Paulinus the Bishop
Acta Sanctorum, June 22
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://actasanctorum.org/june/day-22/paulinus-the-bishop.html
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ON ST. PAULINUS THE BISHOP

OF NOLA IN ITALIAN CAMPANIA.

IN THE YEAR 431.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Paulinus, Bishop of Nola in Campania, a province of Italy (St.)

BY D. P.

§. I. On the cult of the Saint and on the writers of the Acts, Uranius his contemporary, and Sacchini and Chifflet Priests of the Society of Jesus.

[1] The ornament of the city of Nola,
Paulinus its Bishop, inscribed in the Calendars
of the Saints I find in the most ancient
Codices; [The eulogy was first written by Florus of Lyon.] and in the Epternach one,
written about a thousand years ago, used,
if not St. Willibrord himself
wrote it, after the Saints of the Hieronymian
Martyrology, common to all transcripts,
thus in the same character is read, In the city of Nola,
of Paulinus the Bishop: for which in the Corbie one,
but by a more recent hand, is added, In the city of Nola,
the Feast of St. Paulinus Bishop and Confessor:
which nearly the same things in the Lucca and Barberini ones,
a little more recent and therefore by the same hand as the rest,
are transcribed; except that the Barberini manuscript
omits the title of Confessor; but the Blume one only
has, Nola, the Feast of St. Paulinus. The Corbie Calendar
in Gaul "of Paulinus the Gardener" (nay rather of Nola),
Bishop and Confessor. More briefly too the Augsburg one
of St. Ulrich, and the Gellone, "of Paulinus the Confessor." [The name in the most ancient manuscript Martyrologies.]
Florus of Lyon, the days vacant in the genuine Martyrology of Bede
somewhat supplying, about
the boundary of the 8th and 9th centuries (whom afterward Usuard,
Ado, and the rest old and new, and the
very compilers of the Roman Martyrology eagerly followed,
some with a briefer, others with a more prolix phrase), Florus, I say,
of Lyon added to the name a more prolix eulogy,
after the words of Bede about St. Alban Protomartyr of Britain,
and that of this kind in three copies,
Arras, Liège and Tournai: On the same day,
at Nola the deposition of St. Paulinus, Bishop and Confessor,
who, very rich and wealthy, at the word
of the Lord sold all that he had, and
gave to the poor. Then made Bishop,
he shone so much, his virtue multiplied in the charisms of graces, [Uranius the Presbyter wrote a Letter about his death:]
that at his death St. Martin,
and St. Januarius an Italian Bishop,
before he gave up his spirit, with bodily eyes
he beheld: for before him from this
world they migrated; Martin indeed before the end
of the 4th century, but Januarius about its beginning:
but he himself, as testifies Uranius the Presbyter his intimate,
who about his death to Pacatus wrote,
died on the 10th day before the Kalends of July, Bacchus and Antiochus
most renowned men being Consuls, that is, in the year 431.

[2] If the same Uranius had taken care to write, with the same diligence as the death, also
his life, there would have been no need for learned men to labor in ordering
it. First it was done, [The Life published by Rosweyde long Anonymous,] but he chose to remain Anonymous,
a learned Priest of our Society, when he had learned that Heribert Rosweyde
intended to illustrate and print
the works of the Saint, as they came forth from the Plantin press
in 1622. There among the Works
of Paulinus and the responsive Notes of Fronton du Duc and Rosweyde himself,
is read the Life of the Saint, composed from his writings
and from the ancient eulogies of him, under
this little Preface of Rosweyde to the Reader. As from Rome
this Life, composed by a friendly Member,
I received; so with you I communicate it. He wished namely
to lie hidden rather than to become famous: thus when
to Paulinus he gives his color, from him this warmth
he drew. Nor was it mine to violate the faith,
by which he wished me bound. Provided Paulinus
be useful to the public, enough of fruits to himself he reckons to have returned,
if conscience alone he have as witness.
But though he wished to lie hidden, and Rosweyde kept the faith
of the secret; yet the whole secret was disclosed
from the first century or Library of Writers of the Society
of Jesus; whether its collector Philip Alegambe
knew the Author, from the autograph preserved at Rome
and the very well-known hand there; or our Bollandus,
at Antwerp caring for the impression, to the name of Francis
Sacchini, [afterward known to be Francis Sacchini:] his other writings being enumerated by Philip,
added the Life of St. Paulinus published by
Heribert Rosweyde, certain that he himself
was the author, from the Letters of both between themselves, above
this matter after the death of both found among the papers
of Rosweyde. Nor is it difficult, to one perusing the second,
third, fourth, and fifth part of the History of the Society,
elaborated by Sacchini, to detect there and
here the same style; nay not rarely the same
phrases: indeed, when in number 6 here I read, that
Ausonius undertook to instruct Paulinus, with the sedulity
and industry of a preceptor, with the humanity of a father
and piety, I immediately recalled, often by
me read in the Life of Blessed Stanislaus Kostka, about the year
1612 at Rome published by Sacchini, that that holy
youth, in cherishing his own brother Paul, as
he surpassed the love of brothers, so he conquered the services
of servants. But the Life of Paulinus was almost the last
literary labor of Sacchini, for when,
the work of the History having been advanced as far as was permitted, by the General
Mutio Vitelleschi he had been taken as Secretary,
in his spare hours he gave this little task to his old friend,
and three years after died, in the year 1625, on the 16th of September,
in the 37th of his entering the Society.

[3] Another engaged in the same subject, but more
solicitous to untie the knots of history than to weave the history of the Life,
was likewise our Pierre François
Chifflet, in a work printed forty years
after, to which he gave the title Paulinus Illustrated;
which he wished to serve as an Appendix to the works, if at any time
anyone should take them up, to be corrected,
ordered, and supplemented according to his prescription, [the other Pierre François Chifflet] for that to him
then it was not permitted to do. By what reason, or with what
counsel he applied his mind to such a writing, thus in a few words
he discloses. There came into my hands some works
of Paulinus, written by hand. These being collated by me
with the Plantin edition, of all the most accurate;
I saw first, that to this is lacking the Letter of Paulinus
to Eucherius and Galla, then
dwelling in the island of Lero; brief indeed that one,
but like a gem in a small bulk
of greatest price. I understood from this Letter,
a most ample field opened to me, to
put to flight those, who had feigned for themselves Eucherius the younger
Bishop of Lyon, the husband of Galla;
which however to Eucherius the Elder,
nay to the only one of that name among the Bishops of Lyon
as her spouse, this Letter of Paulinus would show.
Besides, from the same manuscript codices,
and from the Collectanea of Florus of Lyon on
all the epistles of the Apostle Paul, I detected
that imperfect in the printed editions is the Letter, which
was entitled to Pammachius: and that to the same
Pammachius was given almost the whole Letter of Paulinus,
which was inscribed to Alethius; [with an augmentation of the Letters]
whence I grieved that the Roman family of Paula was disturbed,
even by most learned men, who from this
ill-perceived, and preposterously digested Letter,
affirmed Alethius to be the son-in-law of Paula, the husband moreover of Rufina her
youngest-born daughter: when
yet that Rufina, from Jerome, was established to have been carried off by an
untimely death, in marriageable age indeed,
but more probably before marriage; certainly to Alethius
of Cahors she had never been a wife. From
the carelessness of the compilers we have known this stain
long since affused to the two Letters of Paulinus to Pammachius and Alethius,
which by the sure testimonies of remoter
antiquity was to be washed away.

[4] I observed besides, from the same manuscript
codices, that the published Letter of Paulinus to holy
Amandus is to be divided into two;
as also the Letter to Romanianus, [and with a correction of the same,]
which includes another given in verse to Licentius his son.
Finally diverse from the
published readings, in almost all the Letters of Paulinus,
from the same copies written by hand in old
parchment, I observed; which
the genius and talent of Paulinus, beyond the published ones,
would set forth. What more; Paulinus's Consulship,
Baptism, Monasticism, Priesthood,
Episcopal ordination, the Feasts
dedicated to St. Felix, the passages of Melania the Elder and
of Niceta Bishop of the Dacians through Nola,
to wrong times by most to be assigned
I observed. His Captivity also …
neither to be restored to its time, nor its narration
(which is Pope Gregory's) truly to be ascribed to Uranius;
and almost whatever so great a man either had done
or written, into chronology preposterously, [and with the elucidation of the history depending thence,]
even by the most learned of the more recent, to be digested.
What should I mention the vision of St. Paulinus, to John
Bishop of Naples three days before his death
offered; which by some Italian Writers,
nay even Neapolitan, wrongly I saw attributed
to John, among the Bishops of Naples
the fourth of that name, who about eight hundred
years ago flourished; when it is to be attributed to an older
John, the first of this name,
it is plain, who in the year nearest the death of Paulinus,
of the Christian era 433,
on Holy Saturday, the second of the month of April,
had flown to the Powers above? [in order to a new edition of the works,] These and other things about St. Paulinus's
affairs observed by me, almost
moved me, to undertake a new
edition of his Works, to which, after Heribert
Rosweyde's and Fronton du Duc's responsive Notes,
in the third place I should add mine; that from
all something might exist, by which to the students of so eloquent
and so holy a Writer satisfaction might be done:
and I should suggest to them, to seek out the Panegyric of the Great Theodosius,
and his other works not yet published,
through all the hiding-places of the ancient libraries.
But there hindered especially the condition of my
Dijon abode, very inopportune for more accurate
printing: and it settled in my mind at last,
to cast whatever for illustrating Paulinus had been gathered
by me, into this little book, to be of profit one day
to one undertaking the whole (as I hope) impression of his Works.
If you approve my plan, and my little notes, greater things
having yourself undertaken, you should wish to use, I shall acquiesce.

[5] Thus far that Preface, in which there could also
have been mentioned our Henschen, on account
of the labor by no means to be despised undertaken by him, [not without the aid of G. Henschen.] as
he was asked, in collating the Letter of Uranius with the Saint-Maximin
and Schecking manuscripts, and in explaining
the chronology of the Bishops of Naples, and the age of the two
Johns, whence much aided the Author professes, in a eucharistic Letter thereupon
which I have; and the same is plain from Henschen's autograph
animadversions which I received. There follows
the Preface an Index of the Parts and Chapters,
from which at the first glance of the eye the Reader learns that
Part I is on the works of St. Paulinus, especially
on the Letters; Part II, on the Chronology of his deeds and
writings: which afterward in chapter 35
he gathers into a synopsis not unprofitably to be here appended.

[6] In the year of Christ 354 at Bordeaux in Aquitaine
St. Paulinus was born.

377. The Emperor and consul Valens being dead,
[From this the chronological order of his life.] on the 5th day before the Ides of August Paulinus was substituted in the Consulship
for the remainder of the year.

380. Paulinus is present at Nola on the 14th day
of January, sacred to St. Felix, and adopts him
for his Patron.

389. In this year at least, before he undertook
the Priesthood, in the fourth year, Paulinus at Bordeaux
by Delphinus the Bishop was baptized.

393. St. Paulinus in Spain, his means being poured out
on the poor, enters upon the monastic life.

394. On the first day of this year, according
to Dionysius reckoned from the Nativity of Christ,
which day falls on a Sunday, consecrated
was Priest by Lampius Bishop of Barcelona
Paulinus; who in the January of the same year
sang his first Feast-poem to St. Felix of Nola;
and thence others to fifteen, in each single year
single ones, to the same patron and lord of his estate
as a tribute paid. The same at the beginning of this year
gave to Severus his sixth Letter, and
a little after, about the beginning of spring his fifth.
After Easter he came to Milan to St.
Ambrose the Bishop: thence having stayed at Rome some time,
to Nola at last by vow
to St. Felix he betook himself.

395. The Emperor Theodosius on the 16th
day before the Kalends of February having died, Paulinus
with a most elegant panegyric paid him obsequies. In the same
year to Severus the first and second, likewise
to Augustine not yet Bishop the first
and second Letters he gave. Augustine himself
in the month of December, Valerius still living,
the aged Bishop of Hippo, was ordained Co-bishop.

396. There were given this year Paulinus's
Letters to Romanianus, and to Licentius:
likewise his third and fourth to Severus.

397. St. Paulinus seems to have been consecrated
Bishop of Nola in the month of January,
and not long after to have given a Consolatory letter
to Pammachius on the death of Paulina his wife.
To this very year are to be referred
the Letters of Paulinus to Severus the 13th, and to
Jovius the 38th.

398. The first coming of Niceta Bishop of the Dacians
to Nola for the Feast of St.
Felix. In the same year Melania the elder, returning to Rome
from Palestine, visited Paulinus on the way
at Nola. Besides there were given Paulinus's
Letters to Severus the 7th and 14th.

399. In this year Paulinus issued Letters,
to Alethius the 33rd, to Desiderius
the 35th, to Sebastian the 40th, to Delphinus
the 2nd; likewise to Severus the 8th, 9th and 10th:
of which some he had already from the preceding year
written.

401. There was given Paulinus's Letter to Delphinus
the third.

402. The second coming of Niceta Bishop of the Dacians
to Nola, for the Feast of St. Felix.
There were written in the same year the Letters of Paulinus
to Severus the 11th on the Cross, and the 12th on the basilicas.

409. Rome is besieged by Alaric and with gold
is redeemed; the following year it is taken and despoiled,
and in one or the other St. Paulinus into Africa captive
is led away, whence afterward with his fellow-citizens
he is sent back to Nola.

416. About this year was given the letter
of Paulinus to Augustine the 4th, by which both Melania
the elder's son deceased in Africa and
the surviving parent herself he commends.

419. The Emperor Honorius Paulinus,
adorned with great praises, invites to a Synod.

431. Bassus and Antiochus being Consuls, on the 10th day before the Kalends of July,
about the fourth hour of the night St. Paulinus died.

Thus far Chifflet, from whose Chronology I dissent
in nothing, except as to the year of his Ordination,
which below I determine to be deferred up to the year
409 or beyond; and as to the Vandal servitude
in Africa, which to be of another Paulinus, also
Bishop of Nola but almost a whole century younger,
I think I shall demonstrate in the Analecta. [The remaining parts of Chifflet's little work are indicated:]

[7] Chapter 34 and the last of this Part II,
constitute the testimonies of Writers, especially the ancient,
about St. Paulinus, by which are nearly established
the things which about his deeds in this work have been disputed.
Among these the first place deservedly holds
the Letter of Uranius, from the Troyes manuscript more correct
than that which Surius published; to which also there contributed
various Readings from the Belgian manuscripts collated by Henschen,
as we have said: besides which he himself from the Medici
manuscript at Florence received, and with us communicated,
a transcript of the same Letter, interpolated from Gregory the Great,
to which I shall compare it also to be given from Chifflet's edition,
and I shall render it nearly whole, and indeed
in the first place, and that by the privilege
of antiquity and greatest authority, although
it treats almost only of his death, and is nearly word for word contained
in the Life compiled by our Sacchini,
then his Annotations or Illustrations, [and the votive Poem of Justus Rycquius.] and
insofar as need shall be also corrections chapter by chapter I shall interpose
and finish with the Votive Poem of Justus
Rycquius the Belgian, published at Rome during the Jubilee of the year 1625;
which if from the author his friend sooner
Rosweyde had received, without doubt he would have wished it added
to the works of Paulinus, because it contains a most elegant synopsis
of the life. But the poem itself I bring forth the more willingly
because I see this learned Belgian passed over
by Aubert Le Mire, exhibiting the writers of the 16th and 17th centuries
collected with diligent care, and also
by his nephew Aubert vanden Eeden giving the same to light.
Andreas Valerius indeed mentions Rycquius
in his Belgian Library, page 604, where he says he again to Rome
set out in the year 1624 and under Urban
Pope VIII's auspices and at the invitation of Cardinal Cobelluzzi,
chose as the seat of his fortunes Bologna, where
three years after by an untimely death he died: but published
by him many works Valerius enumerates, he is silent about that Votive
Poem.

[8] Ambrose Leo, in the Greek and Latin language
learned, [The renowned house of the Saint at Nola.] and a physician and Philosopher most renowned,
at the beginning of the 16th century, among several others which in various
kinds he wrote books, in the universal Library
of Gesner and the Neapolitan of Toppi recounted; in a little book
about Nola his fatherland, printed at Venice under the date of the year
1614, almost one century after his death (unless
Toppi erred in the cipher) in book 2, chapter 13, in Chifflet,
narrates something about St. Paulinus's house at Nola, by no means
to be omitted in this Paragraph
which is about his cult. "Where the Shrine of Saint Paulinus is,
he says, is clear. It is a building alone,
and without a cell. There clings to it a great house,
which to us as boys was the lodging only of beggars
coming, called for that
reason the Hospital: but now into a monastery
it has been changed, in which the Priests of Saint Augustine
dwell. But in that shrine, every year
ceremonies and fairs are held, with
processions, spectacles, and a Master of the fair
… I think meanwhile that it is called St. Paulinus's house
not because the Bishop himself inhabited it, whose
dwelling must have been the same as his predecessors'
or equally near the Cathedral church; but
because he caused it to be built for the use of the poor and
of pilgrims, that in it through himself he might minister, or
because he had it, while still a Presbyter, as a place
for exercising similar works of piety. But there are
celebrated those fairs from the 16th day
before the Kalends of July, up to the 10th before the same. These things
Leo.

§. II. On the year of his Ordination.

[9] Almost half his age, says Sacchini
number 2, [Born about the year 344] that is, to about the
thirty-eighth year, to the human commonwealth
Paulinus lived; from that time to the seventy-seventh
year, that is, to his last
breath, to religion and holiness.
That this is a just division is proved from Paulinus's
Letter 41 to Augustine, which Letter 42 follows
to the same, both written to him not yet Bishop;
for he mentions in it an office common to him with that one,
that is, the Presbyterate, and calls the Bishop the common Father of others.
But to both Augustine answers through Letters 32 and 34,
and in the latter indicates, that he had recently been created Bishop.
But he was created in the month of December of the year
395. The month he himself indicates, Homily 25 among
50, chapter 3, when in that which he had on the anniversary
of his ordination he says "the Nativity of the Lord being imminent." [and in the year of his age 38 converted from the world,]
The year designates Prosper in his Chronicle, Olybrius
and Probinus being Consuls. But in that year of age
the 40th year he indicates that he had completed, Paulinus to Augustine
below number 15, and that he was in the second of his conversion:
from which if you proceed to the year 431,
you will have the 77th year of age at least begun,
and in the year 344 or a few months earlier born
would have been Paulinus, but one year later, if
it please to accede to the opinion of Pagi in his Critica,
holding Augustine ordained in the year 396.

[10] It is more difficult to assign with certainty the year of the Episcopal
Ordination, and therefore Sacchini number 65
ingenuously confesses, at what time, or by what reason
Paulinus was created Bishop, [Chifflet thinks the Bishop was ordained about the year 396] is plainly unknown
to himself. Chifflet chapter 12 thinks, that from
his own writings it can be detected, that this his dignity,
about two years more or less from his withdrawal
to Nola took its beginning; but he withdrew to Nola
from Barcelona the Saint, where he had been by popular violence
compelled to undertake the Presbyterate, in the year 394
ending. The first argument he takes from the Letter
to Pammachius, written (as he himself shows)
in the year 396 or the beginning of 397: where speaking
of the writings of Olympius the Bishop, he does not use
the title of Father (as became a Presbyter of lower Order)
but "our Brother": yet he confesses
that the Puteanus codex at the name of Olympius lacks the Bishop's
title. Secondly, that in the Feast-poem 4, [because he seems in that year to mention his Feast:] which to St.
Felix Paulinus composed, in the year 396 or the beginning
of 397, he mentions also his own Feast, in which there are
public joys for innumerable crowds; meaning indeed the day
not of his nativity, which after the manner of seculars
the Bishops did not celebrate with banquets and games,
but of his Ordination, to which to be celebrated with sacred sermons
and solemn Offices the people of the whole diocese
were wont to be invited, the Fathers testify, appearing
at least their Presbyters, with whom also
of the Roman Pontiffs; who more solemnly than the rest on such
a day, or rather within the octave (for the whole eight days
the festivity lasted) held a Synod of the neighboring
Bishops, Abbots and
Presbyters as many as had assembled. Paulinus's verses are these.

"My yearly vows return to me, at once the yearly
debts of my tongue, your Feast, O most renowned to Christ [which would be the 18th of January;]
Felix, dearer to me than my own Feast; in which,
however much for innumerable crowds the joys are public,
there is something special for your own: that to you Christ
gave us to be, the dear one to a worthless friend bestowing."

[11] But if rightly I grasp Paulinus's sense, he does not ascribe himself the public joys to his own Feast, [but by a very uncertain conjecture.] but
to the Feast of St. Felix, which Paulinus could and ought to have esteemed
above his own Feast in the flesh, when not yet a Bishop,
and counting as yet no other Feast.
That another Feast, namely of his Ordination,
fell within the octave of the same St. Felix, I do not know
whence Chifflet could have suspected: wherefore I only say
that it took place on a Saturday: which dawns into
the first of the Sabbath or the Lord's day itself, as Leo
the Pope speaks, calling this alone the lawful time.
For the year perhaps Chifflet will wish to elicit more
from the words, that for himself, before the innumerable crowds, that he should rejoice
more specially Paulinus says, since other things more proper to the Saint
and as it were domestic are expressed
by the particle "Your"; "that to you Christ
gave us to be"; for nothing bound Paulinus to Felix
by a closer bond, than that
Christ willed him to be Bishop of Nola in the church of St. Felix.
But very weak is that conjecture,
since already from the beginning of his coming to Nola
servitude bound to the Martyr Paulinus professed.
Chifflet adds, that it seems to him that the Feast
of Paulinus fell within the Octave of the Feast of St. Felix,
which since in the year 397 was held on the 4th weekday,
if Paulinus was ordained on the Sunday within the Octave,
he would have had his Feast on the 18th of January, on which
also the Chair of St. Peter was celebrated. [Others prefer the year 409]

[12] An altogether different year designates the last editor of the works
of St. Paulinus, Jean Baptiste le Brun
in the year 1684 at Paris in an epitome of the life which from him
taken Casimir Oudin inserted in his Supplement on Ecclesiastical
Writers. There he says that
the Saint came to Nola and fell into sickness
395 … and on his behalf wrote Anastasius
Pope 399 to the Bishops of Campania,
and at the same time again with a grave and long
sickness labors Paulinus. In the year 402 by Niceta
Bishop of the Dacians and by Melania the elder
he is visited, [before which the Saint was not ordained] Basilicas in the year 403 at Nola he builds
… In the year 409 ending at Nola he is created Bishop,
in the 56th year of age. The same year of Paulinus's
ordination assumes Ludovico Antonio
Muratori, Prefect of the Ambrosian Library at Milan,
in the First Volume of his Anecdota of the year
1697, embracing four poems of St. Paulinus hitherto unpublished,
which he, with notes and disquisitions
augmenting, prefixes also himself a brief Chronology of the life,
but in dissertation XII places this title,
On the time of the Episcopate undertaken by Paulinus.

