mole, / Ut si nulla etiam cumulent mala, sit tamen unum hoc / Sufficiens scelus, ad mortem nascendo luendam. HANC igitur legem quam per se nemo resolvit, / Si merito et juste positam, impositamque fatemur: / Cur querimur quod non omnes salvantur ab illa? / Cum si progeniem super omnem irrupta maneret, / De cunctis juste damnatis non quereremur, / An quod de toto ferretur, non toleratur / De parte? et melius foret omnia debita cogi, / Quam summa ex solida elementer multa remitti? / Quis vero exemptus squallenti carcere, pulset / Invidia miserantis opem, quia non simul omnes","t":"might hand them over through the font of life to the heavenly court.\nWhat if you see this different end, by which the grace of Christ\nchooses one while another perishes, and gives him salvation,\neven in twins? Since you separate those conceived at one\ntime and born at one time,\nyou cannot allege any motions of choice.\nWork is absent, merit is absent, nothing unequal is brought forth.\nBut God distinguishes even such, so that the goodness of Christ\nmay stand out the more, which alone is the cause, for those called,\nboth of faith and of merit: since rich Wisdom\ngrants this too to many, that for those who have done holy things\nto the end of life, the reward should come from the gift.\nBut it is not rightly or truly said that those\nwho have no share in the divine gift, and whom\ngrace passed by as they lived in the shadow of death,\nare not guilty of sin, because the power of doing right\nwas not given. They deny that men lie prostrate, bound by the fetter\nof nature, nor do they believe that from one stock\nall offspring is born with punishment and guilt.\nBut whoever does not reject this sees that the weight of this guilt\nlies equally on the wretched with so strong a mass\nthat, even if they heap up no further evils, this one\ncrime is still enough to be paid for by death through being born.\nIf, then, we confess that this law, which no one undoes by himself,\nwas laid down and imposed deservedly and justly,\nwhy do we complain that not all are saved from it?\nFor if it remained unbroken over all offspring,\nwe would not complain of all being justly condemned;\nor is what would be borne for the whole not tolerated\nfor a part? And would it be better for all debts to be exacted\nthan for much of the full sum to be mercifully remitted?\nWho, released from the filthy prison, would assail\nwith envy the help of the one who had mercy on him, because he did not","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 631 (PL 51:129; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/631)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/661":{"o":"In lucem veram tenebris eduxerit iisdem? Cum pœnam qua mersus erat, non experiatur / Quam misere ferat addictus, nisi liber ab illa. / Denique tunc illum socialem mente benigna / Concipit tactum, quo submissa prece Christum / Conciliet miseris, sueta qui nocte gravati / Nulla gerunt vota effugii. TANTUM nocet error, / Ut juvet errare; et veteris contagia morbi / Tam blande obrepunt, ut quo languetur ametur. / Unde ergo hæc oritur querimonia? Non movet illos / Talis cura, quibus necdum est sua pœna dolori, / Et qui se nulla credunt a luce relictos. / Qui vero tenebris exempti in lumine vivunt, / Gaudent, et quantum sibi sit bonitate vocantis / Dimissum, ex illis discunt qui debita solvunt. Vos igitur soli queruli, solique superbi: / Vos soli INGRATI, quos urit gratia, cujus / Omne opus arbitrio vultis subsistere vestro: / Et quod non cuncti mortales atria vitæ / Ingrediuntur, ita ex ipsis pendere putatis, / Ut tam ex judicio constet cujusque quod intrat, / Quam quod non intrat, ceu par in utrumque facultas / Suppetat; et tam sit proprium bona quam mala velle. / I procul, insana impietas, artesque malignas / Aufer, et auctorem comitare exclusa Britannum: / Nos humiles tenuesque sumus grex parvus, et altis / Inniti metuens, quia sufficientia nostra / Ex Christo est; si quid recti sapimus, volumusque, / Illi debemus qui vincula nostra resolvit, / Proque malis bona restituit, non inveniendo / Quod merito legeret, sed donans quo legeretur, / Ut de perceptis prodiret causa merendi;","t":"lead all together out of the same darkness into the true light?\nFor he does not feel how wretchedly the condemned man bears\nthe punishment in which he himself was sunk, unless he is free of it.\nThen, at last, with kindly mind he conceives\nthat fellow-feeling by which with humble prayer he wins Christ\nfor the wretched, who, weighed down in their accustomed night,\nhave no wish to escape. So great is the harm of error\nthat it delights to err; and the contagion of the old disease\ncreeps in so smoothly that what one languishes from is loved.\nWhence, then, does this complaint arise? Such care does not move\nthose for whom their own punishment is not yet a grief,\nand who believe themselves deserted by no light.\nBut those who, freed from darkness, live in the light\nrejoice, and learn from those who pay their debts\nhow much has been forgiven them by the goodness of the one who calls.\nYou alone, then, are complainers, you alone are proud:\nyou alone are UNGRATEFUL, whom grace galls, for you\nwant all its work to rest on your own choice;\nand the fact that not all mortals enter the halls of life\nyou think depends on themselves in such a way\nthat it rests as much on each one's judgment that he enters\nas that he does not, as though an equal power were available\nfor either, and it were as much one's own to will good as evil.