XCVIII.

 

Pomerius, Mauritanian by origin, was ordained presbyter in Gaul. Asked and pleaded by bishop Iulian and presbyter Verus, he answered in the form of a dialogue and composed eight books according to the dialectic art and in suitable language and style, On the nature of the soul and its properties, and on the resurrection and its particular bearing for the faithful in this life and in general for all men. The first book contains discourses "on what the soul is and in what sense it is thought to be created in the image of God", the second, "whether the soul should be thought of as corporeal or incorporeal", the third, "how the soul of the first man was made", fourth, "whether the soul which is put in the body at birth is newly created and without sin, or produced from the substance of the first man like a shoot from a root it brings also with the original sin of the first man", fifth, "a review of the fourth book of the dispute, and an inquiry as to what is the capability of the soul, that is its possibilities, and that it gains its capability from a single and pure will", the sixth, "from where arises the conflict between flesh and the spirit, spoken of by the apostle", seventh, "on the difference between the flesh and the spirit in respect of life, of death and of resurrection", the eighth, answers to questions "concerning the things which it is predicted will happen at the end of the world", to such questions, that is, as are usually propounded concerning the resurrection.

I remember to have once read a hortatory work of his, addressed to someone named Principius, "On contempt of the world, and of transitory things", and another entitled "On vices and virtues". He is said to have written yet other works, which have not come to my knowledge, and to be still writing. He lives in the manner worthy of God, suitable to his profession and rank.

 

(trans. by E. Cushing Richardson, changed by J. Szafranowski)