Paulinus of Nola

Pontius Meropius Paulinus was born in the mid-fourth century, most often dated to about 354, at Bordeaux (Burdigala) in the Roman province of Aquitania. He belonged to a rich senatorial family that owned extensive estates in Gaul, Italy, and Spain. His father held high imperial office, and Paulinus received the literary education expected of his class. At Bordeaux he was a pupil of the poet and rhetorician Ausonius, who remained attached to him and later expressed dismay at his conversion. Paulinus’s early career followed the traditional path of a Gallic aristocrat in the later Roman Empire: he entered the Senate, held a suffect consulship in the later 370s, and about 381 served as governor of Campania, residing in that Italian province and becoming acquainted with the shrine of the martyr Felix at Nola.

After leaving office he married Therasia, a Spanish Christian of considerable fortune. The marriage allied two great property-holding families and was, by all contemporary indications, a genuine partnership. They had a son, Celsus, who died only a few days after birth. Grief over this loss, together with the influence of Therasia and of the Christian circles they frequented, contributed to a decisive change of life. Paulinus was baptized, an event usually placed around 389 and connected with Bishop Delphinus of Bordeaux. Husband and wife then began to dispose of their wealth, supporting the poor and the church, and to live in continence. Relatives who stood to inherit were angered; Ausonius wrote to recall Paulinus to poetry and public life; yet the couple persisted.

In 394, while they were in Spain, Paulinus was ordained to the priesthood at Barcelona by Bishop Lampius. Ancient accounts indicate that the ordination was urged by the local congregation and was not a step Paulinus had sought. Shortly afterward he and Therasia left Spain for Campania and settled at Cimitile, beside the tomb of Saint Felix outside Nola. There they created a residential and liturgical complex: churches, courtyards, and lodgings for pilgrims and for a community living under a simple monastic discipline. Paulinus composed annual poems, the natalicia, for Felix’s feast, and he poured resources into building and decoration. Therasia died at Nola some years before her husband, probably in the first decade of the fifth century.

Paulinus became bishop of Nola around 409, succeeding to a see he had already long served by his presence and benefactions. He remained bishop until his death more than two decades later. During the insecurity that followed Alaric’s invasion of Italy he was remembered for charity, including the ransoming of captives. He maintained a wide correspondence that places him at the center of Latin Christian culture in his generation. Letters and exchanges link him with Augustine of Hippo, who held him in high regard; with Jerome, whose relations with him were more uneven; with Sulpicius Severus, biographer of Martin of Tours; and with other bishops and aristocrats. His prose letters and his poems are principal sources for the religious mentality of Western aristocrats who turned to asceticism in the Theodosian age.

Paulinus died at Nola on 22 June 431 and was buried in the basilica complex at Cimitile associated with Saint Felix. His cult is of great antiquity; the Church keeps his feast on 22 June. Later tradition credited him with introducing bells into Christian worship, a claim that made him a patron of bell-ringers, though the historical basis of that attribution is uncertain. He is the patron saint of Nola and of other Campanian localities. Modern scholarship values him as a witness to conversion, patronage, and poetic culture in the late antique West, and as a bishop who combined senatorial wealth, monastic aspiration, and pastoral office.