Suggest an Edit — Confessor Paulinus

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Biography

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Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus, commonly known as Paulinus of Nola and venerated in East and West as a confessor, was born at Bordeaux in Roman Aquitaine in the middle of the fourth century. He belonged to a rich senatorial family and received an elite education in rhetoric and letters under the poet Ausonius, who remained an important correspondent. Paulinus pursued the traditional civil career of his class: he was appointed suffect consul and, around 381, served as consular governor of Campania. During that posting he first visited the shrine of the martyr Felix at Nola. He married Therasia, a wealthy Spanish Christian. Their only recorded child, a son named Celsus, died in infancy, an event that contemporaries and later biographers regarded as decisive in turning the couple toward a life of ascetic renunciation.

After baptism, administered at Bordeaux by Bishop Delphinus, Paulinus and Therasia sold or gave away large portions of their property in Gaul and Spain. They lived for a time in Spain; on Christmas 394 the people of Barcelona forced his ordination to the priesthood. The couple then established themselves permanently at Nola in Campania, next to the tomb of St. Felix. There they built a basilica, monastic quarters, and facilities for pilgrims, and they adopted a life of continence, prayer, and hospitality. Paulinus never joined a later-named religious order; his community was one of the informal ascetic households typical of the late fourth and early fifth centuries.

From Nola he conducted a copious correspondence with the leading Latin churchmen of his generation, including Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, and Rufinus. He also wrote a cycle of poems, the Natalicia, for the annual feast of St. Felix, as well as other verse on biblical and occasional themes. These writings are primary sources for the religious culture of the period and show Paulinus as a cultivated convert who fused classical literary skill with Christian devotion. He was chosen bishop of Nola probably in 409 or 410 and administered the see through the turmoil of the Gothic wars in Italy. Accounts of his episcopate emphasize pastoral care and the redemption of captives.

Paulinus died at Nola on 22 June 431 and was buried at Cimitile near the shrine of Felix. He was honored at once as a saint and confessor; his principal feast day is 22 June. Relics and cult spread in Campania and beyond. Although a medieval tradition credited him with inventing church bells, that story is not attested in his own lifetime; it nevertheless made him a traditional patron of bell-founders. Historically secure is his patronage of Nola, whose people still celebrate him with the Festa dei Gigli. His letters and poems remain the fullest contemporary witness to his life.

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