Prosper:

Prosper’s early remarks

General Comment:

1)14. Hence, when the apostles began to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, Holy Scripture reports of one section of those who heard them preach: And the Gentiles hearing were glad and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to life everlasting believed. And elsewhere it says, when many women listened to Paul’s re aching: A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one that worshiped God, did hear: whose heart the Lord opened to attend to those things which were said by Paul. And again, at the very moment that the preachers of the gospel were sent out to all the nations, the apostles were forbidden to go to certain regions by Him who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, with the result, of course, that many, detained and going astray during this delay of the gospel, died without having known the truth and without having been sanctified in baptism. Let, then, Holy Scripture say what happened: And when they had passed through Phrygia and the country of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. And when they were come into Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not. Is there any wonder that at the very beginning of the preaching of the gospel the apostles could not go except where the Spirit of God wanted them to go, when even now we see that many of the nations only begin to have a share in the Christian grace, while others have not yet got a glimpse of that divine gift? Prosper of Aquitaine: Defense of St. Augustine, trans., by P. De letter, (New York: Newman Press, 1963), 34.

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