Epigrams Drawn from the Sayings of Saint Augustine
Liber epigrammatum ex sententiis sancti Augustini
· Prosper of Aquitaine
· c. 430-440
· poetry
Latin · domain: latin-poetry-late-antique · researched 2026-11-14
partial / older only. An English translation exists but is partial or older than the critical edition. The gap is a modern, complete translation from the original. A rendering of a daughter version does not count here: it is recorded on the dossier of the text it actually translates.
Why this is in the register
Prosper versified maxims of Augustine in elegiac couplets as a portable Augustinian handbook, and only two of them have been translated into English. White's Early Christian Latin Poets prints 'Epigram 52; Epigram 77' as its entire Prosper epigram selection, alongside an excerpt of the Carmen de ingratis (https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/alma990085386220203941). The work is otherwise known in English only through scholarship: HOLLIS lists the new critical edition, Albertus G. A. Horsting's Liber Epigrammatum in CSEL 100 (De Gruyter, 2016), which is a Latin text with an English introduction rather than a translation, together with an Italian bilingual edition of one poem (Ad coniugem suam, Loffredo, 2009) and the Brepols Opera (https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/alma990146554860203941; https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Prosper%20of%20Aquitaine%20epigrams&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 A search for an English translation of the epigrams returns nothing (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Prosper%20epigrams%20Augustine%20translation&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 Note also that Prosper's only psalm work in Patrologia Latina 51 is the prose Expositio Psalmorum a C usque ad CL, not a versified psalter: the volume's elenchus lists Epigrammata, Carmen de Ingratis, Expositio Psalmorum and Carmen de Providentia, and no verse psalter appears among them (https://archive.org/details/patrologiaecur51mign).
These epigrams are the main channel by which Augustine's theology reached early medieval readers in verse, and they are a rare case of a layman turning dogmatic prose into memorisable poetry. With two epigrams translated, the anthology's design - which doctrines Prosper chose, and how he compressed them - cannot be studied in English at all.
Hwang, Alexander Y. "Intrepid lover of perfect grace : the life and thought of Prosper of Aquitaine." Washington, D.C. : Catholic University of America Press, c2009. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990120369640203941
Prosper, of Aquitaine, Saint, approximately 390-approximately 463 · 1964 i.e. 1965 · eng
Prosper, of Aquitaine, Saint, approximately 390-approximately 463. "The Carmen de providentia Dei attributed to Prosper of Aquitaine." Washington, Catholic University of America Press, 1964 [i.e. 1965], 1964 i.e. 1965. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990022483290203941
Young, Joseph James, 1912-. "Studies on the style of the De vocatione omnium gentium ascribed to Prosper of Aquitaine." Washington, D.C. : The Catholic University of America, 1952. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990022031960203941
Prosper, of Aquitaine, Saint, approximately 390-approximately 463 · 2009 · ita, lat
Prosper, of Aquitaine, Saint, approximately 390-approximately 463. "Ad coniugem suam." Napoli : Loffredo, 2009. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990127139320203941
Prosper, of Aquitaine, Saint, approximately 390-approximately 463 · julio 2023 · lat, spa
Prosper, of Aquitaine, Saint, approximately 390-approximately 463. "La vocación de todos los pueblos." Madrid (España) : Ciudad Nueva, julio 2023. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/99160377194403941
Cite: Tergwame, “Epigrams Drawn from the Sayings of Saint Augustine”
(latin gap dossier), 2026.
https://naxiai.com/christian/gaps/latin-prosper-epigrammata