Julianus Pomerius

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Julianus Pomerius († around or soon after 500) was a Christian clergyman about whose life little is known. He probably fled the Vandals from North Africa (Morocco, Mauritania) to Gaul , where he worked as a priest and rhetoric teacher in Arles at the end of the 5th century .

He was the teacher of Caesarius of Arles , who later became Bishop of Arles. Of his writings, only the Vita contemplativa is preserved in three books, a spiritual guide for clerics and laypeople, which was written around 500 and extols asceticism. It is considered the first treatise on Christian spirituality and was very popular. In contrast to the title, books 2 and 3 also deal with practical doctrine of virtues (Vita activa). There are over 90 manuscripts and from 1486 many prints. The work was partially wrongly ascribed to Prosper Tiro of Aquitaine . It is addressed to a bishop Julianus as the client, but he could not be identified. He is influenced by John Cassianus and Augustine of Hippo . He saw himself as a pupil of Augustine. His thoughts on church property influenced later councils.

There are also letters from the Gallo-Roman Ruricus , who died in 507/10 and was Bishop of Limoges, to Pomerius. Otherwise, only parts of his writings have been preserved (Pseudo-Gennadius and Isidore ).

Fonts

  • Latin edition in Patrologia Latina 59, Sp. 411-520 ( digitized version )
  • La Vie contemplative, Paris 1995 (French translation, introduction by Pierre Riché)
  • The contemplative life, Catholic University of America, Washington, Westminster (Maryland) 1947 (English translation and commentary by Mary Josephine Suelzer)

There is an older German translation by Johann Georg Pfister (St. Prosper on the contemplative life, Würzburg 1826).

literature

  • Friedrich Degenhart: Studies on Julianus Pomerius (= program of the humanistic high school Eichstätt). 1905
  • Christoph Eger, Julianus Pomerus, in: Walter Kasper u. a. Lexicon for Theology and Church, Volume 5, Herder 1996, Sp. 1080
  • W. Enßlin, Pauly's Realencyclopedie, Volume 21, 1876
  • MLW Laistner: The Influence During the Middle Ages of the Treatise De vita contemplativa and Its Surviving Manuscripts . In: Chester G. Starr (ed.): The Intellectual Heritage of the Early Middle Ages: Selected Essays by MLW Laistner , New York 1966, pp. 40–56 (first in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, Vatican 1946, pp. 344–356 ).
  • Jean Devisse: L'influence de Julien Pomere sur les clercs carolingiens: de la pauvrete aux Ve et IXe siecles. In: Revue d'histoire de l'église de France, Volume 61, 1970, pp. 285-295.
  • KS Frank, Lexicon of the Middle Ages , Volume 5, 803
  • Fritz Schalk: On the doctrine of the life and monastic literature (Cassian and Julian Pomerius). In: Verbum and Signum . Festschrift Friedrich Ohly, Munich 1975, Volume 2, pp. 71-78.
  • Kurt Ruh : history of occidental mysticism. Volume 1 . Beck, Munich 1990, pp. 139ff (Chapter 4).
  • William E. Klingshirn: Caesarius of Arles: The Making of a Christian Community in Late Antique Gaul. Cambridge, 1994.
  • J. Timmermann: Sharers in the Contemplative Virtue: Julianus Pomerius's Carolingian Audience . In: Comitatus, Volume 45, 2014, pp. 1-44.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christoph Eger, Lexicon for Theology and Church
  2. ↑ Kurt Ruh: History of Occidental Mysticism , p. 139
  3. ↑ Eger, loc. cit., W. Hartmann, The Synods in the Carolingian Empire and in Italy, Paderborn 1998, p. 158
personal data
SURNAME Pomerius, Julianus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Clergyman in Arles
DATE OF BIRTH 5th century
DATE OF DEATH 5th century or 6th century