281.1 A54 v,4 5^-58535 Ancient Christian writers; the works of t?ie Fathers in trans- 281.1 A54 Vo4 5^-58535 Ancient Christian writers; the works of the Fathers in trans- laticru Keep Your Card in This Pocket PMc HH Library Kansas City, Mo. TENSION ENVELOPE CORP. D JULIANUS POMERIUS THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE DE VITA CONTEMPLATE ANCIENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS THE WORKS OF THE FATHERS IN TRANSLATION EDITED BY JOHANNES QUASTEN, S.T.D. JOSEPH C PLUMPE, PH. D. Professor of Ancient Church History Associate Professor of New Testament and Christian Archaeology Greek and Ecclesiastical Latin The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. No. 4 THE NEWMAN BOOKSHOP WESTMINSTER, MARYLAND 1947 JULIANUS POMERIU! THE CONTEMPLATIVE TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY SISTER MARY JOSEPHINE SUELZER, Ph. D. of the Congregation of the Sisters of Providence Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana THE NEWMAN BOOKSHOP WESTMINSTER, MARYLAND 1947 Nihil obstat: JOHANNES QUASTEN, S- T. D. Censor Deputatus Imprimatur: PAULUS C. SCHULTE, D. D. Arcliiepiscopus Indianapolitanus die 21 lunii 1947 COPYRIGHT 1947 BY THE EDITORS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SY J. H FUBST COMPANY, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 3 TEXT 13 BOOK ONE 13 FOREWORD 13 TABLE OF CONTENTS 16 TEXT 17 BOOK Two 53 FOREWORD 53 TABLE OF CONTENTS 55 TEXT 57 BOOK THREE 100 FOREWORD 100 TABLE OF CONTENTS 100 TEXT 102 ' NOTES . 171 To THE INTRODUCTION 173 To BOOK ONE 177 To BOOK Two 183 To BOOK THREE 188 INDEX 197 JULIANUS POMERIUS THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE INTRODUCTION of A scholar note asserts that at the time when the glorioub Church in Africa languished and perished, the illustrious bishop of Aries, St. Caesarius, saved Augustine's teaching the and fruits of his great doctrinal struggles, for Gaul and the Western Church in general; and he adds that Caesarius owed this accomplishment to his teacher, the African ernigr^ 1 Julianus Pomerius. The same author claims for Pomerius the further distinction of having bequeathed to us the oldest 2 pastoral instruction that survives in the West. Most cer- tainly, the master of Caesarius is to be credited with a place of honor in the survival and justification of Augustine's name and teaching; and the thoughtful reader of his one remaining treatise will not deny him his place in the early history of pastoral theology. But who other than patrologists and some few theologians even know the name Pomerius? There are, it is true, several translations of the De vita contemplatively all of them now very old and none of them in English; but it to locate even the specialist finds extremely difficult one of these in our great libraries. The name of Julianus Pomerius and what he wrote ex- perienced a peculiar fate. For at least eight hundred years his De vita contemplativa was ascribed to St. Prosper of Aqui- taine (f after 455). It was not until the seventeenth century that his authorship was contested; but today it is universally conceded, although not absolutely proved, that the treatise is 3 from the pen of Julianus Pomerius, the last-recorded of the 4 rhetors of Gaul. 4 INTRODUCTION 5 Little is known of Pomerius' life. Born in Mauretania in fi school of North Africa, he migrated to Gaul and opened a rhetoric in Aries. At some time around 497 the only date life he had as known with any certainty in Pomerius' pupil Caesarius, the future bishop and saint of Aries/ Pomerius 8 was ordained to the priesthood in Gaul, but nothing is known of the time of his ordination or of his ecclesiastical career. He is addressed as abbot by one of his correspon- dents. If this title is exact, it may have come from his of clerics the directing at Aries an association living common 10 vita to life, as some passages of the De contemplativa appear 11 indicate. Pomerius attained considerable fame in his own lifetime. There are extant some letters written to him by Ruricius, 12 bishop of Limoges, who had become acquainted with him on a visit to Aries. In these letters he begs Pomerius to take 1S up residence in Limoges so that a new circle might benefit his from his learning and piety. Not content with repeated invitation to Pomerius, Ruricius wrote to Aeonius, bishop of Aries, imploring him to prevail upon Pomerius to move to 13a Limoges. None of these letters produced any effect. Nor was Ruricius alone in attempting to persuade Pomerius to desert Aries for a new audience: Ennodius, the future bishop 14 of then a to Pavia, deacon, invited him Italy, but with no more success than Ruricius. Pomerius' worth is further wit- " nessed