\nAway, mad impiety; take your malicious arts away,\nand, shut out, go with your British author.\nWe are humble and slight, a little flock, afraid\nto lean on high things, because our sufficiency\nis from Christ; if we know or will anything right,\nwe owe it to him who loosed our chains\nand gave back good for evil, not finding\nwhat he might choose for its merit, but giving that by which one would be chosen,\nso that from what was received a cause of merit might come forth;","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 661 (PL 51:131; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/661)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/691":{"o":"Deque datis in danda, gradus industria crescens / Scanderet, atque bonum fieret Deus omnibus / unum. CUR vero humani generis de germine toto / Pars quædam in Christo rursum generanda legatur, / Pars pereat, cum causa eadem simul implicet omnes, / Nec discernantur merito, qui munere distant; / Non satis audemus scrutari, nec per opertas / Ire vias, callesque gradu pulsare remotos. / Multa etenim bene tecta latent, nescitaque prosunt / Dum mansueta fides quædam dilata modeste / Sustinet, et nullo ignorat non edita damno. Sic quando electum ex cunctis populum Deus unum / Leges, sacris, templo, unguento, signisque fovebat; / Quod fuit occultum, mundique in fine retectum est, / Non oberat nescire omnes quandoque vocandas / In regnum æternum gentes, totumque per orbem / Donandum quod spes parvæ tunc plebis habebit. Sic postrema dies qua mundi clauditur ætas / Notitiæ nostræ non data; nec tamen hujus / Secreti impatiens sanctorum turba laborat. / Ipsa quoque humani generis carnalis origo, / Quam multas vario circumtegit ordine causas? / Cumque omnes de fermento producat eodem / Una manus, nec diversis elementa parentum / Principiis coeant: limo procedit ab uno / Dispar opus, mutat numeros per vascula fictor, / Materiamque unam discernit jure creantis. / Ergo eadem natura animæ, naturaque carnis / Diversis mundum sub conditionibus intrat. / His regnare datum est, illos servire necesse est: / nos decor, et vires valde, viridisque senectus Suscipit, hos species inhonora, et debile corpus: / His viget ingenium præclaris artibus aptum,","t":"and from things given to things yet to be given, a growing diligence\nmight climb by steps, and God might become for all their one\ngood. But why, from the whole stock of the human race,\nsome part is chosen to be born again in Christ,\nand some part perishes, when the same cause entangles all together,\nand those who differ in gift are not distinguished by merit,\nwe do not dare to search out too far, nor to go along hidden\nways, nor to tread remote paths with our step.\nFor many things lie well covered, and not knowing them is profitable,\nwhile gentle faith modestly bears with certain things\ndeferred, and without loss is ignorant of what has not been revealed.\nSo when God fostered one people chosen out of all\nwith laws, rites, temple, anointing, and signs,\nwhat was hidden and has been unveiled at the end of the world,\nit did no harm not to know: that all nations were one day to be called\ninto the eternal kingdom, and that throughout the world\nwould be given what the hope of a small people then held.\nSo the last day, by which the age of the world is closed,\nis not given to our knowledge; and yet the throng of saints\nis not troubled, impatient of this secret.\nThe very fleshly origin of the human race too,\nhow many causes it covers in varied order!\nAnd though one hand brings forth all from the same leaven,\nand the elements of the parents do not come together\nfrom different principles, from one clay comes\nunequal work: the potter varies the measures through his vessels,\nand distinguishes the one material by the right of the creator.\nSo the same nature of soul and the same nature of flesh\nenter the world under different conditions.\nTo these it is given to rule, those must serve;\nbeauty and great strength and a green old age\nreceive some, others an unhonored look and a weak body;\nin some there flourishes a mind fit for famous arts,","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 691 (PL 51:131; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/691)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/721":{"o":"Hunc tarda premit gelidus præcordia sanguis: / Quosdam nec licitus calor incitat ad generandum. / Ast alii insanum nequeunt frenare furorem: / Hunc mitem et placidum tranquilla modestia comit, / … His et mille modis semen variantibus unum, / Impariles subeunt distincta exordia formas. / Nec tamen hæc inter tam compugnantia quisquam / Arguit auctorem, qui secum continet hujus / Legem operis, dum judicio placita explicat æquo, / Et rerum causas obscurat justa potestas. Si terrenum igitur figmentum, addictaque morti / Progenies, ita dissimili producitur ortu, / Ut cum operis species pateat, tamen edita non sit / Norma voluntatis de qua venit hic modus impar; / Quid mirum si consilii super omnia magni / Arcanum latet, et placito subducitur alto? / Quod dum vana fluunt mundi, dum in corpore mortis / Vivitur, et positi expletur certamen