[13] The lucubration of the aforepraised le Brun I have not yet
chanced to see, nor for those to be awaited does the necessary
delay indulge the haste of the press; [and that by arguments] especially
since I have already from Rome received Muratori's dissertations
pertaining hereto; in which with so great accuracy are refuted
the reasons of Chifflet, that in them can be verified
this Greek "second thoughts are wiser,"
"Second cares wiser." If anything better be offered
toward the end of this impression, a place will be given
in the Appendix or Supplement.

[14] But it is proved either therefore the aforesaid year
409 or another later, because it escapes a double
difficulty by no means explicable to Chifflet; of which
the first is taken from the letter to Severus into which woven
epigrams describe Paul Bishop
of Nola the predecessor of Paulinus, in the newly built by him
basilica of St. Felix, preaching, and the rites of the dedication
performing; whence that Paul then still
lived you may gather; and gratuitously to himself seems to feign
Chifflet, that these things there are so written by Paulinus, because Paul,
though dead, he there caused to be feigned in that twofold
act. For since it is said that "the courts of the new basilica
Paul the Bishop dedicates to eternal uses,"
of no other than the Felician basilica can it be understood:
but this in the time of the work and in the kind of vow
is said to be joined, [on the part of the predecessor Paul consecrating the church in the year 401,] and already dedicated, with
the basilica which Severus in that very or the preceding year
to St. Martin had built and dedicated. That Paul could not
therefore have been dead before the year 397,
as Chifflet presumes: because then dead,
he ought not to have been painted as dedicating a church,
which first in the year 401 was consecrated.

[15] The other difficulty is sought from letter 16, by which
the Saint writes to Amantius, that him Anastasius
the Pope (now he was ordained on the 5th of December of the year
398) some time having intervened (namely after the year
400) even to his Feast (which to his Co-priests
only he is wont) to invite deigned;
[and from Anastasius the Pope inviting Paulinus the Presbyter among the Bishops:] as if among them not numbering himself, and so
not yet a Bishop. Chifflet indeed excepts from this sense,
on account of the "his"; as if by it should only be understood
the Bishops of the Roman province, to
which the Bishops of Campania did not pertain. But those
obliged to come as subjects, do not seem wont
to be invited; therefore the honor of the invitation regarded externs;
of which also Paulinus held worthy,
though only a Presbyter, was something greater.

[16] [Other things adds Muratori.] These same, by me long ago in mind conceived,
from Brun assumes against Chifflet Muratori;
and confirming them strongly further adds:
Other arguments moreover I too will supply.
Writing to Delphinus Bishop of Bordeaux,
he always, and especially in the year
403, calls him "venerable Father," which he would not
have done as a Bishop; for it was the custom in those times,
that Bishops should call one another brothers.
Consult, I pray, Letter XVI
to Delphinus 2, where he says: "The Bishop of Milan also,
your son hitherto, now brother
Venerius had written" &c. You see Venerius,
as soon as he came to the Episcopate, brother
of Delphinus to begin to be called, and that from him
also Paulinus distinguishes himself, certainly with the Episcopal
fillets he was not yet girded. But
let us bring forth clearer things. In the year 404 the Feast-poem
11 recited Paulinus. In it indeed many things about a thief
he has, who the sacred things lately had despoiled. Caught
not without a miracle the wicked robber to St.
Felix is led.
"After the sacred things, the pious Bishop now dismissing the assemblies."
These are the words of our seer, who therefore
from the Bishop of Nola at that time distinguishes
himself. The Feast-poem too the thirteenth
the matter evidently betrays. When to the people of Nola, of opening
the tomb, where St. Felix's bones rested,
the mind had come, says Paulinus:
"— All of us the Bishop sends to us
his Presbyters. As these look on, the craftsman's hand presses
to do the things commanded of the Priest. —"
This Feast-poem in the year 406 Paulinus elaborated.
But the matter there mentioned lately to have happened
is almost certain to me; for not so great
a work would the holy Poet long have suppressed in silence.
Therefore, since another Bishop sitting at Nola there
is expressly said, not even in the year 406 the Episcopal
Chair had Paulinus ascended. Then
why would this remarkable dignity, if to himself
it had befallen, be passed over in the Feast-poem 13
by Paulinus? In no words there does he spare, to recount the honors
conferred on himself, and the deeds of his life past;
and would he have dismissed this greatest office unsaluted?
Do not believe it. But whether the Bishop
only in the year 409 advanced, lies hidden
without doubt I judge. Nonetheless of the most learned
Brun's opinion one must now acquiesce,
by whom not without strong reasons, or at least open
conjectures this affirmed I persuade myself.
But what Ambrose Leo asserted,
book 2, chapter 12, of Nola, namely that Paulinus
was before Bishop of the Church of Fundi;
let it be held the dream of an otherwise learned Author.
The rest of Paulinus's deeds, and his
marvelous holiness, to pursue the brevity determined for me
does not allow. If however anyone should undertake
this task to be adorned, an abundant harvest
from the Feast-poem 13 he will draw.

LETTER OF URANIUS THE PRESBYTER

On the death of St. Paulinus, to Pacatus.

From the Troyes manuscript published by Chifflet, and collated with other manuscript copies.

Paulinus, Bishop of Nola in Campania, a province of Italy (St.)

BHL Number: 6558

BY URANIUS, A CONTEMPORARY

[1] To the illustrious lord and in Christ deservedly venerable
Pacatus, a) Uranius the Presbyter.
By the letters of your Nobility a second time I am solicited, [Preface.]
that to you the death of St. Paulinus I may faithfully report. [Wisdom I, II]
I will do indeed what you command, but I fear,
lest not so effectively as you wish, I do, what
I desire to do. Yet because to command you deign, faithfully
and without falsehood I will do it. For I know
it better to press the tongue with silence, than to the sin
of the soul to narrate false things, the scripture saying:
"The mouth that lies kills the soul." And
therefore your veneration much I ask, that
to my inexperience pardon to give you may deign. Otherwise
if to you the vileness of my speech b) shall begin
to displease, not to me, but to yourself you will more rightly impute it,
who water of the purest fountain from a muddy rivulet
demanded. But let these things be briefly said.
Now however let us come to those things, which to you, who
his life in verses to illustrate dispose, may furnish
matter of speaking.

[2] Therefore St. Paulinus the Bishop from Bordeaux
a town of the Gauls was sprung, but in Campania
c) at the most blessed Felix the Confessor
with a glorious end died and was buried. [Three days before his death] His
life from the merit of his death we recognize, whose also
death from the conversation of his life we prove. Finally
when * three days before he from this
world to the heavenly dwelling was called, when
now of his health all had despaired, and two
Bishops to him with the zeal of visiting had come,
that is, holy d) Symmachus, and blessed
e) Acindynus; so at their coming was recreated
and refreshed, that, all carnal infirmity forgotten,
wholly himself to them spiritual and angelic
he showed. And as if about to set out to
the Lord, he bids for himself before his couch the sacred
Mysteries f) to be exhibited: namely that together with
the holy Bishops, the sacrifice being offered, [he bids the last rites to be ministered to him:] his soul
to the Lord he might commend: at the same time also
those, whom for ecclesiastical discipline from the communion
of the sacred mystery he had ordered to be banished,
to the former peace he might recall.

[3] And when all these things the holy Bishop
in glad and perfect order had celebrated; suddenly
with a clear voice he began to ask, where were his Brothers.
Then one of the bystanders, who
thought that his Brothers, that is, the Bishops
who then were present, [he is visited by SS. Januarius and Martin;] he sought; said to him; Behold,
here are your Brothers. But he; But I now
my Brothers Januarius and Martin
mean, who just now with me have spoken, and immediately
to me they were about to come said. Of whom
Januarius the Bishop at once and Martyr,
illustrates the Church of the city of Naples; but Martin
a man in all things apostolic, whose
Life by all is read, was a Bishop of the Gauls.
And these things being said, his hands stretched to heaven,
this Psalm to the Lord he sang,
saying; "I lifted up my eyes to the mountains, whence
will come help to me. My help from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth." Then
a prayer being collected, he was reminded by holy g)
Postumianus the Presbyter, that for the garments
which to the poor had been distributed, forty
solidi were owed. [Ps. 120. 1. 2.] When this had heard St.
Paulinus, lightly smiling he said; Be secure, son; [to pay the debts contracted on behalf of the poor] believe me that there will not be lacking one who the debt
of the poor will pay. And behold, after no long
delay, there enters a certain Presbyter, from the regions of Lucania
coming, sent by the holy Bishop
h) Exuperantius, or by the most renowned man
his brother Ursatius, who to him through that man as a gift
fifty solidi had sent. [unexpectedly he receives 50 solidi:] Which
when St. Paulinus had received, he blessed
the Lord saying; I give you thanks, Lord,
who have not forsaken one hoping in you. But of
these fifty solidi he himself to the Presbyter
who had presented them, with his own hand two i) gave;
but the rest to the merchants who garments
to the poor had given, he ordered to be paid back.

[4] But among these things, when now night had succeeded the day,
up to the middle of the night a little to rest
he granted; [the night and the following day] until, the pain growing crude which
in his side excessive was, awakened, and even
with many superfluous burnings of the physicians wearied,
up to the fifth k) hour of the night
his weary and panting breast he drew. Then
the light coming, his custom the holy man
recognized. And so, as he was wont, all being awakened,
Matins after the manner and order he celebrated.
But the day being made, to the Presbyters and Deacons
and all the clerics, [praying he passes,] by the example of the Lord
peace hereditary l) he preached: then
as if from sleep awakened, the time of the lucernarian m)
devotion recognizing, his hands stretched out,
with slow voice though, "I have prepared a lamp for my Christ,"
to the Lord he sang. [Ps. 131. 17.] Then thereafter
a silence being made for some time, * about the fourth hour
of the night, all who were present anxiously watching,
suddenly with so great a shock his little chamber by an earthquake
was shaken, [on the third night he dies, his chamber trembling] that those who at his couch
stood, terrified and disturbed, to prayer
they all cast themselves; nothing however knowing those
who before the doors stood: for not a public
one, but a private earthquake had been in the chamber.
He, by angelic hands received, the debt
to God, his spirit, exhaled.

[5] We saw (most dear son), we saw, and amid
tears and sobs we rejoice to have seen;
we saw how the just one is taken away, and no one understands:
and just men are taken away, and no one considers.
Nor to any of the Christians ought it to seem incredible,
if at the passing of St. Paulinus, [with great grief of his own,]
one corner specially by an earthquake was shaken,
at whose death almost the whole world groaned.
And indeed what place is there in the world of lands
so remote or hidden, which the passing
of Lord Paulinus did not move? Plainly wept
the Church, that such a priest she lost;
but paradise exults, that such a Saint
it received: the peoples lament, but the Angels rejoice:
the provinces of men groan, but rejoice
the places of the Saints to which daily to fly
he desired, when he said; "How lovely
are your tabernacles, O Lord God of hosts!
my soul longs, and faints in your courts." [Ps. 83. 2.]

[6] O holy man, and by the mouth of all praiseworthy,
who so lived that not for himself only, [being holy even before his Episcopate,] but
for all he lived! And therefore because for many he lived in
this age, now for himself he lives in Christ: and yet
not for himself only, but also for us, because
daily he prays for us. He was finally a lamp
burning in the house of God, not under a bushel placed,
but upon a candlestick set; so that even
many lamps with his bright light he rendered
luminous. For sweet and mild he was,
even when in the pride of the world he was engaged. But when
to Christ he was converted, [and exceptionally generous toward the poor.] he opened
his granaries to the poor, his storehouses to those coming
he laid open. For little it was to him to feed those near,
unless also from everywhere he called forth those whom
he might feed and clothe. How many captives he redeemed!
how many entanglers n) of debt, from their creditors
the money being paid back, he freed! by one
namely trade of piety both the laments of the debtors
he wiped away, and the joys of the creditors he restored.

[7] But when to the highest grade of the Priesthood
he was advanced, [but made Bishop] he was unwilling such to show himself
he rendered himself a Priest as by all
would be loved. Never was he so angry, that not in
anger of mercy he was mindful: for neither
could that man be angry, who contumelies despised,
and hatreds avoided. Never in judgment
without mercy he sat, because he knew mercy
to be better than sacrifice;
with mercy to be clothed all of Christians'
judgment, the venerable Scripture saying; [he excelled in virtues worthy of that grade,]
"Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, Lord."
Justice too with more benign vows
he tempered; knowing that the Holy Spirit
as much as to equity and justice he favors, so much
to his own the grace of piety benign he indulges: and
therefore he held rigor in the examination of justice,
but mercy in the definition of the sentence
he brought forth.

[8] O admirable man, and by the praise of all virtues o)
to be reckoned! For he indeed
the examples of all the Patriarchs followed, he was
faithful as Abraham, credulous as Isaac, benign
as Jacob, munificent as Melchizedek,
provident as Joseph, rapacious as Benjamin: for he snatched
from the rich, [no less transferring to himself the examples of the Saints;] and to the poor distributed;
and yet more to the rich than to the poor
he is known to have profited, because to the poor in this
age he profited, but for the rich in the future he provided.
Therefore (since I had begun to say) he was meek
as Moses, priestly as Aaron, innocent
as Samuel, merciful as David, wise
as Solomon, apostolic as Peter, lovable
as John, cautious as Thomas, a teacher
as Paul, seeing as Stephen, fervent as
Apollos: but in the solicitude and care of the Churches,
in faith and charity all the Apostles
and Bishops he imitated. All these things in himself
he had, these in the time of his conversation
faithfully he kept. And therefore when from this body
to the heavenly dwelling he was called, (as
above I said) the earth grieved, but glad was
heaven; the flesh wept, but the spirit glories.

[9] Finally not only Christians, but also
Jews and Pagans, with huge weeping, their garments
even torn, to Lord Paulinus's obsequies came:
their patron snatched from them, defender,
guardian all together with us with one voice they bewailed.
And truly such he was, that by all he was loved:
for he lived to all for an example of acquiring
salvation, and for a refreshment of consolation. [and therefore even by Pagans deplored;]
For not of me alone this is the voice: witnesses
are all the provinces, witness is all the land
which the Roman world encloses; witnesses also
are the barbarian nations, to whom the fame of Lord
Paulinus had come. Nor undeservedly by all
was he loved, who was present to all. Whom indeed lying
did not his right hand raise? whom interpellating
him, did he not with pious voice console?
For he was pious, merciful, humble, and benign:
spurning none, despising none;
to all he gave, to all he indulged: he animated
the trembling, he mitigated the violent; these with words,
those he edified by example: some with letters,
others with funds he helped. No wealth, no
riches, except those which to his Saints Christ had promised,
he admired. Gold and silver,
and the rest he so defined, [everywhere renowned] that them for himself to bestow
liberality, not for retaining cupidity
claimed. And, to say briefly,
all goods in himself he had, because Christ he loved:
for he had faith, meekness, care
of those near; constant for the wretched solicitude,
compassion for the weak; nothing
else regarding except peace and charity: alone
indeed he begged, that to all he might abound.
Finally what place is there in the world of lands, what
solitude, what seas, [and well-deserving of all.] which St. Paulinus's benefits
have not felt? All him to know
desired, all to see longed. Who
to him not glad came? or who from him
not desiring to return departed? For those who in body
him to see could not, at least his letters
to touch desired. For he was sweet
and bland in letters, sweet and well-pleasing
in verses. What more? Scarcely whatever about
him is said, would the credulity of faith admit, unless
his deeds drove away the lie. Let us be silent
about the nobility of his birth, by paternal and maternal descent
into the purples of Senators admirably
gleaming: besides also the opulences of riches,
which for God's sake to the poor he distributed. Now
let us come to those things p) which about his death to say
we had begun.

[10] Therefore when St. Paulinus the debt
to God, his spirit, had rendered, with such snowy whiteness
his face and all his body was affected, [The body of the dead shines with marvelous whiteness:] that
all amid sobs and tears blessed
the Lord our God, who brings forth
his Saints in magnificence, that he may show to his servants
that this is the glory to all his Saints:
and therefore let his soul be praised in God, and
let his works be revealed in all who fear
God, because he delighted in the commandments of his God,
and understood about the needy and poor, that
powerful might be in the land his seed, and his justice
remain unto the age of the age.

[11] Yet also this which to the merit
of holy Paulinus pertains, Your Veneration ought
to recognize, that also holy John q)
Bishop of the city of Naples, [John of Naples the Bishop] by Lord Paulinus
from this life to Christ summoned and
called is recognized. For three days before
he from this world holy John to
the Lord migrated, he related that he had seen holy
Paulinus, with angelic dignity clothed and
adorned, wholly snowy, wholly starry,
and with ambrosial odor gleaming: a honeycomb
also most white of honey in his hand holding,
and saying to him; Brother John, what here
do you? Loose the bonds of your weariness, and
now to us come: for this food which in my hand
I hold, with us quite abounds. And when
he had said this, he embraced him, and put
into his mouth part of that honeycomb: [visited by him appearing to him,] whose sweetness
and odor so holy John said that he had desired,
that if to himself in that very revelation
power had been, from his footsteps in no way
would he have withdrawn. And yet not long he dissembled:
for awakened from sleep, on the same day, that is,
the fifth weekday, according to his custom remunerating
all the clerics and the poor, [he holily dies the day before Easter;] sound
the Lord's Supper he celebrated: but on the sixth
weekday to prayer he gave himself, but on the Sabbath, at the second
hour of the day, to the church glad he proceeded,
and the tribunal ascended after the manner the people he saluted:
and resaluted by the people, a prayer he gave:
and a prayer being collected r) his spirit he exhaled. On that
night however in the church there was vigil. [and on that very day honorably he is buried.] But the following
day, that is of Easter, the lamps being lit,
with a huge procession of Neophytes s),
the multitude of peoples also following,
up to the tomb, a glorious and praiseworthy
burial he obtained.

[12] These things therefore t) I have commemorated to your Nobility

Yours, that even here the merit of St. Paulinus you might recognize:
for you have matter of speaking, if however
the faith of believing be not lacking. [Conclusion to Pacatus who is to render these things in verses.] And therefore I ask
your Nobility, that, as to promise you have deigned,
the gift of an illustrious work to hasten
you may deign; about to obtain rewards of praise and glory,
if the life of the holy Man, profitable to posterity,
in verses you illustrate. Would that before I set out,
of this work's reading worthy you make me:
because if to Christ it shall have pleased, immediately to sail
I dispose. St. Paulinus the Bishop died
on the tenth day before the Kalends of July, Bassus and Antiochus, most renowned men,
being Consuls u).

NOTES OF D. P.

a) Vossius, "On the Latin Writers," page 224, writes "Paratus," I know not whence; while the published and manuscripts everywhere write "Pacatus." But there is found a Latinus Pacatus, as Chifflet notes, who to Theodosius the Emperor at Rome a panegyric delivered, after the death of the tyrant Maximus, in the year 411. His son perhaps (rather a secular layman I would believe him, than a Cleric) Pacatus, was of so flourishing a vein, that in that learned age he presumed to praise Paulinus in verse; and in that sense by Uranius is called, number 5, "most dear Son": but Uranius himself, who was present at the dying Saint, because (as at the end he says) at the first occasion he hastened to sail away, Chifflet conjectured to be the one whom in the year 401 the Saint writes he awaited from Delphinus Bishop of Bordeaux the whole summer. For then a young Presbyter, afterward older he could from some occasion have sailed into Italy, to visit his old friend, and this Letter from Nola homeward to have written, where Pacatus dwelt. Yet I would prefer the younger and perhaps the grandson of the other as Author of the Letter.

b) Surius "Utility," less correctly.

c) That is, at the church of St. Felix: but this one is worshipped on the 14th of January. The Medici manuscript adds "and Martyr": but although Bollandus teaches that two Felixes, Presbyters of Nola, are to be distinguished; one, the son of Hermias the Syrian, born at Nola; the other Roman; yet he holds each to have been only a Confessor; but here it is treated of the first, and the second was also the brother of another Felix the Martyr, whence the confusion arose.

d) Michael the Monk, in the Capuan Sanctuary, page 191, testifies, [St. Symmachus Bishop of Capua, 22nd of October.] that in a manuscript Calendar of the Capuan Treasury he read these words: On the 11th day before the Kalends of November, of St. Saloma, of St. Symmachus, Bishop of Capua and Confessor. And because he was worshipped on his anniversary at the church of St. Mary Major in the Diocese, he exhibits a mosaic to be examined, in which is written: "Holy Mary. Symmachus the Bishop": which was not written so except while he lived; and that church itself does not seem able to be believed older than new Capua, within which it stands. The Monk judges therefore that he lived after the year 900, and perhaps about 950. As if indeed in a church restored in the 10th century there could not have survived some mosaic of the 5th century. He, afterward considering this, in Ughelli among the Bishops of Capua, number 38, "If anyone," he says, "moved by a sure reason, or led by a probable conjecture, shall have thought St. Symmachus's name to be numbered among the Bishops of old Capua, I now gladly adhere: and let him consider, I pray, whether St. Symmachus can seem to be that Symmachus, who was present at St. Paulinus Bishop of Nola dying." Only by 21 thousand paces or seven hours' space are Nola and Capua distant; so that nothing is readier, than for so near a Bishop to be summoned in such a case; but nothing more unlike the truth, than that a Bishop, who in such a city had so solemn and even now has a cult, as there is explained, lived in the 10th century, and about his life and miracles is known almost nothing: but lest anything stand in the way of the Capuan Symmachus, Julian, in Gennadius published, called for this time Bishop of Capua; Chifflet notes, that in Gennadius manuscript is read "Campanus": and this Prosper makes probable, with whom for the year 339 is named Julian of Atella, the most boastful asserter of the Pelagian error.

e) As Symmachus adjectivally "Holy," so Acindynus here seems to be called "Blessed," titles applicable to any Bishop once while they lived: meanwhile substantively it took Surius, adding as it were an adjective "Hyacinthinus," for which Baronius in the Annals conjectured should be read "Hydruntinus," although Hydruntum almost 200 miles from Nola is distant. Nor however does "Hyacinthinus" seem the proper name of a Bishop, nowhere else to be found. It pleases therefore the conjecture of Chifflet, from the fact that the Medici transcript has "blessed and unworthy," suggesting that should be read "blessed Acindynus." There had then Nola (besides Naples, over which John I; and Atella, over which the aforesaid Julian presided) neighboring Episcopal cities in Campania indeed Acerra, Cumae and Puteoli; but in the Principato ulteriore and citeriore Nocera, Cosenza, Salerno, Avellino, and Benevento: to none of these is assigned a Bishop, whom for certain you could say lived in the year 431: the one Julian of Puteoli for the year 449 comes nearer: why then should not the Bishop of some of those cities have been Acindynus then?

