Saint Prudentius of Troyes | |
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Born | Aragon |
Died | 6 April 861 Troyes, France |
Honored in |
Anglican Communion Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church |
Feast | 6 April |
Prudentius (born Aragon, Spain – died 6 April 861 at Troyes, France) was bishop of Troyes, and a celebrated opponent of Hincmar of Reims in the controversy on predestination.
Prudentius left Spain in his youth and came to the Frankish Empire, where he changed his name from Galindo to Prudentius. He was educated at the Palatine School, At the court of King Louis the Pious he took over writing the Annals of St Bertin from about 835 until his death in 861. He became Bishop of Troyes in 843.
At Troyes his feast is celebrated on 6 April as that of a saint, though the Bollandists do not recognize his cult. His works, with the exception of his poems, are printed in Migne's Patrologia Latina, CXV, 971-1458. His poems in Monumenta Germaniae Historica Poetæ Lat., II, 679 sq.
In the controversy on predestination between Gottschalk of Orbais, Archbishop Hincmar of Reims, and Bishop Pardulus of Laon, he opposed Hincmar in an epistle addressed to him. In this epistle, which was written about 849, he defends a double predestination, viz., one for reward, the other for punishment, not, however, for sin. He further upholds that Christ died only for those who are actually saved.
The same opinion he defends in his De prædestinatione contra Johannem Scotum, which he wrote in 851 at the instance of Archbishop Wenilo of Sens who had sent him nineteen articles of Eriugena's work on predestination for refutation. Still it appears that at the synod of Quierzy, he subscribed to four articles of Hincmar which admit only one predestination, perhaps out of reverence for the archbishop, or out of fear of King Charles the Bald.