agonis, / Non cognoscendum texit Deus, utiliusque / Duxit ad examen quædam velate piorum. / NON ergo instamus clausis, nec operta procaci / Urgemus cura, satis est opera Omnipotentis / Cernere, et auctorem cunctorum nosse bonorum; / Quo sine nil rectum mens inchoat. Audeat amens / Impietas tumido arbitrio subnectere causas / Divinorum operum: nos cum manifesta videmus / Dona Dei, quorum est fons unus, summa voluntas; / Cum Paulo tremuisse juvat, stupidumque modeste Invictum ad solium Christi suspendere nutum: / Cujus judicium sic inscrutabile et altum / Dicimus, ut verax prorsus fateamur et æquum.","t":"in one, cold sluggish blood weighs on the breast;\nsome, not even lawful warmth stirs to beget;\nbut others cannot rein in an insane fury;\nthis one, mild and calm, a quiet modesty adorns;\n…\nWith these and a thousand ways varying the one seed,\ndistinct beginnings take on unequal forms.\nAnd yet among things so much at odds no one\naccuses the author, who holds within himself the law\nof this work, while he unfolds his good pleasure by fair judgment,\nand a just power keeps the causes of things in shadow.\nIf, then, the earthly frame, and the offspring given over to death,\nis brought forth by such unlike births\nthat, though the look of the work is plain, yet the rule\nof the will from which this unequal measure comes has not been published,\nwhat wonder if the secret of the great counsel above all things\nlies hidden, and is withdrawn into his lofty good pleasure?\nWhile the vain things of the world flow by, while we live\nin the body of death and the contest of the appointed struggle is fought out,\nGod has covered it from our knowledge, and thought it more useful\nto veil certain things for the testing of the pious.\nWe, then, do not press upon closed things, nor urge hidden things\nwith impudent care; it is enough to see the works of the Almighty\nand to know the author of all good things,\nwithout whom the mind begins nothing right. Let mad\nimpiety dare to tie the causes of divine works\nto swollen choice: we, when we see the plain\ngifts of God, whose one fountain is his supreme will,\nare glad to tremble with Paul, and in modest awe\nto hang, astonished, on the nod of Christ before his unconquered throne:\nwhose judgment we call so inscrutable and deep\nthat we confess it wholly true and just.","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 721 (PL 51:133; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/721)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/751":{"o":"Nam meritum ad mortem subeundam sufficit unum; / Ad Vitam, niSi quod donarit gratia, nullum. Tu vero, o nova gens, veteris quæ stirpe oleastri / Vulsa, et sacræ ramis inolescis olivæ, / Quærere formatæ; senis te frondis honorem / Non studio cœpisse tuo, sed jure potentis / Agricolæ insertam fecundo vivere ligno: / Vince superborum flatus, et vana furentum / Turbinibus stabili fortis pietate resiste: / Nec tibi fallacis subrepat imago decoris, / Nullum ex his errare putes. Licet in cruce vitam / Ducant, et jugi afficiant sua corpora morte, / Abstineant opibus, sint casti, sintque benigni, / Terrenisque ferant animum super astra relictis: / Si tamen hæc propria virtute capescere quemquam / Posse putant, sitve ut dignus labor iste juvari, / Ingenium meruisse aiunt bona vera petentis: / Crescere quo cupiunt, minuuntur; proficiendo / Deficiunt; surgendo cadunt; currendo recedunt. / Unde etenim vane frustra splendescere quærunt. / Inde obscurantur: quoniam sua, laudis, amore, / Non quæ sunt Christi quærunt, nec fit Deus illis / Principium, et capiti non dant in corpore regnum. / Non horum templo est Christus petra fundamentum; / Sed super instabilem arbitrii nutantis arenam / Assurgunt, foeda lapsuri mole tumoris. / Illi quem quidam reprobarunt ædificantes, / Nunc etiam reprobant lapidem, pariesque sine ipso / Tertius esse volunt, quem nullo foedere nectat / Angulus, et quem nulla habeat compago ligatum: / Hi thalamum ad sponsi non perducuntur, et intrant","t":"For one merit is enough for undergoing death;\nfor life, none, except what grace has given.\nBut you, O new people, who, torn from the stock of the wild olive,\nare grafted and grow in the branches of the holy olive,\nlearn, now formed, that you did not begin the honor of the ancient foliage\nby your own effort, but by the right of the mighty\nfarmer were grafted to live on the fruitful wood.\nOvercome the blasts of the proud, and resist the vain whirlwinds\nof the raging, strong in steadfast piety;\nand let not the image of a deceiving beauty creep upon you,\nso that you think none of these men errs. Though they lead their life\non the cross, and afflict their bodies with unceasing death,\nabstain from wealth, are chaste and kind,\nand, leaving earthly things, bear their minds above the stars:\nyet if they think anyone can lay hold of these things\nby his own virtue, or that he can be such that this labor deserves to be helped,\nand say that the mind of one seeking true goods has merited it:\nby what they want to grow, they are lessened; by advancing\nthey fall short; by rising they fall; by running they go backward.\nFor whence they seek in vain to shine with empty things,\nthence they are darkened: since, for love of praise, they seek their own,\nnot the things of Christ; nor is God for them\nthe beginning, and they do not give the kingdom in the body to the head.