f) So several: the Trier codex "Ministries"; below, "Ministries."

g) You see here the title of "Holy" given not only to Bishops, but also to Presbyters: and perhaps examples will be found, by which that appellation will be shown to have been common to the whole Clergy.

h) No Exuperantius, otherwise also Exuberantius, occurs in the whole volume 7 of Ughelli, embracing the Bishops of Lucania and Apulia, as many as could be found.

i) Surius and following him Baronius, noted in the margin, that not two, but ten should be read; as if a just price of the journey at that time could not seem to be two. I judge that nothing should be changed, with Chifflet.

k) Theodosius Rubeus composed a universal perpetual Horary, where on page 277, noting for the North Pole elevated 41 and 43 degrees (among which is Nola, having the Pole elevated 42 degrees), he defines the space of night, from the setting of the sun up to its rising, for the 21st day of June; at 8 hours and 56 minutes; whence it seems consequent, that already then by the people of Nola hours began to be counted from the setting of the sun, as today do all the Italians, against the common usage of the other transmontane nations, who begin to count hours from midnight: for thus the fifth hour the people of Nola would have had as day; but now on such a day, the fifth hour will be compared with them to the first hour after midnight.

l) "Hereditary" I understand, perpetual, or such as Christ said he left to his own for an inheritance, John 14, 27.

m) "Lucernarium" the Latins, the Greeks "Lychnikon" called, prayers to be poured out, when at the setting sun the Lamps were lit; which prayers were wont to be premised to Vespers, Macri teaches. Now when Vespers before the setting of the sun are recited, in the place of the Lucernarium has succeeded Compline, to be said after Vespers.

n) All copies here agreeing, I do not dare to change and read "the entangled in debts"; therefore understand by "entanglers of debt" those, who, because they feel they are not solvent, studiously entangle the debt itself: and to this seems also to regard the joy of the creditors, freed from those troublesome entanglements.

o) The Medici manuscript "Of all the Saints," which equally here agrees.

p) The same only here interposes, what about the Vandal servitude has Gregory in the Dialogues, and indeed as written by Uranius, which deceived Possevino in his Apparatus; when Gregory himself cites witnesses of that matter heard by him, "to whose," he says, "great age it is necessary for me so certainly to give credence, as if those things which they said I had seen with my eyes": but otherwise speaks Gregory about the earthquake by which the chamber trembled, "Concerning whose death," he says, "also at his church it is written," namely in or from this Letter of Uranius. There appears also of a patch stitched from elsewhere the gaping connection when it is said: "Now let us come to those things which were done. * In the time of the raging Vandals." Where if for the Period you substitute a Comma, the rest of the period, which in Gregory at * begins anew, imperfect will hang, and as it were will lack its head. But the interpolation finished, the cut-off words are here resumed, by repeating the former; "but now let us come to those things"; and by subjoining to these the immediately following, "which about his death we had begun to say."

q) Chifflet chapter 30, disputing at length, shows that to John not the 4th, but the 1st these things agree, against certain more recent ones, [John I Bishop of Naples confused with the 4th.] judging these to be interpolated, because the Letter of Uranius in some most ancient manuscripts is found without this narration about John; from which also abstains St. Gregory of Tours, nearly word for word copying Uranius. But as this Letter could be interpolated, could also John the Deacon, who concluded the Chronicle of the Neapolitan Bishops at Athanasius the Younger, successor of John IV, from this one (whose life he describes at length, such as was given by us on the 1st of April) detract so notable a praise and ascribe it to the First; and not in the Letter of Uranius recognize a most recent interpolation? But John IV lived up to the year 853, and the Deacon toward the end of the same century wrote. It can however be, that Uranius (whom I would scarcely believe to have, Paulinus being dead, clung to Nola for a whole year, so as to write these things there after the Easter of the next year) it can, I say, be, that Uranius to the Letter long since written and to Pacatus sent, this about John afterward added when to him returned to Bordeaux from Italy the deed done at Naples was announced, not, I say, in the year following his departure, but in some later one. And hence arose that diversity of copies, cited by Chioccarello. But that John the Cimeliarch, in the other Life of the said John IV, as if about to correct the Deacon's error, applied to him the apparition of Paulinus, does not much move us, because that Cimeliarch wrote in the year 1362, and so is of much less faith. I would say therefore that John I, who deceased on Holy Saturday, was deposited or buried as a Saint on the very day of Easter, but is worshipped on the 1st of April; did not die in the year 432, the next after the death of Paulinus, as commonly the writers wish (for that year had Easter on the 3rd of April) but rather in the year 440, on the 31st of March when Easter was celebrated on the 1st of April, whence also one Calendar which Chioccarello saw, places him on the last day of March, although others have preferred to hold the day of his solemn deposition. But John IV, in what precise year and day he died, I think is unknown, the Deacon being silent about it; and therefore the day was assumed, on which the First was found ascribed in the Calendars; and that by the authority of John the Cimeliarch, wishing it to be believed that then was buried the Fourth: whence you may correct what less distinctly we said about both on the 1st of April. But I acknowledge that the older cult of the First was obliterated by the cult of the Fourth, whose Life was better known than the first's, and therefore also his name more renowned; but in the age of the Cimeliarch the annual veneration of the Fourth was instituted, and indeed with prejudice to the First.

r) "To collect a prayer" he is, I think, said who, several prayers being recited, at last subjoins, "Through our Lord" &c. whence also they are called "Collects," because after the other principal one in the sacred service they are thus read collectively, under one (as the common people say) "Through the Lord."

s) Deservedly here Chifflet asks, what could that procession of Neophytes have been, in the time of John IV, when Naples was wholly most Christian, nor was baptism deferred to adult age, as in the time of the First.

t) This conclusion no less aptly will be read after number 10, than after this 11, so that even thence it may become more probable, that it by Uranius, or some person of Nola contemporary with him, immediately after the deed done was there placed, and was not present from the beginning.

u) That is, in the year of Christ 431.

LIFE

By Francis Sacchini of the Society of Jesus at Rome, from the Saint's writings and the eulogies of the Ancients composed; and by Heribert Rosweyde of the same Society at Antwerp together with the works published.

Paulinus, Bishop of Nola in Campania, a province of Italy (St.)

BY FRANCIS SACCHINI, S.J.

THE OLD DIVISION.

Although most aptly the Author divided
this his little work into four Parts, so that
the First teaches, What kind Paulinus was
in his secular life, up to number 17; the second,
What kind a Monk, up to number 65; the Third,
What kind a Bishop, up to number 75; the Fourth
finally treats of his works; yet inconvenient
is such a division to the work instituted by us,
which has hitherto followed nearly equal Chapters;
and those, not so minute, that with several
titles each single page must gape; nor so prolix,
that the reader cannot at least every other leaf
take breath, and what further follows know at a glance of the eye,
from the title of the new Chapter. Let it therefore be after our manner.

CHAPTER I.

Paulinus's fatherland, nobility, poetic and oratorical faculty, Consulship.

Part I.

[1] With what ending holy Athanasius closes the [Life] of the Great Antony,
with that beginning it is permitted us
of Paul the Great (for of this preface he is worthy)
Bishop of Nola, [This Life useful by example,] to begin the Life. "Our
Savior Jesus Christ," says he, "those glorifying
him glorifies, and to those serving him,
not only the kingdoms of heaven, but even here
in the very recesses of the mountains desiring to lie hidden,
the nobility of fame grants: namely, that both they themselves
may enjoy the praise of merits, and the rest by their
examples may be provoked." [Chap. 62] These to Paulinus most aptly
both from that part agree, that
excellently to Christ Jesus he served, [it is given in four parts.] and an illustrious
praise for his name he begot; and from the other,
that the most clement Lord him, of evangelical
obscurity a great lover, magnificently glorious,
not only among the Powers above, but also
among mortals made. These both parts
from the explanation itself of his Life will be plain, which threefold
was; first, in the popular and
common state; then in the monastic; lastly in the
episcopal: there is added a fourth about his writings.

[2] [The grades of Paulinus's age,] Almost half his age, that is, to about the
thirty-eighth year, to the human
commonwealth he lived: from that time to the
seventy-seventh a) year, that
is, to his last breath, to religion
and holiness; through grades thus advancing, that
from a great Senator a greater Monk, thence
a plainly greatest Bishop he was; than which
more moderate and below his merits the title can seem, if
"Great" once we shall have said.

[3] The ornaments of human life, whatever
can fall to a man, abundantly he possessed.
Most noble and most wealthy alike,
of countenance liberal in appearance, of body a little weaker,
but apt for the offices of the mind; of outstanding talent, [human beauties.]
by nature among the first good and beneficent, and of morals
most sweet. Besides with all liberal learning
adorned and with faculties, which favor especially
and popular admiration conciliate,
in Poetics and Oratory excelling. Finally
the highest honors, most renowned fame, the love of all
and favor he obtained. Which it is established that he at last only
esteemed great, that he might have what for Christ
to despise, and what to his name as a sacrifice
to consecrate. [Letter 5] For that this one cause of loving such things
is teaches Nazianzen, and Paulinus himself elegantly with these
words sets forth: "Therefore to us bringing nothing into this
world, the substance of temporal things,
like a fleece to be shorn he sets; not that as a burden
it should impede those, whom he bids to be born unencumbered, but that
matter of virtue to us for begetting merits
he may propose; and that there be whence a document of our toward God
(that is, the true Father and Lord)
faith and piety we may give, if there be at hand
to us dear or sweet things; which preferring God,
for a great reward we neglect." [Letter 10 to Severus] To the same pertain
the things which, while he praises Melania, and his own zeal at once
and work, by no means doing or perceiving it,
he commends, about nobility thus discourses:
"It is clear that this too to the glory of his work
the Lord conferred, by which the more might be confounded
this world, which with such titles
glories; that, by which the vanity of men to the contempt
of the world might be used: at the same time also a greater authority
of the saving example (by which namely in a more illustrious
person more brightly it might gleam) for humbling
the eyes of the proud might be set forth."

[4] His fatherland he had Rome, the chief of nations;
too and affinities most ample: for
both Melania the Elder b), whom, noble by Consular ancestors,
by the contempt of earthly nobility
he says made herself nobler, he signifies to have been by blood
near to himself. [Letter 10 to Severus.] There are who also to the Anician
family refer him, because among the monuments of the Anicii
some Paulini are read. Which if so
it is, a certain sacred genealogy would have accrued to his family,
that that first family, among the Roman summits
to Christ raised, by its heavenly summit
human loftiness exaggerated. [Baronius, year 394] Pontius
without doubt he had as a forename, by which often in a way
by Ausonius he is named: likewise Meropius
somewhere, both in the books printed, [Forename] both in those written
by hand, he is inscribed, and in some
Eutropius. And so the whole appellation, "Meropius
Pontius Anicius Paulinus" was.

[5] He was born among the Aquitanians, or at Bordeaux,
where to have had a house from Ausonius is established, and
expressly Uranius hands down (who, a Presbyter c) of Paulinus himself
when he had been, afterward the sum of his life,
or rather his death committed to writing), or d)
at Hebromagus, as to others it seems, [The place of his nativity.] which also as his fatherland
Paulinus himself calls. A paternal town it
was not far from Bordeaux, set upon the river
Garonne. For at that time of Roman citizens
not a few, who in the provinces held estates,
in them also their domiciles placed.
Hence it happened, I think, that Paulinus an Aquitanian
by fatherland was reckoned; and in him as it were as their citizen
not unjustly the Gauls always gloried and today
glory. [Letter 5 to Severus.] Although in St. Ambrose
while we read it thus written, "Paulinus
by the splendor of his birth in the parts of Aquitaine second to none,"
we by no means think it compared with
the Aquitanian nobility, but only the place designated,
where Paulinus dwelt, and had sold his faculties:
and perhaps, as the great Writer and best
man Cesare Cardinal Baronius suspects,
the series of words by the copyists was changed,
when they ought to have written, "Paulinus by the splendor
of his birth second to none, in the parts of Aquitaine
his faculties being sold," and what follows. [Letter 36]
For this splendor was of Paulinus's birth, [where above]
not which to no one of the Aquitanians, but which to scarcely anyone
of all yielded. Which also from Prudentius is established,
who, writing against Symmachus,
while the Roman nobility, which to Christ had passed over, he recounts:
"Not of the Paulini," he says, "not of the Bassi
doubted
their ready faith to give themselves to Christ, and the proud stock
of the patrician family to raise to the age to come." [Book 1]
That his patrimony was very ample, and his estates huge, [Riches.]
both others all testify, and sufficiently
shows Ausonius, when, Paulinus from his Spanish withdrawal
recalling, among other things he urges:
"Lest the snatched and scattered house, and the torn into a hundred
parts among masters the realms of old Paulinus we bewail."
From which realms however much the Poetic
hyperbole takes away, yet very much always
in the patrimony will remain over. [Letter 23.] Nor only
in Aquitaine did he have Hebromagus, and other possessions,
and likewise at Narbonne others, but also in Italy
at Fundi, and near Nola: whence also
his Roman stock is affirmed.

[6] In the golden age when, alongside virtues and letters,
especially sacred, [In what time was he born?] very much were cultivated,
about the year of human salvation three hundred
fifty-third he was born, that to a most splendid
age this light too might accrue; and in turn
to it itself there should be abundance from another's light to multiply
his own. So it happened, that for cultivating
the seeds of great praises, a keen judgment,
a clever and fertile talent, a good and tractable
mind, which nature excelling had implanted,
an excellent master he should obtain.
Decius Magnus Ausonius he was, in Poetic likewise
and Oratorical virtues renowned among the first
of his age. [Ausonius the Gaul his Master.] He, both of his own accord, and by Paulinus's docility
and morals, and besides by the old connection of their parents
between themselves of each and charity
compelled, so to be instructed and governed the noble
boy undertook, that with the sedulity and industry
of a preceptor, e) with the humanity of a father and piety
he taught and formed him: nor otherwise afterward,
than "son" was he wont to name him. Paulinus
to follow the hand of the one fashioning, eagerly into studies to be snatched,
no monuments of Writers not to wear away;
more sparingly however the Historians he handled: in the Orators
and Poets he was wholly. Finally so he advanced,
that in each faculty, whether Oratorical
or Poetic, he either equaled the glory of his teacher,
or even surpassed it.

[7] Of his Poetic excellence the testimony of Ausonius
is at hand:
"And the Poetic palm which long since for you prevails, [Paulinus how excellent a Poet.]
adorned with a ribbon, is, of which my palm is lacking.
We yield in talent, as much as we precede in age:
my Muse rises up to yours." [Letter 20]
For there is no one who knows not, that to the victors of the sacred
contests the prizes were palms:
to which if certain fillets and bands, which first
of bast, then of more precious material began to be made, were
added, glory at once and authority
accrued. That kind of fillets had the name "lemniscus."
Hence more renowned the beribboned palms, than
the bare. Moreover Domitian at Rome a contest
among Orators too and Poets instituted. Therefore
whether truly and properly the beribboned palm
from some such contest among Poets bore off
Paulinus, or (which I would more willingly believe)
by a coloring thus names Ausonius, it is to be understood,
how much there was present to Paulinus from Poetry
of celebrity, who than Ausonius at that time the supreme
seer was held greater. For neither that through
flattery by the master, or through paternal toward
the pupil indulgence, rather than truly said will he think,
who their talents between themselves and style
shall compare. Without doubt Paulinus's gentler,
and sweeter, and likewise more magnificent nature
and vein was; to whom, as the same witness is,
Ausonius, a certain honeyed modulation was inherent;
a vigorous and sublime alacrity, so seeking the highest things,
that he should not fall down. [Letter 19] Nor indeed of the flourishing Poet's
faculty is it to be estimated from these poems which exist,
of evangelical simplicity composed
after the Muses were abdicated: but it is to be considered,
that these very ones, when yet such they are, surely
while ambition was fervent, the zeal of pleasing,
and the desire of fame stimulated, and sharpened
his care; while all the perfumeries of the Poets
he searched out; and at the same time hence the vigor of his lofty talent the diction lifted up, thence the nobility of his morals
and gentleness tempered; there existed something very
perfect, which deservedly both to the learned and to the multitude
greatly pleased.

[8] But what in prose loosed from numbers he could do,
worth all is the eulogy of holy Jerome. That great
Doctor, [How great an Orator.] who to the whole world was a marvel,
so Paulinus admired,
that, when he had enumerated of the Writers of the Latin
Church the first lights, Tertullian, Lactantius,
Victorinus, Hilary, Cyprian,
nor those, who then lived and flourished,
had he excepted; and had shown, that to each
for perfection something was lacking, he sets up one
Paulinus, in whom nothing is wanting: predicting
that it would be, if the interior knowledge of the divine
letters were added, that he would precede the Writers both Latin
all, and also Greek, not so long ago.
And among other things, "O if to me
it were permitted," he says, "a talent of this kind, not
through the Aonian mountains and the summits of Helicon, as
the Poets sing, but through Zion, and Itabyrium,
and lofty Sinai to lead; if it befell to teach
the things I have learned, and as if by the hands the mysteries to hand on
of the Scriptures; there would be born to us something,
which learned Greece would not have." [Letter 13] And soon:
"If as it were the last hand to your work were applied,
nothing more beautiful, nothing more learned, nothing sweeter,
and nothing more Latin than your volumes we should have."
He adds: "You have a great talent,
and an infinite furniture of speech; and easily
you speak, and purely; and the facility itself and purity
is mixed with prudence. For the head being sound, all
the senses are vigorous. To this prudence and eloquence
if there were added either the study, or the intelligence
of the Scriptures, I should see you soon hold the citadel
of ours." These things wrote he, of as keen judgment
as free mouth a Doctor, about Paulinus,
not long after he had wholly
betaken himself to piety, even now a recruit
in the sacred disciplines: therefore he subjoins: "You who
have such rudiments, what kind of trained soldier
will you be?" But Paulinus, for the submission of his mind,
as in its place shall be handed down, even him in Christian
wisdom set behind that primacy.

[9] Meanwhile however, before he to the ambition hidden
from the world, of humility and of the Cross to the services
wholly enslaved himself, [How gracious.] when such he had
ornaments of talent, of learning, and of tongue;
which by that splendor of birth, and by the abundance
of riches far more renowned to the common people and more wonderful
were made; it is no wonder if with most renowned fame,
if with the greatest favor, and with honors too
the highest he flourished: and the Consulship, and that f)
ordinary, [He becomes Consul.] which the first from the Empire grade
of honor was reckoned, in the flower of youth, before
Ausonius, far preceding in age, he obtained.
Paulinus does not deny this haste of his honors:
but from everywhere, having set out, and wont to snatch the matter
of casting himself down, this too to elevating the admiration of his withdrawal
from the world he refers, as if "satiated"
he had departed, and "honored from his first years a person,"
as to Severus he writes, that "to ripen for himself
he could his gravity." [Letter 1 to Severus.] But Ausonius expressly
professes that Paulinus preceded him in honors,
when, why against the custom of the time, his name
in a letter he prefixed to his own, with these words he excuses:
"Ausonius to Paulinus. The metre so persuaded, that you should be
prior, and precede my name:
although both by the title of the Calendars prior, and your
at Rome the curule chair g) preceded my ivory." [Letter 20]
For the rest the same Ausonius so preferred to himself
Paulinus, that equally from himself to have set out he wished him to seem,
and himself the bestower of his old honors
he calls. [How advanced by Ausonius.] Which by no means would I believe
to be said only for that cause, that worthy of honors,
by his precepts and instruction he rendered him; but
also, because by Valentinian the elder to teach
his children Gratian and Valentinian
to the court summoned, and by that thing the favor of the Princes
having merited, Paulinus especially he had, whom
both by the zeal of charity, and to the increases of his own
affairs he might advance. [Letter 24]

[10] Matrimony too to Paulinus happily befell,
a wealthy woman, and wise, and wonderfully
agreeing, and (which is a glory) especially
religious. Her name Therasia. One fecundity
was lacking to the cumulation of earthly felicity:
but therefore perhaps it was lacking, [Therasia the wife of Paulinus.] that from the sterility of bodies,
the fecundity of souls might be increased; and
thence a cumulation of eternal felicity might be born,
whence the human was maimed. For after long
vows, offspring at last male, when as they tarried
in Spain it had befallen, that one was not vital. And so
on the eighth day from its birth snatched at Complutum, [They lose their infant son.]
it admonished namely the parents, and at the same time made ready the way,
that a better progeny of good deeds,
and a by no means perishable posterity of merits
they might desire, as holy
Ambrose interprets. [Letter 30]

NOTES OF D. P.

a) In the margin, for that the text finishes the whole time of the Life at the year seventy-seventh, was noted the eighty-second: and by this reason it seems Rosweyde wished his own opinion, different from Sacchini's reckoning, to be signified.

b) Jerome in the Chronicle at the year of Valens and Valentinian the 10th, "Melania the noblest of Roman women, daughter of Marcellinus formerly Consul." But Paulinus, to whom it ought to have been better known, says she was born when Marcellinus was Consul, her grandfather: yet the propinquity of blood with Paulinus, I have not yet found otherwise indicated in that letter, than that of his hospitality at Nola she made use with her company, in the year (as chapter 11 teaches Chifflet) 398.

c) I would think rather that Uranius was a Presbyter of Bordeaux.

d) Ebromagus, commonly Embrau among the Santones, at the estuary of the Garonne near Blaye, below Bordeaux 7 leagues.

e) Here first the Author Sacchini betrayed himself to me from the recollection of a similar phrase in the Life of Blessed Stanislaus: and the age agrees in which he wrote, already Secretary of the Society, and removed from writing history, and therefore perhaps wished his name suppressed; or because, thinking on his near death, he counted it nothing to be named among men.

f) So he, from the mind of Baronius, year 375, number 1, judging that year, after the Consulship of Gratian Augustus III and Equitius wont to be named in the Calendars, could be assigned to Paulinus's Consulship; when yet expressly say Jerome and Prosper, that "Because in the previous year the Sarmatians laid waste the Pannonias, the same Consuls remained," lest namely the joy of new Magistrates too quickly abolish the grief conceived from the slaughter, and therefore in the vacant Calendars to be marked. Against those however, who altogether deny Paulinus to have been Consul; and twist Ausonius's words otherwise, asserts Chifflet, that he was at least substituted for the remainder of the year 378, in which the same Emperor and Consul Valens, on the 5th day before the Ides of August, slain by the Goths, and burned. But it is established in those Calendars, which for the cause of reckoning years were commonly handled, no account was taken of the substitutes; but others more ancient, in which the single Magistrates of each year were written, in vain now you would seek.

g) The Urban Praetorship, says Chifflet, the curule Aedileship was wont by two years to precede; since therefore from the Theodosian Code, laws 4 and 5 on the Scenics, for the year 380 we have Paulinus as Urban Praetor, consequent it would be that he in the year 378 was that, and from the Aedileship in the same year to the Consulship passed, and then was made Praetor; granted that by the laws not before the year of age 37 he became Aedile, nor before 39 Praetor; for from those laws, the Empire declining, easy was exemption: but in the year 378 scarcely more than 24 years counted Paulinus, by the reckoning prescribed.