by the continuator of Gennadius, who writes: He is still in a living way of life worthy of God, suited to his 15 profession and his rank." Four treatises are attributed to Pomerius: De anima et 16 qualitate ems; De virginibus instituendis; De contemptu mundi et rerum transiturarum; and De vita contemplativa, which alone has survived. Its preservation may have as ex- INTRODUCTION 5 planation the fact that at some time between the sixth and the early eight century it hegan to be regarded as the work of a celebrated more man, St. Prosper of Aquitaine. How the error came about is not known; but it is easy to see that once a 17 treatise which contained high praise of St. Augustine had been mistakenly attributed to St. Prosper, the untiring of the champion Bishop of Hippo, the ascription would find ready acceptance. At any rate, from the time of Chrode- 18 of until the cen- gang (f 766) , bishop Metz, seventeenth 19 tury, whenever the De vita contemplativa is mentioned, it is attributed to St. Prosper. The Jesuit Jacques Sirmond 20 was the first to cast doubt upon the ascription to Prosper, basing his argument on a passage in the De vita contem^plativa (2. 9. i) wherein, Sirmond claims, St. Hilary of Aries is referred to as long dead, a reference that could not have been made by St. Prosper since he survived St. Hilary by only some " sixteen years. The passage in question reads: What did the saintly Hilary do? Did not he also leave all his goods to his parents or sell them and distribute the proceeds to the poor? Yet, when because of his perfection he became bishop of the church of Aries, he not only held what that church owned at the time but also increased it by accepting numerous legacies from the faithful. These most holy and perfect bishops (St. Paulinus of Nola and St. Hilary), then, show by plain deeds that what they did can and should be done." It is debatable whether the lines just quoted imply that St. Hilary had died a long time before they were written. They seem barely to indicate that he was no longer alive when they were composed; there is nothing to prevent their having been written at some time in the sixteen or more years between St. Hilary's death and St. Prospers. 21 Cardinal Noris argued more cogently against St. Pros- 6 INTRODUCTION per's authorship by pointing out that it is extremely unlikely that St. Prosper, ardent in his admiration for St. Augustine, the would have praised St. Hilary as freely as the writer of De vita contemplative, did in the passage already cited, since St. Hilary opposed St. Augustine's theology of grace whereas St. Prosper vigorously defended it. Besides, the Augustinism displayed in the De vita contemplativabioad, moderate, and 22 thoroughly practical in character -is utterly different from St. of of that of Prosper. Moreover, an examination the style St. Prospers genuine works and that of the De vita contem 23 plativa reveals many dissimilarities. Conclusive proofs that Pomerius wrote the De vita con- templativa are the testimony of St. Isidore of Seville and the statement of authorship found in some of the oldest manu- further be deduced from the nature scripts. A argument may of the other ascetical writings attributed to Pomerius: he was certainly qualified to write a work like the De vita contemplativa. " of Isidore is The testimony explicit: He (Pomerius) also published three other books on the contemplation of the future life and on the way of the active life and also on the 24 vices and the virtues/' Now, the resume of the contents of the vita De contemplative as given in the foreword to Book 3, " reads: In the first I volume dealt with the contemplative life and the questions to what extent the active life differs from it and how you can with the help of God become a sharer in the contemplative virtue itself. In the second book I God's what I treated, by gift, thought should be said of the active too: I showed the life, usefulness of religious rebuke and the virtue of the patience and way the possessions of the Church should be administered and the manner of spiritual abstinence. Now it remains for me to undertake a discussion INTRODUCTION 7 of the vices and the virtues, not relying on an endowment of which I am not conscious, but assisted by your prayers." of Isidore. This summary agrees exactly with the statement Further, at least four of the oldest manuscripts of the De vita contemplativa tear the name of Pomerius as author. Sirmond himself saw two of these in the seventeenth century: of one in the library of Charles de Montchal, archbishop Toulouse; the other at Angers. P. Quesnel witnessed to the presence in the monastery of La Trappe of a copy of the treatise with Pomerius given as author.