\nFor them Christ the rock is not the foundation\nof the temple; but on the unstable sand of a wavering choice\nthey rise, about to fall under the foul mass of their pride.\nThe stone which certain builders rejected,\nthese now also reject, and want, without it, a third\nwall, which no corner binds with any bond,\nand which no joint holds fastened together.\nThese are not led to the bridegroom's chamber, and they enter","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 751 (PL 51:135; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/751)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/781":{"o":"Libertate sua: quæ Christi gratia confert, / Non acceperunt, et habent: non attrahit illos / Vis Patris ad Verbum, sed sponte et præpete cursu / Præveniunt cessantis opem: nec ad omne serendum / Ejus egent, sine quo sibi plurima posse videmur. / Quid prodest verbis commentum Pelagianum / Respuere, et sola damnatos plectere voce? / Cum paucis squalida sublatis de cute nervis, / Intima viperei foveantur viscera sensus? / O bene quod diri erroris malus ille magister / Nullo prælevit lethalia pocula melle: / Sed non ambigua infectum feritate venenum / Protulit, et gustu virus detexit amaro! / Nam si argumenti primordia non onerasset / His quæ discipuli dempserunt callidiores, / Innumeras dubio cepisset plasmate mentes; / Quæ dum multa vident informia limine in ipso, / Horrida terrificæ declinant atria mortis. / Nec jam illis possunt attriti illudere fures, / Quorum quo tendant artes, atque unde oriantur, / Non dubiis promptum est cuivis cognoscere signis. Non igitur cum damnatis sentire videntur, / Cum dicunt mortem in cunctos transisse per unum / Primum hominem, cujus crimen resperserit omnes / Nec quemquam in vitam æternam nisi fonte renatum / Venturum: infantesque reos hoc munere solvi, / Quos prima ad mortem generaliter edat origo. / Sed cum damnatis sapiunt, damnataque promunt, / Cum dicunt, nihil esse animis per vulnus avitum Detractum decoris, splendoremque omnibus illum","t":"by their own freedom: what the grace of Christ confers\nthey have not received, and yet they have it; the power of the Father\ndoes not draw them to the Word, but of their own accord, in swift course,\nthey forestall the help of one who delays; nor for every sowing\ndo they need him without whom they seem to themselves able to do very much.\nWhat good is it to spit out the Pelagian invention in words\nand to punish the condemned with the voice alone,\nwhen, with a few sinews removed from the filthy skin,\nthe inmost bowels of the viperous view are cherished?\nHow fortunate that that evil master of dire error\nsmeared the deadly cups with no honey,\nbut brought out a poison tainted with unmistakable fierceness,\nand revealed the venom by its bitter taste!\nFor if he had not loaded the first principles of his argument\nwith the things which his craftier disciples took away,\nhe would have captured countless minds with an ambiguous fiction;\nbut minds, seeing many misshapen things on the very threshold,\nturn away from the horrid halls of terrifying death.\nNor can the worn-out thieves now deceive them,\nfor it is easy for anyone to know, by no doubtful\nsigns, where their arts tend and whence they arise.\nThey do not, then, seem to think with the condemned\nwhen they say that death passed into all through the one\nfirst man, whose crime has stained all;\nand that no one will come into eternal life unless reborn\nfrom the font; and that guilty infants are set free by this gift,\nwhom the first origin brings forth, all alike, to death.\nBut they do think with the condemned, and put forward condemned things,\nwhen they say that nothing of their beauty was taken from souls by the ancestral\nwound, and that that splendor in all","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 781 (PL 51:137; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/781)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/811":{"o":"Nunc talem innasci, qualis fuit ante ruinam. / Hinc libertatem arbitrii discernere suo / Posse oculo cordis, quidquid sit rite gerendum, / Nec solum ad vitæ præsentis commoda solers / Sufficere ingenium, quo se tueatur et ornet; / Sed summis etiam mentem aptam percipiendis / Æternisque bonis, sponte ad cœlestia ferri: / Perque viam ad Christum, quam fecerit ipsa, venire. / Hinc hominem multa recti assuetudine firmum / Posse repugnare adversis, nec cedere pœnis / Quas superandae animæ per carnem admoverit hostis, / Auxilio abscedente Dei, qui deserat apte / Utiliterque suos, ut de certamine agonis / Quæsitas referant palmas: ne nulla piorum / Sint merita, et verae privemur laudis honore; / Si quod naturæ sensu noluntque, voluntque, / Præceptisque tenent legalibus insinuatum, / Divini auxilii manus hæc operetur in illis: / Ceu solis Christi famulis virtute carere / Sit dignum, et non posse probos apprendere mores, / Quos plerumque habeant etiam simulacra colentes. TALIA lingua procax cum verbis fundit ineptis, / Effuge, tu nova gens, hostiles effuge sensus, / Et procul a laqueis sapiens abjungere mortis. / Christus enim tua justitia est, quo te duce oportet / Currere, ne cursus, Christo sine, sit vagus error. / Nemo etenim, nemo est, qui non cum vulnere primi / Sit patris genitus: quo vulnere mens prius intus / Percussa est, quam membra foris, cum mente receptum est / Quod regione poli disjecta superbia suasit. / Sic animus, cui lumen erat de lumine summo,","t":"is now inborn just as it was before the ruin.