CHAPTER II.

Paulinus's Baptism undertaken at Bordeaux, the Monkhood assumed in Spain.

[11] All Paulinus's glories were consummated,
and with a certain most pleasant light and grace
besprinkled and made public the man's marvelous suavity, [Paulinus's nature wonderfully sweet and benign.]
gentleness, and beneficence: which was so great,
that, if anything he obtained which grateful
he hoped would be to friends, he preferred to gratify them with it,
than to indulge his own genius. Hence that exclamation of Ausonius,
from frequent experience grateful:
"But what is so amiable, and so hospitable,
as that you, to make me a participant, your delights
in the very newness of the firstfruits defraud yourself? [Letter 12 to Paulinus.]
O sweeter than honey, O more festive by the charm of grace,
O by all to be embraced with a fatherly embrace!"
Therefore a man so wonderful, and equally so amiable,
it is not slow to conjecture, with how great crowds of followers
he was cultivated; how much among the nobles of esteem,
among the multitude of favor and
applause he had. The ornament of his fatherland, the light of the curia,
likewise the column of the senate he was reckoned. But such
of fortune, as the common people call it, that is, of human
prosperity blandishments, the greater and more
they were, [His celebrity.] by the more and the more tenacious chains Paulinus
to itself bound the vanity of the world held back.
Namely that the glory of Christ so much might become
more illustrious, and the force of his grace more potent
might appear, when so great a Senator all those things
for loss reckoned, and esteemed as
dung, that he might gain Christ himself.

[12] It helps to investigate by what helps and
engines the divine grace used to the storming of his citadel,
and how the apparatus of pride so great
to the humility of the Cross it might subject. But first
I shall indicate, in what places, and in what offices
he spent his life, before in the Nolan retreat
he rested. [The sum of his Life before the Nolan withdrawal.] His boyhood without doubt,
and likewise adolescence, in liberal studies
he spent at Bordeaux. For there of Grammar
and Rhetoric a school Ausonius governed. Which
being transferred to the court of Augustus, Paulinus to plead
causes into the noise of the forum and the light of the curia
proceeded; then to honors raised, for some time
at Rome he lived. Thence for nearly fifteen years
he traveled through Italy, Gaul, Spain,
by land and sea; partly with public affairs,
partly (unless my conjecture deceive me) with domestic occupied.
Among which wanderings he was at Milan during
that same time, in which holy Augustine there
and Alypius were engaged: and known to Alypius he was,
although he himself was ignorant of Alypius. For thus we see it happen,
that great persons are known to nearly all,
nor do they know so many. In the same stretch of time,
piety gradually admitted into his mind,
at Bordeaux baptized, at Barcelona a Priest
created, thence to Nola at last he migrated,
as now through each thing more clearly we shall set forth.

[13] The first glory, after God, of Paulinus's conversion
to the most holy Presbyter Felix to be owed
seems. [His conversion is owed especially to St. Felix.] Of this unconquered Confessor, or rather
Martyr, as Paulinus and the holy Church calls him
(for although he did not die in
torments, to death yet for Christ was he
tortured), most widely the name was celebrated. At his
venerable body great prodigies and plainly
evident were performed. There were tortured most grievously
the evil demons, and marvelous spectacles they gave in
those, whose bodies they had besieged. For which reasons
from everywhere to Nola to St. Felix's tomb people ran together.
Paulinus too went, the more opportunely,
because his paternal estates round about he possessed. His mind
to himself the youth, the blessed Martyr, so bound, that he resolved
a quiet and holy life with him to spend.
About the year of age twenty-seventh these things
he within himself decreed, three a) lustres before
in the very thing at last he performed. Thence in his first
Feast-poem, which, his journey to Nola from Spain preparing,
he composed, the holy Patron he asks, that he take counsel
"Now for desires by an immense time wearied,"
and safe to himself bring him. [Feast-poem I] And in the following Feast-poem now present he thus sang:
"O father, O lord, to thy unworthy servants though best,
At last it has been granted to us within thy thresholds,
To celebrate thy Feast. Three over a long time
Lustres have run, since with these solemn rites
Before thee my vows, before thee my heart I dedicated."
Therefore already long since even before Baptism the plans
of a perfect life he was cooking: and immediately he adds, that from
the time he had proposed for himself that life to be led at holy Felix's,
perpetually he himself, to him
amid the various labors of land and sea, was present. [Feast-poem 2]
And so to St. Felix above all is owed St. Paulinus.
So much it matters to take on some one of the Heaven-dwellers as Patron,
whom with special cult and constant piety
you should venerate, to whom you dedicate yourself wholly, whose
at all times help you implore.

[14] [His wife Therasia helped,] Among mortals, that a help was Therasia
his wife, the glorious insult of Ausonius teaches,
when, carping at Paulinus as
too little constant in friendship, the cause upon her, as it were leading him away,
he confers, "Tanaquil" calling her,
who by wisdom and skill in religions herself
preferred, and lorded it over her husband; and for that reason
was feared by Paulinus. For thus he barks:
"If to be betrayed, Paulinus, you fear, and dread the crime
of our friendship, let your Tanaquil not know this."
And indeed the divine wisdom of the matron, and her virile
constancy thence becomes manifest, that to a poor
and hard life she certainly consented with her husband: and
whatever either of dowry, or of other faculties she had,
she sold, and on the needy by the counsel
of Christ the price distributed. [Letter 24 to Paulinus.] Besides there abounded
that age in certain great and illustrious, both in wisdom
and in holiness, Bishops. Ambrose
at Milan, at Tours Martin, at Bordeaux Delphinus,
and elsewhere other Evangelical lamps burning
and shining, placed upon a candlestick,
far and wide poured out the heavenly light: and Paulinus,
as far as it is permitted to argue, of such men always
the company loved. For indeed a great step to holiness it is, to be delighted with the use
and familiarity of the Saints. Therefore of three especially,
whom I have named, most holy Bishops, Paulinus
by their examples, company, and zeal advanced.

[15] Ambrose now older, seeing the excellent natural disposition
of the youth, most sweetly loved him. And so
Paulinus himself to Alypius writes, [and holy Ambrose] that by Ambrose's
love he was always to the faith nourished. [Letter 45 to Alypius.]
About holy Martin of Tours, this is of conjecture,
that an eye too, sick, for him he healed.
"Paulinus indeed (says Severus), a man of great
afterward to be example, [and holy Martin,] when his eye
grievously to ache had begun, and now its pupil
a thicker cloud drawn over had covered, his eye to him
Martin with a brush touched, and former
health to him, all pain removed, restored." [Book on the Life of St. Martin, chapter 21.] b) Who
indeed would doubt, that the excellent documents of St. Martin's evangelical
perfection much availed
to illuminate for him the eyes of the mind, for whom only
the touch of a brush availed to restore the body's light?
But most of all to the same thing
to represent and to bring into operation, S. Delphinus c)
availed, by whom also with sacred Baptism
he was purified. [and holy Delphinus.] Professes these things Paulinus in
a letter written to him, when he says: "Let us remember
that you not only a father, but also a Peter
to us were made: because you cast a hook to
me from the deep and bitter floods of this age to be drawn out,
that I might become a catch of salvation; and,
to whom I lived, to nature I might die; and to whom dead
I was, I might live to the Lord." [Letter 16 to Delphinus 2]

[16] The custom was in those times, to defer to
a great age the genital laver. Wherefore
also Paulinus not before about the year thirty-eighth
by a new origin was born a)
by Delphinus at Bordeaux: for which cause him
"Father" he calls: and at the same time "Peter" calls him, because
by his holy exhortations to the care of salvation he was
led, [In what year of his age baptized.] as if by a fisherman with a vital hook
caught. About the age of his Baptism it is established from the first
letter to holy Augustine's words:
"Govern therefore the little one creeping on the earth, and
in your steps to walk teach. For I do not wish in me
the age of corporal birth more than of spiritual rising
you to consider: for the age to me according
to the flesh is now that, in which was that one by the Apostles
in the Beautiful gate by the power of the word healed
(that is, of years more than forty); but in the births
of the soul, of that one still to me the time
of infancy it is, which, with wounds intended against Christ,
immolated with worthy blood of the Lamb a victim
ran before, and the Lord's passion inaugurated
(that is, the two-years-old of the Innocents)." [Letter 41] For
not the paschal lamb is signified by "yearling,"
but the infancy of the Innocents: which beautifully is said
"with wounds intended against Christ immolated,"
because in each one of them to slay Christ
himself by the Herodian executioners destined
was. And therefore the immaculate Christ's victim
thus immolated infancy with worthy blood
ran before, and the Lord's inaugurated and rose to be
the passion; because already then
death in the infants to suffer Christ began,
to which indeed he was born. But since not yet
the time of his destruction was at hand, vicarious for himself
those he subjected. Therefore if forty years old in age
of the body, two years old nearly in the births of the soul,
it is established that about the year thirty-eighth
into a better life he rose d).

[17] [Immediately from Baptism he thinks of Monkhood.] About the same time in which he was reborn (which
the divine Augustine had done, and not few at that
time were wont to do) to the monastic discipline
he hastened. For some were wont,
considering the exact innocence of the Christian law,
content with the order of Catechumens,
to reserve to that time Baptism, in which
themselves more suited to perform it they judged;
deeming it most unworthy, to bind to God faith,
and to deceive, since so great a crime is
called for a man to violate a Sacrament. At the same time
therefore through the vital waters to be reborn they brought their minds,
and to preserve the dignity of their heavenly origin,
and to perform that which in the divine
washing they had promised; that is, that
to Satan and the world, and their pomps they should renounce
(which in the popular depravation they saw could hardly
be done), a severer discipline they took up.

It does not escape me, that very learned men, the births
of the soul interpret as the assumption of Monasticism,
and place him to have been baptized much before. [Baronius, year 394]
For the rest, unless I greatly err, Paulinus
himself sufficiently these two things to Alypius distinctly mentions.
The words are such: "But about me, lest anything
you be ignorant of, know that a most ancient sinner, not
so long ago from the darkness and shadow of death led out,
the Spirit of the vital breeze breathed in." Baptism
manifestly he describes. For he could not so affirmatively
have pronounced about Monasticism,
that through it he breathed in the spirit of the vital breeze. For
although the assumption of religious profession is wont to be compared
to Baptism, modesty however does not bear,
that anyone about himself should declare as if through
it reborn: and thence the births of the soul count:
which the less to Paulinus agreed, because
at the time at which to Alypius these he wrote, not yet
his faculties had he sold: nor any within the enclosure of a monastery
under another's command to live had he hidden himself. [Letter 45 to Alypius.]
Finally a rudiment he was attempting rather
of entering the warfare, than the warfare had he undertaken.
But immediately when he had said of the spirit of the vital breeze
not so long ago breathed in, that is, of Baptism
undertaken, he subjoins: "Nor so long ago to have put
upon the plough a hand, and the cross of the Lord
to have taken up; which that to the end we may be able to carry through,
by your prayers may we be helped": which plainly
the institute of Evangelical perfection demonstrate.

[18] For the rest to this highest summit of consummated wisdom, lest anything by inconsiderate
ardor he should assume, which unaccustomed might oppress him, [Gradually to perfection he advances.]
by no means suddenly he leaped across: but
gradually and by degrees trying himself, and preparing himself,
as if by steps he ascended. This he himself
with what candor he is wont of speech and of mind professes:
but so, that thence too Severus to himself
he prefers, whom in the midst of the heat of the world, his chains rather broken
than loosed, to Christ
he says by a greater miracle converted. "Finally,"
he says, "as from calumnies and travels
to take rest I seemed, nor with public affairs
occupied, and from the noise of the forum removed,
the leisure of the country and the worship of the church in pleasing
domestic tranquillity I celebrated in secret: that
gradually my mind withdrawn from secular crowds,
and to the heavenly precepts accommodated, more readily
to the contempt of the world, and the company
of Christ, now as if from a way bordering on this purpose
I might depart." [Letter 1 to Severus.] Therefore about the same time
from water reborn and the spirit, and with love kindled
of perfect virtue, to think of withdrawal he began.
There offered himself, perhaps invited by him and allured,
a companion of the same plan, Sulpicius Severus;
although he preferred afterward either holy
Martin to follow, or his own household himself to lead.

Part II

[19] But before all followed him Therasia
his wife, no longer a leader to softness (it helps Augustine's
to Paulinus, and his to Aper words
to use) or to avarice to her husband, but to continence
and fortitude restored into the bones of her husband: [He withdraws into Spain with Therasia.]
whom thenceforth the charity of Christ with so much firmer,
as chaster bonds joined:
that they were the same spouses who they had been, but not
so spouses as they had been: they were themselves, and not themselves;
namely who, as Christ, so themselves now
according to the flesh did not know. With Therasia
e) therefore, now not so much a consort of flesh as
of spirit, into Spain he withdrew; for that
cause namely, that, having gone out from his house and kindred
paternal, far from his friends and acquaintances, for the Lord's
service he might prepare himself. [Letters 32 & 31.] For to a man
by so many connections entangled, among
his own so cultivated, whose favor so eagerly all
courted, altogether necessary flight was.
But here it is to be noted, that twice in Spain
he seems to have been: first, for the cause of business,
when through various places amid the labors of sea and road having wandered,
his son at Complutum he received and lost,
as above we have mentioned; then, to lay
the rudiments of the Monastic life. For that for
business having set out, where his son died, the plan of the monastic life
stood, not very probable I would think:
but indeed then to have happened
I would believe, what Gregory of Tours narrates,
that, while sacred hiding-places he seeks,
he was sought by his own, where he had hidden himself
they being ignorant: and, as a humble and harsh life
he had instituted, for a little fellow of the common people he was held
by those among whom he dwelt, until he was recognized
by chance, and betrayed by a merchant. For,
after to Nola he withdrew, not so it seems the people of Nola,
to whom long since he was known, could escape.

NOTES OF D. P.

a) Nay by two full only, from our above reckoning, by which we place him converted, the year of age 38 completed, the year of Christ 393 running, which also Chifflet holds chapter 5. And to this makes, that soon he himself says in the Feast-poem of St. Felix the second, that is, in the year 398, the 43rd of age completed, that from the time of his first purpose conceived at Nola three lustres to him had run.

b) Chifflet asks chapter 3, in what place and time this happened; and from the Letter to Victricius 2 to elicit the place he thinks: for thus there he writes

Paulinus: "I believe you deign to remember, that your Holiness at Vienne with our blessed Father Martin I saw": as if not except in that one place could Paulinus have seen Martin. About the time Chifflet adds nothing, except that also from Severus he thinks, that then still a Layman he was: and that altogether is probable, and nearly certain; since soon after Baptism undertaken into Spain he went, and thence to Nola fled, nor that the Gauls he ever revisited is known of Paulinus.

c) S. Delphinus is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on the 24th of December.

d) These things, as I said, the Saint is believed to have written to Augustine in the same year, at the end of which he was made Bishop, 395. But Pagi in his Critica thinks he proves, that the Ordination of Augustine should be postponed by one year: which being granted, there could, nay should, from Paulinus's age one year be subtracted. To me not yet convincing has seemed the reasoning of Pagi, against Prosper and the common opinion.

e) Chifflet asks chapter 34, whether Therasia survived her husband, [Therasia the wife of Paulinus, whether a Saint?] and with him into the Canon of the Saints was referred. The first he seems to deny, from Uranius's silence about her; to the second he says, that at least in the book of life she was inscribed after death, whose so great virtue while she lived is praised. Something more dare the more recent Spaniards, on the figments of their Pseudo-Dexter relying: and Tamayo SS. Paulinus, Therasia, Celsus their son, as Saints, together inscribes in his Martyrology; nay also that Therasia was by origin Spanish he asserts from Bivar; since nowhere, except in the Spains, the name of Therasia was in use. But since Greek is that name, from "I hunt," just as from "I laugh" is made Gelasius; who could believe that very name in Spain born, and not from elsewhere also into the Gauls introduced? The more common usage now writes "Teresia." That to Nola too she followed her husband, Therasia, indicates Ambrose below number 19; whence also it is probable she died there before him, but so that no memory of any cult survives.

CHAPTER III.

Paulinus's constancy in the new institute of life undertaken, vainly assailed by the worldly, praised by the Saints.

[20] In the West rare then were, especially
of the nobility, who, all things abdicated,
for a more attentive cult of Religion utterly
from human use should withdraw: [What movement in Paulinus's conversion:] nay so far that those
who did it, for sluggish and of a moved mind
men, and laboring with the Bellerophontic vice
(for thus Rutilius the Poet of that age
describes him) for contempt and mockery were. And since
many of the Senators and Nobles still held the Ethnic
superstitions, these especially the studious of Christian
perfection assailed, with vituperation of the very
discipline, which such a sect, as to human society and the public
state pernicious, had brought forth. And so St. Ambrose,
when Paulinus's plan (by letters I think
of his) for certain he knew, what ready clamors
there would be, after the matter into public knowledge had emanated,
in this manner to Sabinus writes:
"Paulinus, by the splendor of his birth in the parts
of Aquitaine second to none, his faculties being sold,
both his own and also his wife's, in
these dispositions to have invested himself for the faith I have found, that
those on the poor he confers, which he reduced into money;
and himself poor from rich made, as if
unloaded of a heavy burden, to his house, fatherland,
and kindred too he bids farewell, that more intently
to God he may serve. [Itinerary, book 1] He is affirmed to have chosen the retreat of the city of Nola,
where, the tumult fleeing, he may spend his life. [Letter 30]
The matron too to his virtue and zeal nearly
comes, nor from her husband's purpose differs.
Finally, her estates transcribed into the rights of others,
her husband she follows: and with a small there
piece of land of her husband content, she will console herself with the riches of religion
and of charity a). Offspring to them none,
and therefore a posterity of merits desired. These things
when the nobles shall have heard, what will they say?
That from that family, that disposition, with so great
eloquence endowed, he migrated from the Senate, the succession of a noble family
intercepted, that this cannot be borne. [Matt. 10. 33]
And, when they themselves their heads and eyebrows shave,
if ever the sacred rites of Isis they undertake; if
perhaps a Christian man more attentive to the most holy religion,
his garment shall change, an unworthy deed
they call it. Indeed I grieve that so great in falsehood
is the observance, in truth the negligence,
that confounded are most to seem more attentive to the most sacrosanct
religion, not considering
the voice of him saying; Who me shall be ashamed of before
men, ashamed shall I too be of him before
my Father, who is in the heavens." Thus far
St. Ambrose.

[21] But Paulinus, these mockeries reserved for himself
sufficiently knowing, so not feared, so not blushed at
the Gospel, that by this especially constancy
and freedom he is wonderful; and it may be believed, [his constancy.]
for this in the first place to have merited, so great to him in turn
by the most indulgent Lord repaid even
among men the celebrity of fame. Before others
barked at the servant of Christ, and through all the artifices of talent
his constancy tried Decius
Ausonius. For the Spanish withdrawal since
he had borne ill, [Sharply he is assailed by Ausonius.] and to be despoiled of his old disciple,
and now so renowned and dear a friend, and no less
opulent, grievously grieved; not other upon other letters by which to interpellate
he ceases, of his old honors and
patrimony the losses proposing; not the crime of betrayed
friendship to object he doubts, not the holy
wife Therasia he spares; not to bite more sharply,
and as if lightly changed to accuse him
he fears, chanting among other things:
"You have changed, Paulinus, most sweet one, your ways.
Therefore my ornament and the fatherland's, and the column of the Senate,
shall Bilbilis, or Calahorra clinging to the rocks, have? [Letter 25]
Here your robe, Paulinus, and the Latian curule chair
do you establish? and your fatherland's honors there will you bury?"
Which in diverse years poems, or rather incantations
sent, God made (namely of his servant meanwhile either hiding,
or changing places, consulting the tranquillity)
that very late at the same time all were rendered, in the fourth year, from
which nothing of letters from him he had received.

[22] Testifies it that exordium of Paulinus,
when to the letters all at once a response he meditates:
"The fourth now to the hard reapers this summer returns,
      And so often with hoary frost the winter has grown stiff,
Since no letter to me from your mouth has come. [Letter 1 to Ausonius]"
Then the fallacious blandishments and crafty complaints the noble
recruit with veteran firmness confutes. [But most freely Christ he confesses both by deeds and words.] That he does not go
to deny that he owes him all things: that he cultivated always,
and would cultivate him with a piety even abiding after death.
For the rest if anything in his pupil there were which
Christ loved, to rejoice he himself ought, to
whom, as to a master, part of the praise and reward
pertained. To inhabit solitary places was usual
to Philosophers, and Poets and holy Anchorites;
wherefore for a vice to him let him not turn it; although
he himself the vows rather than the matter of Monks had.
And would, he says, that it were granted truly under
the name of Christ to endure reproaches! For to a mind,
which the Numen shall have strengthened, by no means tender
is the brow; and praise here despised
returns, Christ being judge. Not therefore Bellerophon's
madness for himself, nor a Tanaquil, but a Lucretia
as wife is. Not forgetful was he of his native
sky; since, who one God worships, he truly
is mindful of the sky: nor impious can he be called,
since equally it is, to be a Christian, and pious;
and contrariwise, not a Christian, and impious.
But when changed he hears himself, not immediately
to spring to bites he ought, but to investigate,
what change it is, since some are free from crime.
But if perverse he shall find it, then to be angry,
and to strive that to a right state he restore
the fallen friend: but if he shall have learned
that to God he devoted a pious heart, and to him believed
confirming him, that eternal rewards are prepared, by present
losses bought,
"I do not think," he says, "that this so displeased a sound parent,
that an error of mind he believes, so to live to Christ,
As Christ sanctioned. [Letter 4 to Ausonius] This helps, nor do I repent of this
Error; foolish to those following diverse things to be
I do not care, while to the eternal King my opinion
Be wise."
That him he fears as judge: by the terror of that supreme trumpet
he is roused: that he provides, lest unprepared death
oppress him; but that it with a secure mind he may await. [there.]
Finally the excellent confession of Christ
thus he closes, and as it were with a beam-nail fixes:
"If this please, congratulate yourself in the rich hope of your friend:
If the contrary it is, to Christ only leave me to be approved."

[23] But that from the divine iambic, about the grace
of Christ wholly changing the man, shows,
how that very Paulinus to himself thoroughly
he had claimed. [The efficacy of Christ's grace.]
"He therefore as into our breasts his own
      from heaven shall have darted his light,
He wipes away the sick mold of the sluggish body,
      and the habit of the mind renews:
He drains out all that delighted before
      in place of chaste pleasure;
And wholly ours by a master's right he claims
      both hearts, and mouths, and times. [Letter 2 to Ausonius]
That he be thought of, understood, believed, read
      he wishes, feared, and loved.
The empty surgings, which the labor of life moves
       on the path of the present age,
Abolishes the faith of the future life with God:
      which, the things we seem to spurn,
Not as profane it casts off or vile wealth,
      but as dearer, it admonishes
To be laid up in the heavens, entrusted to Christ God,
      Who more has promised than what is given. [The first virtue of a Monk, the contempt of human judgments.]"
But all these things, how excellent a Monk Paulinus
was, plainly demonstrate. For
the first virtue of a Monk is, as holy Jerome
teaches, to despise the judgments of men.
Therefore who laid such foundations, an easy
estimation of the whole mass affords.

[23] For indeed the tongues of those vituperating, not
he himself only by constancy and equity of mind the greatest
overcame; but also, as a brave leader at once and
a wise master, to the same battle others excellently
strengthened and instructed; nor other arguments more nervously
he handled. [Letter 26.] [Paulinus's excellent precepts on this matter.] Witnesses are
which in that kind exist two letters, the sixth
to Severus, the first to Aper. Of which
a specimen here to be brought, both to Paulinus's
knowledge, and to imitation, as in a matter in
which the sum almost of religion turns, to be of interest
I judged. He forbids Severus even to dispute
with those, who the counsels of Christian perfection
reprehend, as those that not by human reason
are to be defended, since they rest on authority divine.
Aper he admonishes, that such hatreds and revilings
by living better than by speaking are to be overcome.
"If foolish," he says, "they think to be what we do,
congratulate yourself, conscious to yourself, that the work of God
and the precept of Christ you do; and remember,
that the foolish things of the world God has chosen that
he may confound the wise: and that what foolish
is of God, is wiser than men. By such ones
to wish to be cleared, the same is as
to be able Christ himself to deny; who those ashamed
of his name before this world, will be ashamed
in turn before the Father to confess as his own.
You therefore who labor (as you write) to render reason
for my and your deed, what will you do,
if you do not persuade men, not to their edification,
but to your destruction
with you about the work of God disputing? [Letter 6] Now you will be ashamed, and now you will grow pale, as the asserter of the worse cause:
and moved from your footing you will totter in the way of the Lord,
and from heaven to earth you will slip back, if the things which
you have built you destroy. And soon: Would, my brother,
that we be held worthy to be cursed, and
to be branded, and even to be slain in the name
of Jesus Christ, while not himself be killed
Christ in us. Then at last upon the asp
and basilisk we should walk, and trample
the head of the ancient dragon. But still,
the world being our friend (which is worse), we are loosed, and
in Christ we take delight: to be praised only in the name
of him loving; to be saddened and afflicted,
which is more useful, refusing.

[24] These things and more like these to Severus;
those to Aper: "O blessed injury, to displease
with Christ! [Letter 26] More to be feared by us is the love
of such, by whom without Christ one is pleased." And below:
"Let us therefore be silent to those, speaking to
the Lord in the silence of humility, and then he himself
who is unconquered, will fight for us, and will conquer
in us. But in matters of this kind what to do
we ought, the Prophet teaches us, saying;
'But I, when they were troublesome to me, clothed
myself in haircloth, and humbled in fasting
my soul': namely, that our detractors,
by that very thing by which they are moved, the appearance of humility,
we may destroy; and so much the more may they be confounded
before the Lord, in the crime of their ancient
pride still remaining, the more
we ourselves glory, in which they are confounded
in us. [Ps. 34. 13] Therefore stable in the faith of truth and
in the operation of justice, of such either the hatreds or the revilings
by living better than by speaking we refute;
because 'he will reject your words behind him,
who hates discipline'; and 'who reproves
a fool (as you hold written) takes to himself contumely.'
Let the Orators have to themselves their letters,
the Philosophers to themselves their wisdom, the rich to themselves
their riches, the Kings to themselves their kingdoms: to us
glory, and possession, and kingdom Christ
is: to us wisdom in the foolishness of preaching,
to us strength in the weakness of the flesh,
to us glory in the scandal of the Cross, by which to me
the world is killed and I to the world, that I may live
to God; but no longer now I, but in me Christ;
to whom we are buried together, in whom now
we are hidden from this world's eyes, that to the confusion
of the same with him we may be revealed: when
of these things which now to us he objects mindful, he will say;
'These are they whose life we esteemed
madness, how are they reckoned among the sons
of God?'" From which words it appears, how full
he spoke from the breast.

[25] But much more (by which namely the testimony of deeds
is greater) from his deeds, [Paulinus's remarkable faith.] which
words accompanied, it appears how truly
St. Jerome that praise above the rest to Paulinus
attributes, that "of most fervent faith a Presbyter"
he calls him. [Letter 34 to Julian.] And the younger Paulinus, he who
the Life of St. Martin in heroic verse composed,
with the glory of remarkable faith ennobled affirms, when
in the second volume he sings:
"Nay also to Paulinus a like medicine health
Restored, whom the glory of remarkable faith widely
Exalted. [Book 2 of the Life of St. Martin.]"
For not without the fervor of faith the highest could so great
constancy have been; which Paulinus himself
too declares, when he says: "Remember the grain
of mustard (of which seed we are), if it be crushed,
is kindled the more, and then at last into
its own force is roused. [Letter 6 to Severus.] Wherefore we ought
as it were to our nature in this to correspond, that
by adverse speeches crushed, we may burn to
the faith; and those very ones, who us, as the least
of men, namely as a grain of mustard,
which the least is of seeds, to break try,
we may burn. [Letter 29] And to Aper: It is clear
how strongly you have believed in Christ,
to whom now it is granted for Christ to suffer." Nay
also seems the abdication of all things, and
the undertaking of a holier life attributed to faith by a special
reason once to have been, and "the work of faith," or "faith"
called. [On the glory of the Confessors, chapter 107] Gregory indeed of Tours
the conversion of Paulinus thus describes, as if
the words of the Gospel being heard; to translate them
into work immediately he set himself: which nothing
(as I think) else signifies, [His most beautiful sentences,] than that the Evangelical
voices, with which the ears of Christians assiduously
resound, but with a sterile and idle, through their vice, signification, with a ready and effective faith into
Paulinus's mind thoroughly descended. He drank
therefore from the first the Gospel with his whole breast. And
because (to say it with his most sweet formulas) "the savor
of the mind in speech is tasted: the speech of a man
of the mind is the mirror, and the treasure of the breast
is made public by eloquence." [Letters 32, 37, & 33] Hence it is, that the divine
sayings of Christ and decrees, about perfect and
to the highest led virtue, so everywhere
with magnificent mouth he pours forth.

[26] Hence those lights or oracles, about Evangelical
death,
"Let the former life perish, that the future life perish not. [Feast-poem 10]" And:
"--- Let us die that we die not.
Let us cover the deadly life with a vital death."
About the humility of heart: "Humble in heart, the heart
of Christ it is. [Letter 2 to Severus.]" About forgiving injuries: "To return
the like of an injury, is human vengeance; but the enemy
even to love, is heavenly vengeance."
About Evangelical poverty, "We have nothing
except Christ; and see if we have nothing,
we who have him having all things"; and others everywhere
like these; always in this fixed, that Christ is to be followed,
and to him to be lived, [Christ is to be served so, as he wills himself to be served.] by the law which
he taught and sanctioned, and the form which he set forth. [Letter 5 to Severus.]
Which indeed to all Christians before other
cares, nay the only care ought to be. For if
worldly wisdom thus in its errors glories
(says St. Leo) "that whomever for himself each as leader
has chosen, his opinions, and morals, and
all institutes he follows; what to us will be the communion
of the Christian name, unless that to him inseparably
we be united, who is (as he himself insinuated)
the way, the truth and the life? [Sermon 2 on the Resurrection.]" What therefore else
ought he to do (that this too from Nyssen
I may add) "who of the great surname of Christ worthy
has become, except that all his things both thought
and said and done diligently he explore,
and, whether each of them to Christ
tend, or from him be alien, he judge? [John 14]"
This therefore did everywhere St. Paulinus, that,
since to Christ he had dedicated himself in service, to
his laws and nods wholly himself he might compose.
Contrary to which very many most perversely do,
not only with a deadly but also with a shameful crime;
who so their life and morals temper, as if
not Christ, but the world and Satan,
for a leader and God they follow; and thence
the name to have received content, hence laws they receive. [to Olympius the monk]
But to the order of the narration let us return.

CHAPTER IV.

Paulinus ordained a Priest at Barcelona, from Milan and Rome to Nola comes and wholly delivers himself to the cult of St. Felix.

[27] From the letters given mutually of Ausonius and Paulinus,
and especially from that, whose
beginning is, "The fourth now to the hard reapers this summer
returns," openly it is established, that nearly four
years in Spain Paulinus was, wholly to God
devoted, and the rudiments of his heavenly warfare,
with the greatest ardor and most attentive care laying. [Letter 1 to Ausonius.]
But there while he passes mostly at Barcelona,
although solitude and pious hiding-places
he loved, yet to be hidden could not the city
upon a mountain of most lofty virtue placed.
The eyes of all upon himself by the splendor of the Evangelical
light he turned. And so while the people
admires equally him and venerates, so with charity
it was inflamed, that to the Priesthood by a pious force it compelled him.
There flourished that custom at that time, [Paulinus to the Priesthood by the people is forced.] you would not know
whether more religious or more violent, that those whose
sanctity far to eminate above the common
measure they noticed, and whom vehemently
they loved, them the peoples forced into
the sacred warfare to give their name. Thus at Milan
St. Ambrose was co-opted Bishop: thus Pinianus
that as a Presbyter he be created. At Hippo a contention
tumultuous arose, which to St. Augustine
a business indeed of much trouble stirred up:
thus the brother of St. Jerome, Paulinianus, seized,
and his mouth held shut, was initiated by Epiphanius:
thus Maximus the Palatine to the Priesthood civic
love (as Sidonius speaks) bound:
thus at last our Paulinus, by the force of the suddenly
inflamed people, by Bishop Lampius
was consecrated on the natal day of the Lord, two years
nearly after Baptism. [Letter 24, 4]

[28] Moreover he had to be forced, not because from divine
ministries he bore a mind averse, but
for a double cause. [With how great piety he undertook and treated the Priesthood.] First, because monastic
humility he meditated, and an obscure
withdrawal; as one who had chosen "to be cast down
in the house of God." Then, because if at last to
the Priesthood his mind he should turn, since unworthy
himself of the august sanctity of the office he reckoned,
and nothing exceptional and beyond the laws he could bear,
by grades little by little to be raised, and through long
servitude to render himself worthier he wished. Which
all to Severus familiarly he sets forth with these words:
"We now in the Barcelona (as before I had written)
city stay. After those letters,
to which you replied, on the Lord's day on which to be born
in the flesh he deigned, by the sudden (as he himself a witness
is) force of a multitude, but I believe by his own ordination
seized, and into the Presbyterate initiated
I was; I confess, unwilling, not from disdain of the place (for
I attest to him, that to the doorkeeper's name and office
I wished the sacred to begin servitude) but
as destined to another place, elsewhere (as you know) in mind
composed and fixed, the new and unexpected
pleasure of the divine will I dreaded. [Letter 6 to Severus.] For the rest,
because the plan of the Monastic life fixed clung
to his breast, although at last to be consecrated
he permitted, yet he excepted expressly that to a diocese
certain he be not bound, to the Priesthood only
of the Lord, not also to a place of a Church dedicated.
But with what sense of mind, with how great submission,
with what reverence to the most divine yoke his neck
he subjected, the same he himself thus pursues: "Having given
my neck to the yoke of Christ, I see greater
than my merits and senses works to handle:
and now to the secrets and inner shrines of God most high
received and inserted to communicate heavenly things,
and to God more nearly admitted in the spirit itself of Christ,
and the body and splendor to be engaged. [There.] Scarcely yet
the understanding of the sacred mass I grasp by the straits of my mind;
and the burden of my office, conscious of my infirmity,
I shudder at. But he, who wisdom
gave to little ones, out of the mouth of infants and sucklings
perfects praise to himself, is powerful in
me also his work to perfect, and the office
to adorn, that of himself worthy he may make, whom from the unworthy
he called."

[29] Created a Priest, now wholly he was in this,
that intimately with God he might be joined; and for that
cause, that himself from faculties and the other human
goods, [He resolves to sell all his and give to the poor.] as the matter of sins and from
the highest good distracting, he might free. Which
(as other things) was pleasant, from his most grave and most sweet sermon to have learned. For thus to
Augustine he speaks: "Meanwhile me, from the dangers
of this life and the depth of sins to escape striving, by your prayers as by a plank
sustain; that from this world, as from a shipwreck naked
I may escape. For therefore me
to lighten of burdens and the burdening garments to strip off
I took care, that this billowy, which between
us and God by sins barking between separates,
salt sea of the present life, all the clothing of the flesh,
and the care of the following day, Christ commanding and helping,
unencumbered I may swim out of. [Letter 41] Nor that I
have accomplished do I glory; for even if to glory I could,
in the Lord I would glory, whose it is to perfect, [Into Gaul he returns, and in deed distributes all.]
what to us it is given to will: but my soul still longs
to desire the judgments of the Lord."
Such things when he meditated, that the same at the first
time he might bring into effect, into Gaul,
as I think, he returned. Here (as Uranius speaks)
"he opened his granaries to the poor, his storehouses
to those coming he laid open. For little
it was to him to feed those near, [To Milan he goes.] unless also from everywhere
he called forth those whom he might feed and clothe. How
many unjustly oppressed he raised up? how many
for debt enslaved, the debt being paid, from
the servitude of creditors he freed? how to others
besides many the debt he dissolved; by one trade
the creditors equally and the debtors gladdening,
and to himself binding; these from misery
delivering, to those their own restoring." [Letter 45 to Alypius.] His affairs in Gaul
being composed, or rather to the Lord restored,
Italy having entered, to Milan to holy
Ambrose he came; by whom so he was received
lovingly and honorably, that of his own Clergy (since
otherwise he could not hold him), although in diverse
places he should dwell, he wished him to be reckoned; by no means alien
the conjecture of those thinking it done, because
him for himself Ambrose, in old age now heavy, destined
and desired as successor. [Baronius, year 394]

[30] From Milan to Rome he came. Here indeed
with diverse zeals of minds he was received, with honor
and great veneration by the people, [To Rome he comes, and is vexed.] by
some of the Clergy, and by the Pontiff himself, not
without a certain appearance of envy, or certainly little
considered zeal. Siricius was Pontiff, little
in that matter (to say it most mildly) fortunate,
because with him holy Jerome too,
as Baronius the Cardinal observes, offended.
Vehemently he had set himself, that the rampant
through those times depraved custom he might crush,
by which lay men, or even Neophytes hastily
into Priests were consecrated; and certain
intervals he had established, through which gradually to the sacred
warfare of Order one should ascend. [Baronius, year 394] Therefore, while
all Rome is turned upon Paulinus, and
whom now it had looked up to as Consul, now as Presbyter,
and nearly Monk it admires;
Siricius (as far as it is permitted to conjecture) let emanate
the rumor, that his company he did not wish;
namely, lest the sudden consecration of the man
to approve, and the laws passed by himself to weaken
he might seem. That nothing further was done sufficiently
show those words of Paulinus to Severus, "Who
are said to hate us, and from the company of his sanctity to segregate us." This same however to a great
impediment of divine glory tended,
and of the Lord's grace a detriment made,
since from following Paulinus's footsteps not a few
that rumor about the alienated Pontiff's mind retarded:
when indeed the more worthy of every pardon
Paulinus was, because nothing through contumacy
he had committed, but the force of the inflamed multitude
to avoid he could not. [Letter 1] For the rest the more maturely
the son of peace into his Felix's longed-for bosom
hid himself; that envy, which by sight and presence
was nourished, the fuel withdrawn, as it happens,
might be extinguished. But if any of the detractions
in a few of the Clergy remained, of these scarcely
a thin rumor into Campania breathed: that not
otherwise than a cold breeze, or the importunate of an empty
gnat's murmur (for thus them Paulinus calls)
from ears fenced about with thorns it was excluded. [There.]
For, what to me pertains,
he says, "even with those who hate my peace
in mind peaceful I am; for if anyone
wishes to be contentious, this our custom does not
receive."

[31] In a pleasant field, to five hundred from the city
of Nola paces, the bones of blessed Felix the Martyr rested,
and today are kept. [He withdraws to Nola to St. Felix's.] Into that as it were
a port where Paulinus from the heat of the age the wearied
bark brought, I would not hope indeed to be able by speaking
to attain, how he breathed again, with what joys
he overflowed, [What life here he instituted.] how to the most loving Patron himself wholly
he dedicated and committed, and wholly into every
excellence of sanctity he poured out. Now
to reign, now above all earthly things to eminate; before
all things to pay, what by that votive recently poem
he had received:
"Open easy ways, grant to run on gentle waves;
And, servants for thy servant, winds from the stern to rise:
And in thy threshold let there be for us a placid port. [Feast-poem 1]
There the sweet yoke, the light burden, and the gentle
servitude under thee as lord we shall bear: even if just, of unjust
servants thou hast no need; yet both thou wilt suffer, and wilt love
Whatever ones to thee, Christ granting, dedicated:
And to serve thy doors; thy thresholds in the morning
With cleanliness to tend thou wilt allow, and at night in turn
With pious watches to keep, and in that office
To close the well-earned life with a weary body."
Thus with faithful service to his heavenly Patron ministering,
wholly on him to depend, [How pious toward St. Felix.] all things in him placed
to have, all things received to him to refer, especially in
sanctity to advance. Which as if by a divine
breath inspired, with most charming sanctity describing
he sings:
"Thou art father, and fatherland, and home, and substance to us;
Into thy bosom transferred our cradle,
And thine is to us for a nest thy bosom; here well cherished
We grow, and into another changing our bodies form,
Of the earthly stock we are stripped; and with wings coming up
We are turned into birds by the seed of the divine word. [Feast-poem 4]"
Nothing did he doubt that he was loved by the Martyr, at least as
"a lord with love deigns to favor a little dog."
"Since," he says, "to me life, home, substance, grace, glory, bread
Is Felix, God granting it —"
The highest too toward the holy Patron of a holy
client's zeal those words to Severus declare:
"You have therefore from me two little books, one
in verses the Feast-poem of my solemn to my Lord-of-the-estate
chant: to whom in body and spirit
daily, but in tongue yearly I pay
the most sweet tribute of voluntary servitude,
on the feast day of his consecration immolating to Christ
a sacrifice of praise, and rendering to the Most High my vows." [Feast-poem 9, Letter 9]

[32] So great was Paulinus's toward the blessed Confessor
and Martyr piety, the renowned now widely through
the lands name of Felix of Nola, [More illustrious he rendered him first by poems.] in many ways more famous
he made: first by poems, which the whole
were scattered through the world of lands: from which
both we the whole life of the Martyr, and his sacred
contests, and the deeds at his tomb the prodigies
have. And without doubt more he wrote
than exist, since Feast-poems to us have come
only ten: and certain it seems, that by
Paulinus, who a new one yearly as it were votive
paid, in the space of nearly five and thirty
years, in which at St. Felix's he lived, [Second, by the magnificence of the Basilicas.]
were composed many more. Then by built and adorned
Basilicas, and with sacred painting from the old and
new Testament decorated. Which sacred magnificence
wonderfully availed both to frequent the crowds of strangers,
and to the sacred Feast
of the Martyr religiously to be celebrated. For by this salutary
industry it seemed to Paulinus that there could be caught and detained
the eyes of men and minds; and
the feastings gradually be removed, which from ethnic
superstition everywhere among Christians were retained;
nor from mortals', especially rustics',
manners could be eradicated. He had added
to the painting titles, and the reason of his counsel thus explains.
"--- That while the painted things in turn
They show and read over to themselves, or more slowly of food
May be mindful, while pleasing fasts they feed their eyes:
And so a better use into the astonished may insert itself,
While the painting beguiles hunger; and to the reader the holy
Histories, of chaste works the honesty creeps in,
By pious examples induced; there is drunk by the gaping
Sobriety, the forgetfulness of too much wine comes upon them. [Feast-poem 9]"

[33] But much most of all he illustrated the most holy
Priest by his domicile, [Third, by his authority and sanctity.] and by the institute
of his marvelous life, and by his wisdom, and the other
virtues' ornaments. For there was run together
from the most remote shores not so much of Felix, as
of Paulinus to see by the desire. The holy Bishop
Nicetas, once and again all the way from the Dacians
for that cause came: whom both in Feast-poem nine Paulinus
with marvelous praises coming a second time receives,
nor with lesser before three years had he pursued
departing with a Sapphic propemptic. Holy
Augustine, when a most troublesome had arisen
case between Bonifacius his presbyter, and
his accuser, nor could the truth be established;
that one praying, this urging the crime; according
to the custom of his age, by which such controversies
were wont to be finished by an oath conceived at the tombs of the Martyrs,
both to Nola to holy Felix
he sent: asserting the cause, why from the Martyrs,
at whose monuments in that kind
miracles were given, Felix especially he had chosen,
"To many," he says, "is most well known the sanctity
of the place, where the body of Felix of Nola is laid;
whither I wished that they should go, because thence to us
more easily and more faithfully can be written, whatever
in any of them divinely shall have been disclosed. [Augustine, Letter 137]"
By which speech the friendship, piety, and faith
of Paulinus he designates, whom Augustine especially
loved, and admired. So the client's esteem
and fame, which most desired to Paulinus
happened, to the amplifying of the Patron's honors and
to the dilating of his cult profited. Hence it happened not
only that Nola was increased with citizens, but also at
the very tomb, where at first a poor heaped-up
mound was, now the appearance of a city stood forth.

[34] But not many times after,
than to holy Felix Paulinus had come,
as if of a new building the foundations by patience
to be solidified, into a grave sickness he was involved. [Feast-poem 6]
He willed, the wonderful arbiter of things and tempering
God, [Through sickness he becomes famous.] through that vexation, not only an exercise
profitable to his athlete, but also
manifold solace to bring; and before all things,
the contumely received at Rome to repair; and the grief
of Paulinus to wipe away, fearing lest the work
thence divine might be impeded. He was loosed therefore
from such solicitude through that occasion: for the sickness about
him known, the minds of the dwellers toward
the man of God laid bare. He narrates the matter himself to Severus,
that the glory may be to God, and may be known of his highest
goodness the work. "They saw," he says, "your boys
how assiduous us, how sedulous the solicitous brothers'
monks', bishops', clerics',
and even of the seculars themselves often offices,
through all that our time of sickness celebrated. [Paulinus, Letter 1 to Severus.]
Which before your unanimity, of the
Lord's grace however (whose this too
the work and gift is) to glory it is permitted. No one
almost in all Campania of the Bishops
did not to visit us a right reckon for himself. And those whom
infirmity or some necessity had bound,
sending in their stead clerics and letters were present.
The Africans too to us the Bishops to revisit at the first
summer sent."

NOTES OF D. P.

a) See Chifflet chapter 4, where from Letter 6 to Severus, given at the beginning of the year 394, and the course of the Dominical letter B, in the same year the Lord's day with the feast of the Nativity of Christ composing, he concludes, that the matter was done at the end of the year 393, in the first still year of his conversion.

CHAPTER V.

Paulinus's friendship with the African Bishops especially Augustine,
the judgments of other Saints about his example, effective for the contempt of the world.

[35] Moreover what last he said about the legation
of the African Bishops, thus the matter was.
Long since (as above is indicated) Paulinus
Alypius, though unknown, had known at Milan.
He now a Bishop, when so remarkable a change of the man
he heard (for most swiftly the rumor most widely
spread), to salute him by letters
by a Christian office he thought: [The African Bishops salute Paulinus.] and as a gift sent
St. Augustine's five books against the Manichees.
By the reading of these volumes so captivated
was Paulinus, that not only thanks to Alypius the highest
he gave; but also of his own accord to Augustine
his, full of praises and of his modesty letters
he destined, a boy being sent, through whom others too
illustrious men of Africa he might salute. [Augustine's and Paulinus's mutual charity.] Which letters
when they were carried into Africa, and a specimen of his
wisdom and sanctity afforded,
it is wonderful how eagerly they were read and made public,
and toward Paulinus himself how incredible
were stirred up of the Africans the zeals of the Priests
and Monks. Before all of these themselves between them
Paulinus's and Augustine's, as of David and
Jonathan, were glued together the souls. Which neither
more faithfully can be described, nor more sweetly by anyone, [Augustine's judgment of Paulinus's letters,]
than the very letters of Augustine, that is, that of truth's
tongue and of charity may set forth: who indeed
both with special zeal seems to have accurately made the description,
and to it the marrow as it were of his honey copiously
to have sprinkled. Thus he begins: "O good
man, O good brother, you lay hidden from my soul: and to it
I say that it endure, because still you lie hidden from my eyes,
and scarcely it obeys, nay it obeys not.

[36] Then a little disputation about pain being interposed,
that him in face he was ignorant of, he subjoins:
"How therefore should I not grieve, that not yet
your face I have known, that is, the house of your soul,
which as my own I have known? [expressed in letter 32.] For I read
your letters flowing milk and honey, setting forth
the simplicity of your heart, in which you seek the Lord,
feeling about him in goodness, and bringing
to him brightness and honor. The brothers read them,
and rejoice untiringly and ineffably
at so abundant and so excellent gifts
of God, your goods. As many as read them,
snatch them; because they are snatched, when they read. What
a sweet odor of Christ, and how it is fragrant from them?
It cannot be said, they when you they offer
that you may be seen, how much us they excite that you may be sought:
for both perceivable they make and desirable.
For as much as your presence
to us in a manner they exhibit, so much your absence
us to bear they do not allow. They love you all
in them, and to be loved by you they desire. Praised and
blessed is God, by whose grace you are such.
There is excited Christ, that the winds and seas
for you to calm, you striving to his stability, he may deign.
There the wife is excited, not a leader to softness
to her husband, but to fortitude restored
into the bones of her husband: whom into your unity reduced
and rendered, in spiritual things to you with so much
firmer as chaster bonds joined,
with the offices due to your sanctity in you,
with one mouth we salute. There the cedars of Lebanon to the earth
laid down, and into the building of an ark by the joining
of charity erected, the waves of this world incorruptibly
cleave. There glory, that it may be acquired, is despised;
and the world, that it may be obtained, is left.
There the little ones, or even the somewhat bigger
sons of Babylon are dashed against the rock, the vices namely
of confusion and secular pride. These
and such most sweet and most sacred spectacles
your letters afford to readers, letters
of faith unfeigned, letters of good hope, letters
of pure charity. How to us they breathe
your thirst, and the desire and faintness of your soul
into the courts of the Lord? What of most holy love
do they breathe? How great an opulence of a sincere
heart do they boil with? What thanks do they render to God?
What do they obtain from God? Are they more soothing, or
more ardent? more luminous, or more fruitful?
For what is it, that so us they caress, so
inflame, so rain upon, and so serene they are?
What is it, I ask you, or what to you for them
should I repay, except that wholly I am yours in him,
whose wholly you are? If it be little, more certainly
I have not."

[37] Therefore by these letters of Paulinus, when so great
toward him were excited zeals, other
letters supervened from the same, neither in piety
to the former, nor in charity unlike: and meanwhile
Augustine by Valerius was co-opted as helper, and
created Co-bishop. Then all together,
Valerius and Augustine of Hippo, [Paulinus's exhortation to Licentius.] Alypius
of Tagaste, Profuturus of Calama, and Severus
of Mileve, Bishops, by their letters Paulinus
most dutifully revisited. There had commended
to the same in former letters Augustine Romanianus,
and his son Licentius, of Alypius the one his uncle,
the other his cousin; that both,
and especially Licentius, to the studies of perfection
he might try to bring. There had come both to Rome
from Africa, and at Nola Paulinus had saluted.
He therefore a worshipper of the Christian office most diligent,
the day after he received the letters from the Bishops
of Africa, wrote to both with gladness
exulting, and especially congratulating about Augustine's
Episcopate: and Licentius not only in prose
to the Christian virtues and the flight of the world,
but also in verse he exhorts, because that delighted
was the youth in poetry he had known. So much charity in
alluring to piety mortals is clever:
and to each one's taste itself accommodates, that
the vital food, by a good enticement caught, they may drink. Which all Cardinal Baronius places done
in the year of salvation 395, in which especially year also
in the East Paulinus's name became famous.

[38] There had died at the beginning of the year the elder Theodosius
Augustus; [His Panegyric on Theodosius.] whom when the Ethnic Writers
unworthily accused, Paulinus by the admonition of holy Endelechius,
a man most closely joined to him in friendship,
to be defended from his merits
and adorned undertook; with this especially counsel,
that in Theodosius not so much an Emperor as
a servant of Christ; not by the pride of dominating, but
by the humility of serving powerful; nor by his kingdom,
but by his faith a prince, as he himself speaks, he might proclaim;
or, as plainly and simply Gennadius [says],
that he might demonstrate, that very Christian
Emperor over the Tyrants by faith more and prayer
than by arms a victory carried off. [Letter 9, Catalogue of Illustrious Men, chapter 48.] And indeed
Theodosius's faith magnificently holy Ambrose
in the Oration on his death proclaims. And the same
once in the Proem of the first book to Gratian
he had written. "You ask," he says, "of me a little book of faith,
holy emperor, about to set out to battle.
For you know that by the faith more of the Emperor,
than by the valor of the soldiers, victory is wont to be sought."
That laudation Paulinus through Vigilantius,
who then a Monk in appearance to be praised,
afterward a most foul heretic was, to St. Jerome
sent into Palestine, a letter being added,
in which both Vigilantius he commended, and precepts
of the life to be led by himself he asked; St. Jerome's
felicity extolling, that in Christ's
footsteps for himself a domicile he had chosen. To which
letter while he replies St. Jerome, and
precepts of the Monastic life some gave; persuading
that near cities rather and in solitude,
than in a throng and in Jerusalem itself he should dwell; [Jerome's judgment of him.]
for not to have been at Jerusalem, but
at Jerusalem to have lived well was to be praised: and
about Theodosius's defense thus he pronounces: [letter 13] "Your book,
which on behalf of Theodosius the Prince
prudently and ornately composed you transmitted,
gladly I read: and especially to me in it the subdivision
pleased; and when in the first parts you surpass
others, in the penultimate you yourself you exceed. But
also the very kind of eloquence is pressed and polished;
and, when with Tullian purity it shines, frequent
it is in sentences: for it lies, (as someone says)
the speech, in which only the words are praised. Besides
great is the consequence of things; and one
hangs from another. Whatever you assume,
either the end of the upper, or the beginning of the following
it is. Happy Theodosius, who by such an Orator of Christ
is defended. You have illustrated his purples, and
the usefulness of his laws to future ages have consecrated."
To these a sharp exhortation to cultivate the studies
of the Scriptures, which we above have placed,
he added. Nor did he abstain from this: "Let the Church have you noble, as before the Senate had."

[39] Thus when there was celebrated Paulinus's name, [How much Paulinus illustrated the Evangelical counsels.]
difficult indeed it is by thought to attain, how much
to Religion by his deed of splendor, how much
of authority to the Evangelical counsels he procured.
To estimate however it is permitted, when servant men,
if faithful and modest they be, the doctrine of our Savior
God, as holy Paul speaks,
adorn; how much one of that rank a Senator by that kind
of life would adorn it. [To Titus 2] From the City itself the supreme
Pontiff Anastasius, when to Siricius he had succeeded,
of those things which to adorning the man pertained,
nothing remaining made. It is narrated in the letter
to Delphinus the second: "Let your veneration know,
that the Pope of the city Anastasius most loving
is of our humility: for when first the power
of his charity to us to be offered to have
he began, not only to receive it from us,
but to thrust upon us with most pious affection he hastened.
For shortly after his ordination a),
letters about our name, full both of religion,
and of piety, and of peace, to the Bishops of Campania
he sent; by which both his affection he might declare,
and to others of his benignity afford an example.
Then us ourselves at Rome, when by solemn
custom to the blessed Apostles' Feast
we had come, as kindly as honorably
he received. Afterward too some time having intervened
even to his Feast, which to his Co-priests
only he is wont to grant, to invite
he deigned." With the same benignity Venerius,
who after Simplician, in the year of salvation 400 b)
the Milanese fillets put on, as soon as he was
first consecrated, Paulinus to be saluted by himself thought.
Nor indeed praisers only most renowned
men, but also imitators he had, and especially
Severus himself, whose to the interior wisdom
transition by a modest interpretation
Paulinus prefers to his own. "You brother most beloved,"
he says, "to the Lord by a greater miracle
were converted, because in age more flourishing, in praises
more abundant, in the burdens of patrimony lighter, in the substance
of faculties not more needy, and in the very
still world's theatre, that is, in the forum's celebrity
dwelling, and of an eloquent name the palm holding,
by a sudden impulse you shook off the servile yoke of sin,
and the deadly chains of flesh and blood you broke. [letter 1]"

[40] To have availed much, I think, Paulinus's example
for Pammachius too after the death
of his wife, [How great force and celebrity in Paulinus's example] from a noble Patrician into a nobler Monk
to be changed. And so when the heavenly
philosophy through the flower of men and the senatorial
summit was now so spread abroad, deservedly St.
Jerome to the same Pammachius congratulating
writes: "In our times Rome possesses,
what the world knew not. Then rare were wise,
powerful, noble, Christians: now many Monks
wise, powerful, noble. [Jerome, letter 26.]" But
what below he says, "That of Patrician birth first
among the first Monks you began to be," nothing
hinders Paulinus's glory, as if either not from
Patrician birth he himself, or not before Pammachius
to Monasticism ascended; but that only he signifies, that he who had been among the first Patricians,
now among the first Monks was numbered.
That this glory even among men was greater,
than the profane splendor before was,
excellently in the same place he teaches: "Before," he says,
"to Christ with his whole mind he served, known he was
in the Senate, but many others had the fillets
Proconsular: the whole world with honors of this kind
is full: first he was, but among
the first: now all the Churches of Christ Pammachius
speak of. The world admires the poor man,
whom hitherto rich it knew not."
Wherefore he concludes: "More therefore we receive, than
we have given. Small things we have dismissed, and great things we possess:
with a hundredfold interest Christ's promises
are repaid." Which to Paulinus rightly agree,
so much the more, as he more
to Christ brought of the mind and of the mouth ornaments,
and in time too and in ardor of mind
he preceded.

[42] So far availed his example, that
holy Augustine greatly wished, that
in person to be beheld to the Africans he might afford himself. [He is celebrated by St. Augustine,] "Not
impudently," he says, "I beg you, and demand,
and entreat, that into Africa, laboring with a greater thirst of such
men, than of the dryness of the soil, you may deign
to come. [letter 34.] God knows, that
not only on account of my desire, nor
only on account of those, who either through us your
purpose, or from anywhere by fame proclaiming
have learned; but also on account of the rest, who
partly do not hear, partly the heard do not believe,
yet can the discovered love, you
to these lands even bodily to be present we desire.
This therefore glory of Christ even to the eyes of our
men we desire to be brought, in one marriage
set forth to each sex of pride to be trampled,
not of perfection to be despaired, examples."
And to Licentius his writing, "Go into Campania,"
he says, "learn Paulinus the excellent and
holy servant of God, how great a pomp of this
age with so much more generous, as more humble
neck without delay he shook off, that it
he might subject to Christ's yoke, as he subjected it: and
now him the moderator of his journey quiet and modest
exults. [and letter 39] Go, learn with what resources of talent
sacrifices of praise to him he offers, pouring back to him
whatever good he received from him, lest he lose
all, if he repose it not in him from whom these are."
The same his Presbyter by name likewise Paulinus,
when to this our [Paulinus] he had come, he bids
to God thanks to give, that such a master
to receive his rudiments and to nourish [him] he had given.
And our Paulinus thus he addresses: "Not
with a richer fruit he reads or hears me teaching,
and discoursing, and even with any
exhortations approaching, than he beholds
you living. [letter 59.]"

[43] Holy Jerome, while Julian to perfection
he exhorts, the man's renowned birth, and
ample substance, defenses of the world very firm, [by St. Jerome,]
with this same engine he shakes. "Nor is there, why
you should excuse your nobility, and the weights of riches;
look upon the holy man Pammachius, and of most fervent
faith Paulinus the Presbyter, who
not only riches, but themselves to the Lord offered:
who against the devil's evasion
by no means skin for skin, but flesh, and
bones, and their souls to the Lord consecrated: who
you both by example and by eloquence, that is by deed and
by tongue can to greater things lead. [letter 34.] Noble
are you? and they: but in Christ nobler. Rich
and honored? and they: nay from rich and
honored poor and inglorious, and therefore
richer and more renowned, because for Christ poor
and unhonored." With the same Jerome
the Author of the third letter in volume nine,
a contemporary of those times, a Writer not unlearned,
a singular man (for so he names him)
Paulinus, who, the Senate, honors, riches
leaving, like Abraham a sepulchre for himself
had procured, in which together with his matron
dead to the world, from worldly works
he rested, to be imitated proposes to the daughters of Geruntius,
whom to neglect their inheritance, [by St. Eucherius,] and
to prepare for themselves a like sepulchre of rest he exhorts.
A few times after holy Eucherius,
while ornaments for heavenly philosophy
he sought, that to it from vain cares Valerian
he might bring over, his kinsman, in
the first line he places Paulinus, whom a peculiar
and blessed example of his Gaul he calls. [Isaiah 49, 2]
So whoever against the world through those times
should make war, as a chosen arrow, to which
no impenetrable breast would resist, Paulinus
from the divine quiver drew forth.

[44] But it is better to know with how great gravity,
and with how great magnificence that of such marvelous
sanctity Bishop, [by St. Martin.] whose nod for an oracle
was, Martin of Tours, not only to provoke,
those who came to him, by the authority and
admiration of Paulinus was wont; but also
blessed in the present he esteemed the age, to which such
a spectacle had happened. "His speech," says Severus,
"was no other among us, than that the world's
this allurements and the burdens of the age were to be left,
that the Lord Jesus free and unencumbered
we might follow: and the most excellent to us
example of the present times, of the illustrious man Paulinus,
of whom above mention we have made,
he urged, who, the highest wealth being cast off, Christ
having followed, alone almost in these times
the Evangelical precepts had fulfilled. [chapter 26.] Him to us
to be followed, him he cried to be imitated: and blessed
to be the present age by so great a document of faith and virtue, [The fruit of good example,]
since according to the sentence
of the Lord rich and possessing much, by selling
all and giving to the poor, what was
impossible to do, possible he had made by example."
Thus St. Paulinus the dignity of Apostolic virtue,
by human vices obscured, with the Senatorial brightness
of light opened: the cast-off-by-the-common-people Evangelical
pearl as if from mud he drew out, the filth
he wiped away, the horror he shook off, the heavenly price
of it and its most charming brightness he made public.

[45] The known and beholders struck the magnitude of the new
work, to their eyes and minds subjected:
fame smote the unknown, to whom most widely
through one and another mouth of the wise it was spread abroad.
Hence it happened, that a most abundant from God grace
the Consular Monk merited, not
for those things only which he himself did; but also for
those, which to do his imitators and followers tried:
nor God with one only mind and tongue
one, but a thousand and far more praised;
and that not in the Nolan corner only,
but through all Italy, and Gaul,
and Dacia, and Africa, and Palestine, and
other most remote shores of the lands. Nay even
his eminent virtue to the admiration of itself, and to Christ
God's preaching, as of the author and master,
barbarians too and of the Christian religion enemies
allured. [Homily 13 on Genesis] Which, since holy Chrysostom
of any illustrious example the goods wisely
enumerates, so much more abundant to Paulinus returned,
as more bore his example both of majesty
and of weight: [to which also an exhortation Paulinus added.] which at the same time the very sanctity of Therasia
to women's singular incitement,
and in such a marriage so great a consent of perfection
more fruitfully alike and more becomingly made.
But yet to all these, and to the most vocal trumpet
of works Paulinus added
the voices of mouth too and of pen, both with sermons
most ardent the present, and with most sharp letters
and other lucubrations to perfection
the absent instigating; near at hand alike and afar,
of mouth and hand powerful, equaling deeds with speech,
speech with deeds, with both the rich contumacy
of the world, and the proud riches into
the obsequy of poverty and of the humility of Christ
captivating. For the rest, those whom loves the heavenly Father,
never to them affairs so prosperous makes, but
that of virtue to be proved and to be hardened to the patience's
anvil he leaves the matter.

NOTES OF D. P.

a) There succeeded to Siricius Anastasius in the year 398, on the 2nd of December.

b) The same reckoning confirmed see in our Treatise on the Bishops of Milan, number 24, before the last Volume of May.

CHAPTER VI.

Paulinus's patience, humility, gratitude, zeal for poverty.

[46] Among those applauses Paulinus not Ethnic
only detractors had, not only
that among friends first and most dear
master Ausonius, as above is demonstrated,
nor only at Rome by the malevolence of the envious
was he assailed; but also forsaken by his own.
For, as the commerce of the age almost by substance and hope
is conferred and contained, [Paulinus endures detractors, and is despised.] when one to Christ's
poverty passes over, namely as now
of fruit empty a husk, or a superfluous
corpse, friends mostly and kinsmen and
clients cast off. So Paulinus testifies it happened
to himself, when Severus thus he addresses: "Besides
I ask, because the highest right of your mind to have
me I trust, that, if it be necessary, my freedmen
and servants and brothers failing me,
your care you may lend, and to order may deign,
how to us the old wine, which
at Narbonne still we believe we have, may be conveyed. [Letter 1]
Do not fear, holy brother, loss, if
us you make even of money debtors. [Letter 5]" "For all
our own from us have turned away: at once impious
they are made, and the enemies of a man are his domestics."
And elsewhere: "Where to me now is the consanguineous
brotherhood? where the old friendship? where the former
fellowships? I have vanished before all those."
But such things by the followers of humility for gain were counted.
But praises he dreaded, abhorred, to bear
he could not, [He dreads praises,] by which both his sins to be aggravated
he said. Whence those complaints to Severus:
"What therefore wretched shall we do, hence too an account
and a penalty about to owe, that honors we accept
unmerited: and, who hearers only
of the law we are, by the doers are proclaimed? [Letter 1]
By which the more namely is reproached to us of-to-be-condemned
the torpor of sloth." And: "You much love
even to the sin of lying drags. See lest
against its (that is, charity's) rule you seem
to work evil to your neighbors, on whom the burden
of sins by the weight of undue praise you accumulate. [Letter 2]"
In which place to note it is convenient, how among the Saints
themselves the sense agrees. For great
Gregory the same sentence, and perhaps
by the reading of Paulinus admonished, thus expressed
to Anastasius: "But that me 'the mouth of the Lord,'
that 'a lamp' you call, that 'to many to profit'
you declare, this too to the heap of my iniquities
accedes; that, when to be avenged on
me iniquity ought, praises for vengeance I receive. [book 1 of Kings, chapter 7]"

[47] Therefore Paulinus, lest by the commendation of men,
of which himself he reckoned unworthy, before God
he should be condemned, so his praisers abhorred, [and his praisers he chastises.] that
unchastised by no means he dismissed them. An example
is the freedom, with which Severus, a holy man,
because sometimes to be carried away by the heat of charity farther
he allowed, not once he reprehended. Besides
the usual at that time custom (afterward indeed
more urbanely than truly it was received) in the title
of his letters Severus a servant himself had inscribed.
Paulinus a new preface by no means silent
passed over. [Letter 1] "In the title of the letter," he says,
"to imitate the excellent in all things to me brotherhood
of yours I feared: because safer I believed
truly to write. Beware therefore after these things, a servant of Christ
to liberty called, of a man, and brother,
and fellow-servant inferior a servant yourself to write: because
a sin of adulation it is rather, than of humility
a justification." At another time the same Severus
asked, that an image of himself painted to him Paulinus
should send. He indeed not lightly at that
request flared up: and not the mind, but the words imitating of those, who said once
to the Apostle: "Many letters have led you to madness";
"Severus, my Severus," he says, "much
charity nearly delirious makes you: and toward me,
not in age, but in sense your little one, as
a grandfather toward a late grandson, by excessive piety (which
however with the peace of your prudence I would say) foolish you become. [Acts 26]"
And he subjoins: "What kind do you wish, that we send
an image to you, of the earthly man, or of the heavenly? [Letter 8]
I know, that you that incorruptible appearance
long for, which in you the heavenly King has loved."
And soon: "How to you shall I dare myself
to paint, when the heavenly image to deny
I am proved by earthly corruption. On both sides me
shame shuts in: I blush to paint what I am,
I dare not paint what I am not." Thus sagacious
the cultivator of modesty thence the praises excluded, hence
of casting himself down and despising himself causes he hunted.

[48] He did everywhere this Paulinus, that from
his praises not more elated, [Everywhere he seizes the matter of humility.] but viler to himself he became.
And so when he had heard, that together with St.
Martin he had been painted at the Baptistery by Severus,
and the done deed had grieved over, at last he excuses it by this reason,
that the sinner (himself he understood) with the just
compared the more might be foul, and the sinner compared
the more the just (that is Martin) might shine forth. [Letter 12]
Finally, because verses also to be subscribed to the painting
had asked Severus; "By this grace only
I have obeyed you," he says, "that the reason of your counsel
might be made manifest, by which salubriously to the new men's
instruction studying, diverse far between themselves images
you had proposed, that those emerging from the sacred
font, both what to avoid and what to follow alike
might behold. Besides, what the most holy
men teach, for the custody of our humility
to be looked at in others what them might raise, in us
indeed what us might depress, that so
cleverly in place and skillfully does Paulinus that there appears
even humility to be ingenious;
especially when Severus to himself preferring, by a miracle
he says greater converted, and among other things
even those he reckons: 'To me an age more advanced,
from my first years an honored person, a body
weaker.' [Letter 1]" Which all when from habit
and weakness more arduous the way of virtue
they rendered, and therefore justly to the amplifying of praise
pertained; he however to diminishing it
refers. He adds then also, that Severus
in the burdens of patrimony was lighter: as if
to Paulinus to be wished more it would have been to be relieved of them.
And since not altogether the possessions
the same Severus had abdicated, he extols his constancy
in the cares indeed retaining, but the fruits
into God's obsequy conferring.
Thus at last lovers of true modesty, their eyes
remove from others' vices, and confer them on
virtues: but in themselves not, if anything be of good
and praiseworthy, but whatever vile and to-be-vituperated
is they behold.

[49] From the same submission and esteem of himself the lowest
arose the encomia, with which humble
in heart, [He esteems greatly all toward himself whatever offices.] that is the heart of Christ Paulinus,
those who any toward himself office performed, he proclaims.
For he reckoned himself of all goods unworthy,
and rather by all to be trampled he ought.
Hence the benevolence he looks up to, and the virtue
of them, that so himself (as persuaded he had it)
abject and despised they did not abhor.
With immense praises Victor he extols,
who to himself certain out of charity ministries to apply
had wished. Wherefore he groaned: "He served therefore
me, he served, I say: and woe wretched
to me, that I suffered it. He served a sinner too,
who did not serve sin. But hence to me
some relief of so great a weight I hope (let us learn,
Religious, with what mind are to be received
the obsequies of the brothers) that the holy brother's service
not with pride I claimed, but in the manner of charity to be attested,
and the faith of receiving a blessing
I admitted. [Letter 3 to Severus.]" He adds, that the same also his feet to wash
for himself wished, only once by the Apostolic example
he yielded, because in Victor Christ
venerating he wished, that to the remedy of his infirmity
a better fellow-servant might touch him. For the rest,
not these only with the proclamation of voice to repay
the obsequies enough he had, but a mutual
with his own hand he repaid service, grieving
that the good Victor, a forestaller of servile works,
scarcely water to be ministered by Paulinus with his own
hands allowed. Which however that by name he had usurped
he testifies, that St. Martin he might imitate,
who to one coming to him Severus (as the same himself
is author) his hands had washed. For indeed among
the other offices of charity in those times
the holy men of their own someone they sent with
letters mutually to salute. [Letter 24] These, as they came,
with incredible charity he received, and
with most sweet embraces he bound Paulinus:
the same to his little table he applied, with every obsequy
he obliged. A certain Cardamas,
a man a servant, and nearly a buffoon, and
ill-sober, because to and fro going
into Gaul and Italy, those pledges of charity
to the Saints he carried, so he commended and indeed
polished, that both with freedom endowed, and
into the Clergy taken he was an Exorcist; and at last
thence he praises him, that nearly a daily guest
to himself to be he did not flee.

[50] From the same opinion of his vileness it happened,
that monitions and precepts of leading life everywhere
he sought out, from Jerome, from Augustine,
from Delphinus, from Amandus, from others; [He seeks out monitions.] and likewise
the prayers of all for himself without any intermission
he asked. Nor did from his words and deeds differ the external apparatus. All things simple,
cheap, breathing humility were. His silver furniture
from the beginning, [Cheap furniture he uses,] into wooden
he changed and earthen. Therefore a boxwood dish
to Severus sending, he says: "We have sent a testimonial
of our riches, a boxwood dish;
that as a parting-gift of a spiritual vow you may receive it,
about to have for an example, if not yet similar
silver you use. [Letter 1]" And he asks for himself to be sent earthenware,
which to love himself he says, because according to Adam
akin to us they are, and the Lord's treasure in
such vessels committed we have. [and a table both cheap, and most sparing.] His table
moreover what it was, appears from this, that just now
to say about Cardamas we had begun,
whom thence he admires, that the measure of his little table
he did not disdain: "And when with rare and tiny
cups he was sprinkled, by which his lips' top
scarcely he wetted, nothing of an empty belly or
dry throat's injury he complained. [Letter 24.]" And elsewhere:
"An assiduous partaker of our little table so himself to
the measure of our throat constrained, that neither
our little herbs nor our cups he avoided. [Letter 17]" And so
the continence and frugality of the Consular man now
was of such a kind, that wonderful it was, [The poverty of Paulinus wonderful.] who of
the common Monks could bear it. Yet,
what mortals most wondered at,
and ascetics even noble (as indeed Severus
about himself professed) to imitate themselves denied
able, the highest was, from the very ample riches an emptiness.
And so deservedly him St. Augustine
with that Preface names: "Our Paulinus,
from a most opulent rich man, by will most poor,
and most copiously holy." A little garden he cultivated
at first: on whose account in jest Severus,
Hebromagus left by him when he had said,
answered Paulinus: "Hebromagus not for the little garden's
cause, as you write, we left, but for Paradise's. [book 1 on the City of God, chapter 10]
That garden we preferred both to our patrimony,
and to our fatherland; because there more the true home,
where the eternal: there more truly the fatherland, where the original
is the land, and the principal habitation. [Letter 5.] For
if you believe Christ propitious, on whose account if
nothing we have, in him all things we possess; now
in this soil of thorns and labors, not even in
the little garden's clod the slime of earth holds us.
But would that so no dust from sin to us
clung." Behold how perfect the nakedness of Paulinus,
how from the slime of earth loosed his mind was.

[51] He esteemed however nothing great by that
emptiness perfected by himself. Rudiments these he reckoned
of his warfare, as holy Jerome
calls it. [But a rudiment it he thinks, not perfection.] In this manner he discoursed: "Easily
to us the goods or burdens placed-upon, our cloak letting go,
fell off: and, what with us we had not
brought into this world, nor could
take away with us, as borrowed we restored:
nor as skin from flesh we tore off,
but as a garment we laid aside. Now there is need, that
what truly ours are, we pay to God, that
is, heart, and soul, and our works exhibiting,
into a living victim. Of temporal,
which in the age are held, goods the leaving or
distribution, not the running of the course, but the entrance;
nor as the goal, but the door it is. For not
the athlete then conquers, when he is stripped: who therefore
is stripped, that he may begin to fight, when lawfully
having contended he is to be crowned. [Letter 2] The swimmer, the river interposed
about to overcome, is stripped: nor however
with this so great apparatus that himself he has stripped,
will he swim across, unless by the effort of the whole body, and of all
the skilled mobility of his members, and by the thrust
of his feet, and by the oarage of his arms, and
by the gliding of his side, the torrent's force he cleave, and
the labor of swimming exhaust." With these thoughts
continually himself to the contest he spurred.
But at other times, when the laid-up-with-God reward's
amplitude he beheld, he exclaimed: "O wretched
men! to bestow something we
believe. [Letter 12 to Severus.] We trade; and liberal we are held,
who most avaricious to be are convicted: and indeed
so much more avaricious than the most greedy of earth's usurers,
as more it is heavenly things from earthly,
and blessed things from wretched and needy things to buy;
than earthly things with earthly and falling things to-fall
to barter, [Nor that he bestows on God, but trades.] and the Lord rather than a man to put out at interest."
And with no less admiration those things sometimes
he added:
"— And a great thing is it thought
To buy with a perishing thing one's own salvation?
For perpetual to exchange perishable; and to sell earth,
To buy heaven? [Feast-poem 9] Behold God, how much more dearly me he bought
By the death of the cross? having suffered, cast down in the image of a servant,
That cheap he might buy with precious Blood his servants."

[52] For the rest, from the obedience, which he himself
to the Evangelical counsel had exhibited, and from the consideration of the divine
benignity, there to that faithful servant
existed that confidence of praying, which St. Augustine
commemorates. For about the year of salvation
410, Nola the Goths when they had taken, and were laying waste,
and Paulinus by them was held, thus
in his heart (says Augustine), as from him
afterward we have learned, he prayed: "Lord, let me
not be tortured on account of gold and silver: for where
all my things are, you know. [book 1 on the City, chapter 10]" There indeed
he had all his things, where to treasure up he had advised,
who these evils to the world to come had foretold.
And to believe heard the pious prayers is fitting.
For although perhaps vexed the man of God;
yet in the city he was left. But in so great
beggary never a morsel he omitted
his own with the beggars to share, [For bread withheld from a poor man a ship perishes carrying provisions.] not rarely with himself less
needy. Nor did the faithful fellow-servant differ,
under a better yoke now his wife. There was
however, when to a begging beggar ordered to give alms,
she reported to Paulinus, that one only bread at home
there was: and that very one to give when he had ordered,
beyond her custom too provident,
she did not give; arguing (as is probable)

that in an equal necessity worthier was the one who should feed on
it, Paulinus, and consequently for him to be kept.
But shortly she learned, the faith of Paulinus how much
was more wealthy, than the timid solicitude of her own care.
There were present presently men, who themselves
sent by their masters said, [Gregory of Tours, On the glory of the Confessors, chapter 107] that to Paulinus
of wine and wheat provision they should bring: and therefore
delayed, because a storm one of the ships
laden with wheat had sunk. Which hearing
Paulinus, to Therasia turned, "Understand,"
he says, "that you from that poor man one bread were
having stolen, and therefore this ship was sunk."

[53] But he who, to those to whom nothing he owed, so
was benign; easy of understanding it is, how
he was grateful and effusive toward those, to whom to owe
something he seemed. How prolixly to Ausonius; [Paulinus how grateful he was.]
how honorably he renders all things? How piously from
himself the crime of impiety, rashly by him objected,
he repels?
"Piety," he says, "to be absent from a Christian who can?
      For a mutual argument it is
Of piety, to be a Christian: and of the impious,
      not to be to Christ subject. [Letter 2]
This when to hold we learn, can I to you
      not exhibit, that is to a Father?
To whom all holy rights, dear names
       to owe me willed God;
To you discipline, dignity, letters,
      of tongue, of toga, of fame the ornament,
Advanced, raised, instructed I owe,
Patron, preceptor, father."
Delphinus indeed, by whom both with Christian waters he had been
besprinkled, and to piety kindled, thus
with letters given both to him and to Amandus
he addresses; he commends, asks, with certain mingled
with holy ingenuousness as it were blandishments,
that more observant nothing be done, nothing sweeter
or more amiable can be. [Letter 18] He had commended to the same Delphinus
and to Amandus a presbyter old and
poor, from whom by injury a house had been snatched.
The commendation availed; but worth the labor
it is to know, with how great force the benefit he proclaims
of those, from whom it was obtained,
that a house not theirs, and which by right
they owed, they should restore.

[54] "On behalf of our own brothers, whom before
to be asked we had requested, now your unanimity we ask
(Amandus and Delphinus he addresses)
that them beyond the usual affection you love:
and, if perhaps they to Bordeaux, as they are wont,
come, to the present too of our senses and bowels
the affection you render. Or if slow shall be of them the abundance,
when the first occasion shall be,
deign to them the due congratulation, [Homily 2 on the epistle to the Ephesians.]
and the merited blessing of their work to send;
that they may know and understand, how acceptable to God
a sacrifice they have given, &c. For although a debt
they have done by acknowledging justice, that another's [house] to be restored
they ordered; yet of grace largely to be had
worthy they are, for the very good affection of will,
by which they could have transgressed, and have not transgressed."
This namely is God's custom, who, as
says Chrysostom, our salvation, that is,
that safe to be we may wish, [How clement.] buys from us. Thus God
the Saints imitate, in a benefit counting if
anyone by their monition from faults abstains, when
in reality a benefit incomparable he who is monished receives from
the monitor. But Paulinus, as benign toward the calamitous,
so clement toward the guilty, when whatever
affection by injury to be defended he undertook, [Letter 36]
so the succor to the innocent he wished, that
to the guilty it might be granted. And so of the letter to Macarius
this is the close: "By this moderation we ought to intervene, &c.
that with equal labor you defend
and excuse to the best Senator, that is, to the Christian
man his guilty one; so that to the robber himself
may suffice the gain of impunity, we from him God's
gifts to receive content."

CHAPTER VII.

The other virtues of Paulinus, especially veneration toward the Saints, living and dead. A fire extinguished by him.

[55] The friendships of the Saints not by other only observance,
but by sending too little gifts diligently
he cultivated, [How dutiful Paulinus.] especially of sacred
bread, which were called Eulogies: while however
that by himself bread was sent he said, which the recipient's
condescension made a Eulogy. To recognize was
Paulinus's upright nature and most candid soul
even in this, that, those who an appearance of goodness
set forth, easily good he esteemed.
And so both Vigilantius, and Rufinus, and Pelagius,
and Julian, [How well of all esteeming.] before into the open
their fallacy and heresies were brought,
among friends simply he numbered and commended,
so that St. Jerome, with Vigilantius speaking,
that at first he did not detect him, excuses with these words:
"What to you shall I do? I believed the holy Presbyter
Paulinus's letters, and his over your name
believed not to err the judgment. [Letter 75]" Therefore
others' morals from his own estimating, what kind himself
each bore, such he held him.

[56] By no means however if anything less to be approved
in any of his intimates he saw, through
carelessness or adulation he dissembled: but
a true friend himself showing (for a friend
good, [How free in admonishing friends.] as the same says, the medicine of the heart is) he gave
his labor, that with a free and modest admonition
he might heal them. Teach this all to Ausonius
verses, teach many to Severus letters, and
that besides others by us before produced, place
from the fifth: since no end made
Paulinus of Severus to himself of calling, and the same
by zeal of poverty so himself stripped, that nothing
for the varieties and necessities of times he reserved.
Severus, in jest without doubt, had written that to that
to be reduced of want, that at last to himself him
to invite he should cease. [Letter 5] But Paulinus, not even to jests
place to be reckoning, where about the most holy
counsels of Christ it was treated; "How does it agree,"
he says, "that the same you poverty, which
to admire you profess, to dread you confess? If
you believe this to me granted to be a virtue, which
you to wish and not to be able to attain confess, that having
food and clothing with this content I be,
nothing beyond the day think; why either me by want's
necessity to-be-overcome you think, that you, whom
not to desire I cannot, to invite I should cease?
or yourself so weak and distrustful of Christ
you betray, that you fear to a such as this, as you proclaim,
friend to come, if in truth you follow
him, who said: Take your cross, and
come, follow me? [Luke 9. 23] How otherwise do you think
Christ to be followed, except by the law which he taught,
and the form which he set forth? who when into his own he had come,
of reclining however a head's place among
his own had not. [Psalm 15. 5]" And after a most charming and most grave
reprehension he subjoins at last: "I wish
therefore that of your courtesy rather this jest,
than of your weakness the faith was." At the end
worthy of his faith a golden close he adds:
"You, if this good (that is, for Christ to have sent
all things away) so believe as you proclaim; and in it
me to be believe, as that you believe you write; and more slothfully
me desire; now not in me a sinner
always, and always unworthy of your sight,
but in the Lord himself you commit; if
you think then at last to be about to fail us of mortal
life the nourishment, when to us has begun God
to be a possession."

[57] From these things which hitherto are remembered,
begins to shine forth the species and form of Paulinus the Monk,
on all sides absolute, [The sum of Paulinus's virtues both toward himself and his neighbors,] and in a manner
from every side squared. Before all things
there was in him a most ardent faith, that not with deaf
ears and a torpid heart Christ's voices he heard;
but for a norm he received them (as they are) and
a sure law of living. From a vivid and keen faith the other
virtues, as from a root, the vital sap
and vigor drew; and namely
that Monk's first virtue, the opinion of the age
and of little rumors generous despising; and a confident,
free, finally unconfusable in all places
profession of Evangelical sanctity. There was the highest
nakedness of all human things, the highest
abjection and contempt of self. Besides benignity
toward the needy and calamitous by no
bounds circumscribed: toward the well-deserving of a grateful
mind the memory constant, open, munificent:
toward friends an observance liberal: prone
to the better part the estimation: simple,
where the matter demanded, the admonition; which things what kind
toward himself, what toward his neighbors it was, show.
It remains that toward holy and divine things how
he bore himself, we adumbrate.

[58] Those whom even among the living a special
with the Divinity conjunction seemed to be,
them with submission incredible, and with every
kind of office he venerated … Niceta
indeed with what sweetness of piety, with what magnificence of speech
does he celebrate? [how toward the living saints.] To the immortality of memory
him he transcribed. But of Victricius, afterward
Bishop of Rouen, whom a Martyr living
he calls, no less eloquently
than holily described contest, one of Paulinus's
letters from the destruction of oblivion vindicated. [Letter 28]
Which narration when thus he concluded, "Let us doubt
still whether perfect you are, who about perfection
have begun? and, if lawfully to-be-crowned
you are, the contest run out, when to run you have begun for
the crown?" grieving that of him to enjoy the sight not
it is permitted, equally sweetly and religiously those things he sighs:
"Who would give us wings like a dove, and
we would fly to you, and rest in the sight
of your sanctity, before, in your mouth, Christ
God admiring and venerating. We would wipe
with our hair his feet on your feet,
and with tears bedew; and those scars
of yours, as of the Lord's passion impressed
footsteps we would lick." But that, which to exhibit
before Victricius he desired, the time fell
that to a certain good old man, whom Victor he names,
abundantly he might render: whose marvelous
from shipwreck deliverance the letter to Macarius
describing, when to him the Lord himself to have appeared
in the ship, and with incredible benignity his bosom
for resting to have afforded, and his ear
to rouse to have plucked he had said, "I confess to you
my affection," he says, "while too much such
remarkable in a man of our time God's deeds
I admire and love, nearly toward the very old man to have been
cruel. [Letter 36] For so assiduously his ear
I handled, that nearly I wore it away. I would have wished
also even of one part of his ear to cut off,
unless in him a wound, which to me a pledge a thing
would have been."

[59] With this piety Paulinus toward men to God
dear even still by mortality surrounded was borne:
Christ in their breasts, as
in precious treasures, [He celebrates the praises of men outstanding in virtue.] but still earthen
he recognized: he desired the absent, the present
he enjoyed: he seized occasions their excellent
deeds and virtues to make public. So besides
the already-said Victricius and the old man Victor,
of the elder Melania, whom by Origen's
errors depraved he did not know (that she came to her senses at the last
a good conjecture it is) zealously he pursues the praises.
So from Alypius he asked, that to himself he should write
his birth and life. [Paulinus, Letter 10 to Severus.] Which when Augustine
to do himself more abundantly on his behalf had answered,
argues acutely Baronius, not only
that performed by Augustine, and by Paulinus
celebrated Alypius's affairs, but much more from the same
asked the life history of Augustine himself;
and from that it happened, that he a form devised,
by which modestly it and usefully he might explicate in the books of the Confessions. [Letter 45, Augustine, Letter 32, Baronius, year 395] But if so it be, not
indeed moderately by this one title posterity
owes to Paulinus.

[60] But he to the Saints now into heaven received and
Blessed what kind of obsequy and pious cult
did he not apply? [The dead he honors with writings,] His Felix how he cultivated,
how he adorned, how he celebrated, is recounted
enough. I would not doubt that by him many
Histories were written. Certainly about the martyrdom of Genesius of Arles
the brief narration which exists, with the name
of Paulinus of Nola is inscribed, and the style
altogether agrees. Come, toward the Apostles'
chiefs Peter and Paul how great piety
was, when yearly to their sacred bodies
in person to be venerated on their natal day to Rome
he went, [by pilgrimages,] neither by the labor of the journey retarded, nor
by the now nearly heavier through that time Roman
on account of heat sky deterred? Which office so
constantly he held, that a solemn custom, and
an annual to himself that vow and journey he calls.
Sometimes however to have anticipated the Feast of the Apostles,
from that letter is plain, which to holy
Augustine returned now from the pilgrimage
Roman on the Ides of May he gave. [Letter 44] At Rome
moreover what he did, how he was received,
the letter to Severus the thirteenth to be conjectured
proposes. He dispatched himself most swiftly.
The time before midday in the vows, for whose
cause he had come, through the Apostles' and
Martyrs' sacred memorials he consumed: then
when to his lodging he had returned, by innumerable visitations,
which partly friendship, partly
religion drew together, so was he
occupied, scarcely that evening dissolved the gatherings. [Letter 13]
The same in seeking out, cultivating, decorating
with both expense and his golden tongue the Blessed
sacred Relics, was much engaged, [in collecting and adorning Relics,] of which
from St. Ambrose some he received. Nor only
to St. Felix's, whom always Patron and lord,
and his Lord-of-the-house, as
the lord of the house rejoicing he calls, magnificent
basilicas, but also at Fundi a sacred building he built,
no less by that thing benign toward men,
than pious toward God. [Feast-poem 9] [in building Basilicas,] Through the occasion
of a paternal in that tract possession, familiarly
with the town he was acquainted. "Therefore either as a pledge," he says,
"as of civic charity, or to the memory of his past
patrimony, a basilica to give in that very town,
since both it needed it, a ruinous and small one
having, of my vow it was. [Letter 12]"

[61] For the rest the most sacrosanct Relics of the Lord's Cross,
both with religion, as he ought, the highest
he venerated, [The cult of the wood of the Lord's Cross.] and one of all most their
glory to posterity by his letters he laid open. There had sent
through Melania to him John Bishop of Jerusalem
a fragment from the saving pledge. Paulinus,
the opportunity using, both published the history
of the found Cross (which now is read in
the eleventh letter to Severus) and that singular
of the same of-nothing-diminished, however much from
it should be taken away, miracle he made known: that from what
time it had been found, with innumerable nearly daily
men's vows its wood lending,
detriments it did not feel, and as if untouched it remained;
daily divided to those receiving, and
whole to those venerating. Whence to understand it is in what
manner of the vital trunk so great through all the Christian
world an abundance to be propagated and scattered could.
He sent also in the name of Therasia (whom a fellow-servant
in the Lord to call he was wont) to Severus
and Bassula his mother-in-law a great in a small
gift, and in a segment nearly an atom
of a short splinter, a defense of the present, and a pledge
of eternal salvation. [Letters 1 & 2] Thus he describes a part from
the given to him particle of the holy Cross. He sent it
in a little golden tube enclosed, an interpretation being added,
expressing with such an apparatus the form of them.
Namely that they themselves gold fiery are, who
within themselves had the kingdom of God, that is, the faith
of the Cross. But from that little portion's, which to himself
he had reserved, possession and cult a manifold
indeed fruit he received both at other times, and especially,
when a fire huge at once, as
against it was opposed, he extinguished. The matter is described
in Feast-poem ten, and a double miracle is noted.

[62] Before the doors of the built and adorned by himself
basilica of holy Felix, stood two huts of
rough material, which the place's appearance deformed,
and to the approaching people as it were a stumbling-block met.
They had obstinated their minds by no means to yield
the place, who the huts inhabited. To the most modest man
grievous it was by a lawsuit the right to pursue, and even to conquer
through contention. These things being thus, of the little buildings
in one under the first rest a fallen
into the hay spark, [through its particle to the fire opposed] suddenly a great fire
raises; cries and groaning of the neighborhood.
Awakened Paulinus, sees all things so to boil
with fire, that the very basilica too to burn he thought.
Trembling each of their own things, water
eagerly, and whatever apt to suppress the
plague to supply: but in vain they sweated:
the evil was irritated by the remedies: the victorious flame,
whatever was thrown in, into food turned.
Paulinus not to mortal water's, but to mercy's
divine fountains ran. [it Paulinus extinguishes] They hasten to pray
at St. Felix's body, and at the other monuments
of the Saints. Thence home rapid and confidence
full he flies forth, the Relics of the holy Cross
he takes up, and in his hand holding before his breast as
a shield, with which to cover himself, the enemy with the boss to strike,
against the raging fires he takes his stand. But behold
forthwith the force of the Cross the fire
"Terrified, and in the place, from which it had risen, that very one,
As fenced about by a prescribed limit the flame
To settle, and to be extinguished with a dying roar it compelled;
And from ashes arisen, to ashes to return the storm. [Feast-poem 10]
How great the virtue of the Cross, that nature leaves itself?
All wood devouring, by the wood of the Cross the fire is burned.
Many a hand with frequent vessels then those fires
Sprinkling, with abundant waters desired to conquer:
But although with exhausted fountains they balanced the showers,
With greater force however, the weary sprinkling, all
The fire had conquered the water: We with wood extinguished the fire.
And what the water could not, conquered the brief splinter the flame."

[63] The fire marvelously extinguished, when very many
were thought burned roofs, the next day when it grew light,
one only of the two huts consumed
they saw; [and the contiguous houses he saves.] which by hand and labor was
to be demolished, unless the flame had forestalled it; and
a saving had made. Then indeed, the matter noticed,
the Lord, and the heavenly penalty recognized,
the remaining hut himself overthrew, and from importune
delay St. Felix's basilica freed.
"This to us," says Paulinus, "without a lawsuit seeing to have yielded the triumph,
Himself only the wretch accuses, whom no grace
Of obsequy has awaited, and let the confusion of penalty await."
Therefore by no lesser prodigy it happened, that
the obstinate man's breast by an evil was subdued, [His charity toward God.]
than that by the opposing of the vital wood the voracious flame
in a moment settled. By both Paulinus's faith,
modesty, piety, as by a divine suffrage
was proved. About whose toward God charity,
and a special certain toward Christ the Lord
zeal, superfluous it is by name
to say; since what exist his writings that speak
the one thing, which holy Augustine truly
says to be fragrant with the most sincere odor of Christ.

CHAPTER VIII.

What kind of Bishop Paulinus was.

Part III.

[64] At what time, and by what reason created
Bishop he was, plainly is unknown.
a) I would not put for doubtful, that as at Barcelona
by sudden force and a multitude strangling
when first the Bishop died, by the common zeal and
ardor of the citizens into the Episcopal seat he was driven.
What exist his Works, a trace
of such an office scarcely any offer, either because
most were written before the Episcopate, or
because he preferred everywhere himself a sinner, himself slender
in talent, of heart gross, of mouth fasting to profess,
and otherwise to depress, than of his own anything
of praises to touch. Yet of the gravest
weight of the burden how with a true and ample estimation
he weighed it, and well his with every
effort of his strength he strove, a document are,
the things which, the lesser Priesthood, though to none assigned
to feed a flock, undertaken, he meditated, and
with Amandus communicated we read. [Letter 23] "Which
ministry," he says, "that I may well minister, and
a good grade for myself acquire, and may know how
it behooves me in the house of God to converse, and
to handle the mystery of piety, you Lord venerable
and brother and Lord in Christ for us
pray to the Lord, in every good rich, that
we may abound in faith, and in speech, and in knowledge, and
in every solicitude." Which last words the whole
contain of the perfect Prelate the form. For
if to the sanctity of life, which in faith is signified,
through which as a fit mediator, acceptable
to God, venerable to the people he be, eloquence
shall accede to exhorting, and knowledge to
rightly teaching, and a costly and solicitous care
to the rest of the ministry; nothing surely remaining
will be, which to filling out the sacred pastor's
parts may be desired.

[65] But these things if Paulinus, of the Pastoral free
Sacrament, was engaged in, [even before the Episcopate.] how much more intently now
bound by faith, and a vessel for the inheritance of God and
the Blood of Christ made, those things he meditated, which
a little below in the same letter he adds? "Therefore
because we are made from enemies citizens, from
the far-off neighbors, from sheep pastors, and
placed we are in the foundation of the Apostles and
Prophets; instruct and confirm hands
to the knowledge of building, that to the stone, which
has become the head of the corner, I may learn the wall
both to connect; and into a holy temple
and into the dwelling of God, bodies and hearts
by faith cleansed to construct; through the arms of the Apostle
powerful to God every exaltation lifting
itself against the knowledge of God captive to lead;
every understanding to obeying Christ
to bring; the Evangelical axe to the roots of the trees
to apply; and with the sword of the spirit, that is,
the word of God, to slay the sinners of the earth, and
with the shield of the Catholic Faith all the burning darts
of the most wicked to extinguish; and the contest fought out
and the course run out, the faith kept, the ministry
fulfilled, to await that which the Lord
on that day the just judge will render to all, who
love his coming." These we have as
the lineaments of Bishop Paulinus, by himself
to us adumbrated. But also so accurate
to the absent and to strangers exhortations, [What especially he taught and handled.] how
to the present and to his own to be taught and exhorted
sedulous and keen he was, not obscurely
declare; and namely show,
how he frequent mercy toward the needy, freedom
of confessing Christ, and of human
judgments despising, the cult of the Heaven-dwellers, the most sacrosanct
Eucharist's veneration: for the sweetness
and amplitude, with which about this to be adored
mystery he speaks, his special toward it of mind
zeal makes plain. Nor indeed a wonder,
that he who the ways searched out all of sanctity, in the vein
especially and the head clung; finally
the most magnificent praises of Christ, and the immense
treasures of his charity and glory, with how great
gravity and majesty he handled.

[67] It is established that assiduous in chanting to God
praises night and day with the Monks, whom
from the beginning to himself he joined, and his Clergy he was:
so that not even dying did he intermit the custom,
[Assiduous in singing praises to God.] but the morning psalmody,
with a panting though, yet glad spirit, all being ordered in
time to be roused, and to himself summoned,
he performed. And although nothing than he could be made milder, nothing more beneficent could be; yet we have received
that of discipline tenacious he was so, that against
those whom it behooved, the weapons even of sacred censure strongly
he wielded. In which order, under his departure
from life, whoever they were, to be reconciled
the pious father wished; [A lover of discipline, benign however.] hoping, I think, by his
humility a more pacified Lord to himself to be about to be,
by how much a more benign himself he had shown to his fellow-servants.
Finally it is established, that so marvelous the man's
sanctity was, that for veneration to barbarian
peoples too, and to those alien from Christ, Jews
and Ethnics, he was.

But now what kind Uranius, although too
briefly the sum describes, [What kind of Bishop Uranius describes Paulinus.] in the Author's style
let us bring forth. For it is not nothing of interest of an eyewitness
testimony even the words to know. "But when to the highest
grade of the Priesthood he was advanced," he says,
"he was unwilling himself such to show a Bishop, who by
anyone would be feared; but such himself he rendered a priest,
who by all would be loved b)… Nor
undeservedly by all was he loved, who was present to all. [In Surius, Volume 3, the 22nd of June]
Whom indeed lying did not his right hand
raise? whom interpellating himself did he not with pious
voice console? For he was pious, merciful,
humble, benign, spurning none,
despising none. To all he gave, to all
he indulged. He animated the trembling, he mitigated
the violent: these with words, those he edified by example:
some with letters, others with funds he helped:
no wealth, no riches, except those which
to his Saints Christ had promised, he admired…
What more? Scarcely whatever about him is said,
would the credulity of faith admit, unless his deeds
drove away the lie."

[68] Thus far Uranius the things which he had seen pursuing.
Which I most suspect the Roman
Church afterward in Gregory the Great's sacred
Vigils, [Paulinus's life once read in the solemnities of Gregory the Great.] on account of the similarity of wisdom and
sanctity, to recite was wont. For teaches Paul
the Deacon in the Proem of the Life written by him
of the holy Doctor, that the Romans long lacked Lessons,
which the holy Gregory's affairs contained,
and that of Paulinus the Prelate of the city of Nola
to be substituted them was wont. Nor is it a glory little
of Paulinus, that his life as it were for a form
was held of the life of the Great Gregory. Without doubt
the renowned fame of the man, which so far and wide from
the Monk's retreat before was spread abroad, somewhat
was made by the Pontifical addition of brightness
more illustrious; the more, because through that time flourished
among the first of cities Nola, and a cathedra
too quite opulent it had. Thus
the wise Lord a good servant, who had been
faithful in a little, over many set. For
whatever of money, whatever of profane honors there is,
in comparison with the heavenly slight and vile
it is, since a price to those almost human estimation
makes, to these Christ's Blood. Exalted
was therefore he who himself had lowered: and to the faithful distributor
a faculty of distributing was supplied new,
if not ampler, certainly holier, [The sacred faculties how Paulinus used.] and the same
perpetual; there being added even from the office of Pastor
an incitement, that what by will he did,
now by a certain necessity he should perform. And he the sacred
faculties so did not spurn nor despise,
that thence shows holy Prosper that without perfection's
impediment by Bishops they are possessed.
For thus he disputes. [book 2, On the contemplative life, chapter 9] "Holy Paulinus (as you yourselves
better know) huge estates, which were
his own, sold to the poor distributed: but when
afterward he was made a Bishop, he did not despise
the Church's faculties, but most faithfully dispensed them.
By which deed sufficiently he shows, both that one's own
are to be despised for the sake of perfection,
and that without impediment of perfection can the things
which are common to the Church be possessed." Soon when
the same deed by holy Hilary too he had taught,
he subjoins: "Which surely men of both secular
and divine letters without ambiguity
most learned, if they knew the things of the Church
were to be despised, never them ought, those who
their own had left, to retain."

[69] He retained therefore and kept the goods of the Church
Paulinus, but for distributing, not for
enjoying; with the faith of a minister, not by the will of a possessor
… c) and of the dying [Paulinus] the treasure was
a debt contracted for the poor's garments, [How great the esteem of Paulinus with the Emperor, and other chief men.]
with no remaining thing whence it might be discharged.
By which virtues how much of authority to the veteran
Bishop had accrued, teaches the letter of the Emperor
Honorius, by which him into the City
to a Council he calls. Which when in a grave
disturbance of the Church, and of a great schism's
danger was convoked, deferred therefore he says,
because that one being absent on account of ill-health,
it was esteemed nothing could be defined. But the letter
is such:
"To the holy and venerable father Paulinus the Bishop.
So great was with us the sure sentence, that nothing
by these Priests, who to the Synod had come,
could be defined, when your Beatitude
of the unequalness of body complaining, the journey's
could not the injury sustain. [Baronius, year 419] And on account of the absence
of the holy man, not indeed to obtain, meanwhile
however the vices congratulate themselves, when the depraved and
old ambition both with a blessed man and of holy
life long wishes to have a contest, that against
these goods of Apostolic institution, about presumed
by force walls it should think to be confided.
O truly worthy a cause, which only of your
crown the blessed life designates! The deferred
therefore judgment we announce, that the divine precepts
from your veneration's mouth may be brought forth, who
them having followed you fulfilled: nor can another of those
precepts the bearer exist, than who worthy
of Apostolic disciplines is approved. Specially
therefore Lord holy, deservedly venerable
Father, just servant of God, the divine work,
labor despised, this tribute to us of your visitation
(if so it is to be said) gift indulge,
that all things being put after, as much as temperance
to these and tranquillity favor, the Synod about to profit,
without intermission also to our desires,
and to the blessing which we desire, yourself
to afford you may deign." c)

[70] And the nearer to his last age
he approached, the more ready to all for enjoying
his goods Paulinus to offer; [Paulinus makes debt for the poor's cause.] like a fruit-bearing
tree, which the branches heavy with fruits, the nearer
to maturity it comes, the more forward,
as if to gathering inviting, bows and offers.
Nor his own only to offer, but also whatever
(even for the beggars' cause himself a beggar making)
from everywhere he could himself scrape together, or to him
now for his noted mercy as to a benignity's
public prelate, and a needy's provision's
curator, of their own accord was submitted. Finally
nothing to doubt, when all things had failed, debts
to make, of faith secure, as one who chiefly trusted
God; whose chest by expense is enriched;
and to him lies open and overflows most, who most frequently
and most has taken. And so when of departing
the day approached, nothing reposited was found;
empty granaries, cells exhausted, purses
empty, a plainly bare house. But his great soul
now thoroughly faith and blessed hope, now charity,
now the joys of heaven, and immortal riches, and
God's singular gifts had filled.

[71] The most holy Bishop's marvelous migration
Uranius, to whom present it was given to be present,
with us by this description communicated:
d) "… About the fourth hour of the night, all
who were present anxiously watching, suddenly
with so great his little chamber by an earthquake was shaken,
that those who at his couch stood, terrified
and disturbed, [An earthquake at his migration.] to prayer themselves cast,
nothing however knowing those, who before the doors
stood: for not a public that, but
a private in the chamber had been the earthquake; for
he by Angelic hands received the debt to God
his spirit exhaled. [Psalm 131]" Of this earthquake makes mention
also in book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 1, Holy Gregory
e), to this of Uranius, as I think, narration
referring f)… There died holy Paulinus in the year
of human salvation 431, on the tenth day before the Kalends
of July, on which day his memory in the sacred Roman
Church's Calendars with an illustrious eulogy
was inserted in these words: [The encomium from the Martyrology.] "At Nola, of Campania
a city, the feast of blessed Paulinus the Bishop
and Confessor; who from a most noble and most opulent man
was made for Christ poor and
humble g)… But he was renowned
not only for erudition and copious sanctity of life,
but also for power against demons:
whose excellent praises the holy ones Ambrose,
Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory in their writings
celebrated. His body to Rome
translated, in the Church of holy Bartholomew on
the Island together with the body of the same Apostle honorably
is preserved." To the power against
demons here described to pertain I would believe
many of those things, which Paulinus himself narrates done at St.
Felix's body. For it is the custom of the Saints,
to other Saints from themselves the praises to turn aside:
as holy Benedict the walking of Maurus upon the waters,
to the obsequy attributed of the disciple; that one to the merits
referred of the Master.

NOTES OF D. P.

a) I have already above shown that it seems to have been done in the year 409.

b) Since the whole context of Uranius above I have given, it pleased to contract the more prolix periods, word for word transcribed by Sacchini.

c) Here the Author began to commend the Saint's charity so great, that, the things which he might bestow being exhausted on the rest, himself too he willed to be spent in undergoing a vicarious for a Widow's son captive among the Vandals in Africa servitude, and word for word he weaves the history received from the beginning of book III of the Gregorian Dialogues: but this in the appendix I shall show to pertain to Paulinus III and the 6th century. Wherefore from a) to page 725 I pass.

d) Here Sacchini had described from Uranius, whatever you have from those words, number 2, with an asterisk * marked: "Three days before from this world … he was called," which there can be read, up to the other asterisk *, number 4.

e) Gregory's words are these: "About whose death too, at his church it is written (namely in the aforecited letter of Uranius) that when with pain of the side he was touched, to his last he was brought; and while his whole house in its solidity persisted, the chamber in which lay the sick man by an earthquake made trembled, and all who there were present with excessive terror struck; and so that holy soul from the flesh was loosed."

f) The rest in Uranius above read, as also that about John of Naples.

g) The remaining words of the Martyrology here omitted, in a compendium hand down what at length Gregory narrates about the Vandal servitude, and to another Paulinus much younger to pertain, I have already said.

CHAPTER IX.

On the works of holy Paulinus, preserved and lost.

Part IV

[72] The monuments of Paulinus's wisdom, for
the man's greatness, indeed slight exist.
The cause double seems. First, [The works of Paulinus few exist,] that
many perished: then, that to writing
of set purpose with a view of posterity
his mind he himself did not apply. There perished what he wrote
before his progress to a severer life,
without doubt neither in number few, and in kind
noble, since so great of Oratorical and Poetic
faculty glory he had obtained. For neither
was he one, who in that age from writing would abstain. [because many perished]
Which signifies Ausonius, when interrupted
between them of letters and poems he grieves the commerce;
when privately certain letters he commends,
which "very lettered" he calls; and a poem he proclaims, in which the three on the Kings
books of Suetonius into a compendium he had reduced
with so great elegance, that alone he seemed to have attained
(which is against nature) that brevity
should not be obscure. [in verse,] But in another letter about
another Poem the same Ausonius: "That about the
erudition of your letters, about the pleasantness
of your Poem, about the invention and continuation,
I swear all, to none ever imitable to be about to be,
even if they confess it to be imitated." These therefore
Poems imitable to none perished. [letter 21] He wrote
also Paulinus immediately, I think, when sanctity
thoroughly he had entered, some Hymns, which
praised by Alypius signifies the same, when from
him he asks, which of his Hymns he saw.
Besides much more than exist to have composed
of St. Felix's Feast-poems, [in rhythm,] with me indubitable
it is, as above too I noted, since yearly
a votive as it were gift he paid, and
so many years there he lived. [letter 45.] And indeed Dungal
(which lately I noticed) in the Supplement of the Fathers
published, in the book against Claudius
of Turin, fifteen enumerates: and excellent
even certain from those, which do not exist,
fragments brings forth, which we to be added to this
edition took care.

[73] But of the loosed-speech works, before
all there perished the Book on behalf of b) Theodosius, [and in prose] whose
loss to learned men more intolerable renders
that magnificent of St. Jerome approbation. c) Alypius's
affairs, as above we said, by holy Augustine
sent to Paulinus (as he had received them)
and committed by him to memory, it is likely:
for nothing probable occurs, whence
a counsel full of benevolence, and of honesty,
would have been impeded or changed. But that
lucubration too we miss. As holy
Genesius's affairs, of him who among the people of Arles martyrdom
made, lest gradually they should perish, he himself
to letters bound, so nothing with me is of doubt,
but that with the same zeal histories of that kind others he wrote.
On the Treasury, not a letter, but
a popular exhortation it is. Of that kind certain
it ought to be held that many he elaborated, which the age's
antiquity, and public calamities, and men's
carelessness have abolished. For who so benign
was in feeding bodies, him to suspect injurious it would be to have been
in feeding souls negligent,
especially after he was created a Pastor. That he wrote
also against the Ethnics' impiety,
signify those of St. Augustine's letter, "Against
the Pagans you to write I have learned from the brothers.
If anything from your breast we deserve, without distinction
send, that we may read: for your breast such
of the Lord an oracle is, that from it to us so
pleasing and against most loquacious questions
most explicit to be given responses we presume." [letter 34.] Perhaps
then he was writing to Jovius those things which exist
in speech both loosed and bound. Now of letters
a huge number d) to have perished, sufficiently is clear
from the letters which survive of his, and of others
of the same time.

[74] In sum, of works of every kind
that we lack many, which were worn in his age,
teaches holy Eucherius by that illustrious proclamation,
"Paulinus too the Bishop of Nola, [St. Eucherius's testimony.]
a peculiar and blessed example of our Gaul,
with a huge once of riches census,
with a most abundant fountain of eloquence, so into our
opinion and purpose migrated, that even
absolutely all parts of the world with his eloquence and works
he besprinkled." [Parenetic letter to Valerian.] But Gennadius this index of his Works
wove: "Paulinus of Nola in
Campania the Bishop composed in verse brief things,
but many: and to a certain Celsus by way of an epitaph
a consolatory little book on the death of a Christian
and baptized infant with Christian hope fortified:
and to Severus several letters: to
Theodosius the Emperor before his Episcopate
in prose a Panegyric on the victory of the Tyrants,
in that especially, that by faith and prayer more
than by arms he conquered. He made also a Sacramentary,
and a Hymnary. [Gennadius's index] To his sister too letters
on the contempt of the world he gave, and on diverse
causes with a diverse disputation treatises he published.
The chief however of all his Little works,
is the book on Penitence, and on the general Praise
of all the Martyrs. He was renowned in the times
of Honorius and Valentinian, not only for erudition
and sanctity of life, but also for power against
demons." Thus Gennadius: who more aptly
would have said, "an Epitaph on the boy Celsus, and a Panegyric
on behalf of Theodosius the Emperor written."

[75] Some have suspected, among holy Augustine's
letters the thirty-eighth, [On the letters to Laetus, Armentarius,] which
to Laetus is inscribed, and the forty-
fifth to Armentarius and Paulina, and likewise
among the letters of St. Jerome the fourteenth
on the Instruction of the matron to Celantia,
to be of our Paulinus. None to us enough
seems, although they set forth an author eloquent
and pious. Less however about that, which
to Celantia is, we dissent. For it has
many marks of the Paulinian style, [Celantia,] and certain familiar
to him figures. But that the composition
less sometimes constrained is, of set purpose
perhaps, since from his institute both precepts of leading
life, and to a matron he was writing, his
that implexed concinnity he relaxed. *
Finally worthy to us it seemed, to those regarding use,
that into these Works it be inserted. Marianus
Victorius, among the letters of an uncertain Author, [and on those which from the 9th Volume of St. Jerome are attributed to Paulinus:]
which to St. