Samuel Cardwell: Augustine, Prosper, and the Stirrings of a Missionary Conscience

In the early fifth century, numerous Christian intellectuals (including Ambrose, Jerome, and Prudentius) believed that the task of spreading the gospel was already complete. Jerome, for instance, wrote that he did not think that ‘any nation remained which did not know the name of Christ’. The emperors Constantine and Theodosius had ushered in tempora christiana, leading to a widespread belief that the end of the world was imminent, in fulfilment of Christ’s promise in Matthew 24:14. However, Augustine of Hippo and his follower Prosper of Aquitaine knew better. Augustine, in a letter dated to 418-20, noted there were tribes outside of the Empire who had no knowledge whatsoever of Christ; he argued that Christ’s commission to be his witnesses ‘to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8) applied not only to the Apostles but to all Christians. Prosper expanded on this in De vocatione omnium gentium ('On the Calling of All Nations'), asserting that ‘the gospel of the Cross of Christ was extended to all men without exception’, whether or not they happened to dwell within the limits of the Empire. This paper will argue that, in these texts, Augustine and Prosper began to develop a ‘theology of mission’, which ran counter to the theological mainstream of their era, but which would have a profound and far-reaching impact both theologically and historically.