\nHence, they say, freedom of choice can discern with its own\neye of the heart whatever is to be done rightly,\nand the skillful mind suffices not only for the advantages of the present life,\nto protect and adorn itself,\nbut, being also fit to receive the highest and eternal\ngoods, the mind is carried of its own accord to heavenly things,\nand comes to Christ by a way that it has made itself.\nHence a man made firm by long habit of right\ncan resist adversities and not yield to the punishments\nwhich the enemy has applied through the flesh to overcome the soul,\nthe help of God withdrawing, who deserts his own fittingly\nand usefully, so that from the contest of the struggle\nthey may bring back palms they have sought; lest the pious have no\nmerits, and we be robbed of the honor of true praise,\nif what they will or do not will by the sense of nature,\nand hold as instilled by the commands of the law,\nthe hand of divine help should work in them:\nas though it were fitting for Christ's servants alone to lack virtue\nand be unable to lay hold of upright conduct,\nwhich even idol-worshippers mostly have.\nWhen the impudent tongue pours out such things in foolish words,\nflee, you new people, flee the hostile views,\nand wisely separate yourself far from the snares of death.\nFor Christ is your righteousness; with him as your leader you must\nrun, lest your course, without Christ, be a wandering error.\nFor no one, no one at all, was not born with the wound of the first\nfather; by which wound the mind was struck within\nbefore the limbs without, when the mind took in\nwhat pride, cast down from the region of the sky, had urged.\nSo the soul, whose light came from the highest light,","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 811 (PL 51:139; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/811)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/841":{"o":"Arbitrium involvit tenebris; et luce relicta, Consilio legit tetræ nigrescere noctis. / Nec jam captivos oculos extollere in altum / Sponte potest: quoniam hoc etiam spoliante tyranno / Perdidit, ut quanto jaceat sub vulnere norit. SI quid enim de principiis felicibus illi, / Et vita exsilii superest prudenter agenda, / Hoc sanum, et quo nil fuerit sublimius in se / Credit, amatque suum mundi sapientia sensum, / Innumeras sese claram mirata per artes: / Quod conjecturis sublimibus abdita quærit, / Quod meminit recte, sapit acriter, æstimat apte: / Quod studium fandi excoluit, quod legibus urbes / Instituit, moresque feros ratione recidit, / Ut pœnæ metus officio certarit amoris. Jam cum exercetur numeris, ad sidera cœli / Per cursus noscenda suos, et scire videtur / Defectus solis varios, lunæque labores, / Quam speciosa sibi est, et quam vanescit in ipsis? QUÆ licet ex primo naturæ habeantur honore; / Non tamen ad veram possunt perducere vitam. / (Denique ab his præceps in multas relligiones / Decidit, et factis hæsit factore relicto.) / Nam si nunc etiam illæsis vigor ille maneret, / In quo insons natura fuit; sua quemque voluntas / Conciliare Deo, pœnaque absolvere posset: / Nequidquam Christus mortem moriendo piaret, / Peccatum et mundi sanguis non tolleret Agni, / Nec genus humanum generari rursus egeret / Conditione nova: quoniam sapientia sana, / Sana fides, sanum arbitrium, mens libera morbo, / Vitam agerent dignam summorum participatu. SED prostrata semel, quanto natura profundo / Immersa, et quantæ sit mole oppressa ruinæ;","t":"wraps its choice in darkness; and, leaving the light,\nby its own counsel chose to grow black with foul night.\nNor can it now of itself lift its captive eyes\non high: since, as the tyrant despoiled it, it lost even this,\nto know under how great a wound it lies.\nFor if anything remains to it from those happy beginnings,\nand for the prudent conduct of the life of exile,\nthe wisdom of the world believes this sound, and that nothing\nwas more sublime in itself, and loves its own sense,\nadmiring itself as famous through countless arts:\nthat it seeks hidden things by lofty conjectures,\nthat it remembers rightly, understands keenly, judges fitly;\nthat it has cultivated the study of eloquence, that it has founded cities\nwith laws, and cut back savage ways by reason,\nso that fear of punishment vied with the duty of love.\nAnd when it busies itself with numbers, in learning the stars of heaven\nby their courses, and seems to know\nthe varied eclipses of the sun and the labors of the moon,\nhow beautiful it is to itself, and how it fades away in these very\nthings! Though these come from the first honor of nature,\nyet they cannot lead to the true life.\n(In the end it fell headlong from these into many religions,\nand clung to things made, leaving their maker behind.)\nFor if even now that vigor remained unharmed\nin which nature was innocent, each one's own will\ncould reconcile him to God and absolve him from punishment;\nin vain would Christ have atoned for death by dying,\nand the blood of the Lamb would not take away the sin of the world,\nnor would the human race need to be begotten again\nunder a new condition: since sound wisdom,\nsound faith, sound choice, a mind free of disease\nwould lead a life worthy of sharing in the highest things.\nBut how deep nature, once laid low, has been\nsunk, and under how great a mass of ruin it is crushed,","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 841 (PL 51:141; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/841)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/871":{"o":"Verbum homo fit, rerumque sator sub conditione / Servilis formæ dignatur virgine nasci. / Inque infirmorum cunctos descendere sensus. / Vexatur virtus, sapientia ludificatur: / Justitia injustos tolerat, clementia sævos: / Gloria contemptum subit, et tormenta potestas: / Inque crucis poenam nulli violabilis usquam / Vita agitur: cujus perimatur morte peremptor; / Justo ut pro injustis effuso sanguine, sit mors / Unius insontis multorum vita reorum. / Hoc igitur pretio captivi cum redimuntur, / Agnoscant quali conclusi carcere, quove / Obsessi fuerint morbo; quibus eripiendis / Succurri haud aliter potuit quam morte medentis. / Et quia de magnis opibus nonnulla supersunt, / Quæ decorent nudos, et quæ solentur egenos: / Non ita pro summis oblectent ultima lapsos, / Ut de supplicio tumeant, atque ordine verso, Quo sunt effecti miseri, sint inde superbi. / Aut cum hebetes visus, longa ex caligine tandem, / … / Naturæ hoc potius, libertatique volendi, / Quam Christo tribuant: ne scilicet evacuetur / Arbitrii virtus, si desit recta legendi. / Hoc patribus primis mortis sator insinuatus / Consilio est: hac arte omnes prostravit in uno, / Dum suadet multo præstantius esse, quod ipsis / (Non tribuente licet Domino) sponderet habendum / Prudens libertas, vetitoque instructa cupido: / Quæ nunc per veteris serpens vestigia fraudis, / Deceptos simili studet inflammare furore:","t":"the Word becomes man, and the sower of all things, under the condition\nof a servant's form, deigns to be born of a virgin\nand to go down into all the feelings of the weak.\nPower is harassed, Wisdom is mocked;\nJustice bears with the unjust, Mercy with the cruel;\nGlory undergoes contempt, and Power torments;\nand Life, nowhere violable by any, is driven\nto the punishment of the cross, so that by its death the slayer might be slain;\nso that, the blood of the just being poured out for the unjust, the death\nof the one innocent might be the life of many guilty.\nWhen captives, then, are redeemed at this price,\nlet them recognize in what a prison they were shut, or by what\ndisease they were besieged; for their rescue\nhelp could come in no other way than by the death of the healer.\nAnd because, of their great wealth, some things remain\nthat adorn the naked and console the needy,\nlet not these last things so delight those fallen from the highest\nthat they swell with pride over their punishment, and, the order reversed,\nare proud of the very thing by which they were made wretched.\nOr when their dulled eyes, at last, after long darkness,\n…\nlet them not ascribe this to nature and the freedom of willing\nrather than to Christ: lest, forsooth, the power of choice\nbe emptied if it lacks the right of choosing.\nWith this counsel the sower of death crept in on the first\nparents; by this art he laid all low in one,\npersuading them that it was far better to have what\nprudent freedom and desire, taught by the forbidden thing,\nwould promise them (though the Lord did not grant it);\nand now, a serpent creeping in the footsteps of his old fraud,\nhe strives to inflame the deceived with a like fury:","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 871 (PL 51:143; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/871)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/901":{"o":"Ut quoniam pulchrum est veris impendere curam, / Justitiæque avidos bona nosse et velle salubre est: / Suadeat ingenio cujusque hoc lucis inesse / Ut naturali mens vivida mobilitate, / Non spirante Deo, Christi exardescat amore, / Utque ita salvatrix nil gratia conferat istis, / Sed referat; pretioque bonos, non munere ditet. HIs de seminibus multo jam plura oriuntur, / Et frumenta inter primo turgentia lacte, / Spinis fulta subit seges horrida zizaniorum. / Sed nos qui Domini semen sumus, agricolæque / Stamus ope, et supera perflati vivimus aura, / Viperei calicis gustum procul excutiamus: / Divinique operis constanter confiteamur / Figmentum nos esse novum, quod prorsus ab illa / Stirpe vetustatis discretum est, atque recisum, / Et jam sit penitus carnalis originis exsors, / Qui membrum est Christi, capitisque in corpore vivit: / A quo subjectos vigor omnis manat in artus; / Et sic quæque suo vegetantur in ordine partes, / Ut quod agunt, et dispositis quod motibus explent, / Ex illo possint, qui summa atque ultima pacans, / Ut nos insereret summis, se miscuit imis. CONTICEANT igitur qui dicunt esse cavendum / Ne desit sanctis sumendæ causa coronæ, / Si non ipsorum bona repperiantur in illis. / Hoc etenim tumida nimis impietate docentes, / Quid nisi justitia nos et virtute, Deoque, / Dispoliare volunt: ne lux in nocte coruscet, / Languida ne in vires redeant, ne mortua vivant. / Sed nobis summo verorum a fonte bonorum","t":"so that, since it is a fine thing to spend care on true things,\nand it is wholesome for those eager for justice to know and will the good,\nhe persuades them that there is so much light in each one's natural ability\nthat the mind, alive with a natural motion,\nwithout God breathing on it, may blaze with the love of Christ,\nand that saving grace thus confers nothing on such men\nbut pays them back, and enriches the good with a price, not with a gift.\nFrom these seeds many more things are now springing up,\nand among the wheat, swelling with its first milk,\na bristling crop of tares, propped up by thorns, comes up.\nBut let us, who are the Lord's seed, who stand by the help\nof the farmer and live breathed on by the breath from above,\nshake the taste of the viper's cup far from us;\nand let us steadfastly confess that we are\nthe new creation of the divine work, which has been wholly\nseparated and cut off from that old stock,\nand has now no share at all in a fleshly origin,\nsince it is a member of Christ and lives in the body of the head:\nfrom him all vigor flows into the limbs beneath him,\nand so each part is given life in its own order,\nso that what they do, and fulfill with ordered motions,\nthey are able to do from him who, bringing peace to the highest and the lowest,\nmingled himself with the lowest to graft us into the highest.\nLet them be silent, then, who say we must take care\nthat the saints do not lack a ground for receiving a crown,\nif goods of their own are not found in them.\nFor in teaching this with too swollen an impiety,\nwhat do they want but to strip us of justice, of virtue, and of God,\nlest the light flash in the night,\nlest the weak return to strength, lest the dead live?\nBut for us let it be our glory to draw these things","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 901 (PL 51:145; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/901)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/91":{"o":"Conficis, et late prosternis limite victos. / Convenere tui de cunctis urbibus almi / Pontifices, geminoque senum celeberrima cotu / Decernis quod Roma probet, quod regna, / sequantur. Nec sola est illic synodorum exerta potestas; / Ceu quos non possent ratione evincere nostri, / Vi premerent: discussæ artes, virusque retectum est / Hæretici sensus; nullumque omnino relictum, / Docta fides quod non dissolveret argumentum, / Condita sunt, et scripta manent, quae de cafaractis /' \\ / Æterni fontis fluxere undante meatu / Et tercentenis procerum sunt edita linguis /,Sic moderante suam legem bonitate severa. / I Ut qui damnato vellent de errore reverti, / Acciperent pacem, pulsis qui prava tenerent. An alium in finem posset procedere sanctum / Concilium, cui dux AURELIUS, ingeniumque /:AUGUSTINUS erat? quem Christi gratia cornu / Uberiore rigans, nostro lumen dedit ævo / Accensum vero de lumine: nam cibus illi, / Et vita, et requies Deus est; omnisque volu,,.. / Unus amor Christi est, unus Christi est honor illi. / Et dum nulla sibi tribuit bona, fit Deus illi / I et in sancto regnat Sapientia templo. / Istius ergo inter cunctos, qui de grege sancto / Insanas pepulere feras, industria major, / Majus opus, totum præstantius imbuit orbem. / Nam quocumque gradum convertit callidus hostis, / Quaque per ambages anceps iter egit opertas, / Hujus ab occursu est præventus, mille viarum / Insidiis aditum non repperientibus ullum.","t":"you finish off, and lay the conquered low far and wide.\nYour kindly bishops came together from all your cities,\nand in a most famous double assembly of elders\nyou decree what Rome approves, what kingdoms follow.\nNor was it only the power of synods that was put forth there,\nas if they pressed by force those whom our side could not overcome by reason:\nthe arts were broken up, and the venom of the heretical view\nuncovered; and no argument at all was left\nthat learned faith did not dissolve.\nThings were set down, and remain written, which from the floodgates\nof the eternal fountain flowed in an overflowing course\nand were issued by the tongues of three hundred leaders,\nkind severity thus tempering its law:\nthat those who wished to turn back from the condemned error\nshould receive peace, and those who held perverse views be driven out.\nCould the holy council proceed to any other end,\nwhose leader was Aurelius, and whose mind\nwas Augustine? He it was whom the grace of Christ, watering him\nfrom a richer horn, gave to our age as a light\nkindled from the true light: for God is his food,\nhis life, and his rest; and all his will\nis the one love of Christ; Christ's honor alone is his.\nAnd while he ascribes no good things to himself, God becomes\nall to him, and Wisdom reigns in a holy temple.\nOf this man, then, among all who drove the mad beasts\nfrom the holy flock, the diligence was greater,\nthe work greater, and it filled the whole world more excellently.\nFor wherever the cunning enemy turned his step,\nwherever he made his doubtful way by hidden windings,\nhe was forestalled by meeting this man, and the snares of a thousand roads\nfound no entrance at all.","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 91 (PL 51:101–103; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/91)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/931":{"o":"Haurire hæc, supero et semper splendore nitere, / Gloria sit; non spes in feni flore caduco. / Sicut enim palmes nullos valet edere fructus / Non in vite manens, quæ de radice ministra / Succum agat in frondes, et musto compleat uvas: / Sic infecundi virtutum, et fruge carentes / Perpetui cibus ignis erunt: qui vite relicta / Audent effusa de libertate comarum / Fidere, ne Christi sint ubertate feraces: / Et mage se credunt propriis excellere posse, / Quam si virtutum placitarum sit Deus auctor. / Viles ergo putent se deformesque futuros, / Cum transformatis fiet Deus unica sanctis / Gloria: corporei nec jam pressura laboris / Conteret incertos, sed in omnibus omnia semper / Christus erit. Quod si pulchrum et super omnia magnum est, / Cur pudet hac etiam fletus in valle potentes / Esse Deo, minimumque operis mortalis habere, / Quod non est nisi peccatum quo discrucietur / Libertas: ad quam solam male gesta recurrant? Et tamen in sanctos animum cum intendimus actus, / Cum desideriis carnis mens casta repugnat, / Cum tentatori non cedimus, et per acerbas / Vexati pœnas, illæso corde mallemus; / Libertate agimus; sed libertate redempta, / Cui Deus est rector, summoque ex lumine lumen, / Vita, salus, virtus, sapientia: gratia Christi est, / Qua currit, gaudet, tolerat, cavet, eligit, instat, / Credit, sperat, amat, mundatur, justificatur. Si quid enim recti gerimus, Domine, auxiliante / Te gerimus; tu corda moves; tu vota petentis","t":"from the highest fountain of true goods, and always to shine\nwith splendor from above; not to hope in the fading flower of grass.\nFor just as a branch can bear no fruit\nunless it remains in the vine, which, serving from the root,\ndrives sap into the leaves and fills the grapes with juice,\nso those barren of virtues and lacking fruit\nwill be food for everlasting fire, who, leaving the vine,\ndare to trust in the sprawling freedom of their foliage,\nso as not to be fruitful through Christ's abundance;\nand they believe they can excel more by their own powers\nthan if God were the author of virtues pleasing to him.\nLet them think, then, that they will be base and misshapen\nwhen God becomes the one glory of the transformed saints,\nand no longer will the pressure of bodily toil\ncrush them in uncertainty, but Christ will always be\nall in all. And if this is fair and great above all things,\nwhy is it shameful, even in this valley of weeping, to be strong\nin God, and to have the least share in mortal work,\nwhich is nothing but the sin by which freedom\nis tormented, to which alone evil deeds go back?\nAnd yet when we bend our mind to holy acts,\nwhen the chaste mind fights against the desires of the flesh,\nwhen we do not yield to the tempter, and, harassed\nby bitter punishments, we would rather [die] with heart unharmed,\nwe act by freedom; but by freedom redeemed,\nwhose ruler is God, light from the highest light,\nlife, salvation, power, wisdom: it is the grace of Christ\nby which it runs, rejoices, endures, takes care, chooses, presses on,\nbelieves, hopes, loves, is cleansed, is justified.\nFor if we do anything right, Lord, we do it with you\nhelping us; you move hearts; you grant the prayers of the one who asks","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 931 (PL 51:145; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/931)."},"prosper-carmen-ingratis/961":{"o":"Quæ dare vis, tribuis, servans largita, creansque / De meritis merita, cumulans tua dona coronis. / Non autem hoc curam minui, studiumque resolvi / Virtutum, aut opus ingenii torpere putandum est, / Quod bona sanctorum tua sunt, et quidquid in illis / Aut sanum, aut validum est, de te viget: ut videatur / Nil actura hominis, te cuncta gerente, voluntas: / Quæ sine te quid agit, nisi quo procul exsulet a te? / Præcipites semper calles, et devia motu / Ingressura suo: nisi fessam, tu bone, et ægram / Suscipias, referas, foveas, tuearis, honestes. / Tunc fiet cursus velox, oculique videntes, / Libera libertas, sapiens sapientia, justum / Judicium, et fortis virtus, et sana facultas. / Hujus opis semper, Pater, indigeamus: ab ipsa / Prodeat arbitrium nostrum, nihil hac sine sensus / Corporei possint, opus ut servile quiescat. / Et tua dum in nobis agitur, non nostra voluntas, / Legitima in sanctis ducamus sabbata festis.","t":"what you wish to give, keeping what you have bestowed, and creating\nmerits from merits, crowning your own gifts with crowns.\nBut it must not be thought that care is lessened by this, or zeal\nfor virtues relaxed, or the work of the mind made sluggish,\nbecause the goods of the saints are yours, and whatever in them\nis sound or strong thrives from you, so that man's will\nmight seem to do nothing while you do all.\nFor without you what does it do, except wander far from you,\never ready to enter headlong paths and byways\nby its own motion, unless you, O good one, take it up\nweary and sick, bring it back, cherish it, guard it, and honor it?\nThen its course will be swift, and its eyes will see;\nfreedom will be free, wisdom wise, judgment\njust, virtue strong, and capacity sound.\nOf this help, Father, may we always stand in need; from it\nmay our choice proceed; without it may our bodily senses\nbe able to do nothing, so that the servile work may rest.\nAnd while your will, not ours, is done in us,\nmay we keep lawful sabbaths in holy feasts.","f":"Prosper of Aquitaine, <i>Ingrat.</i> 961 (PL 51:147; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/prosper-carmen-ingratis/961)."}}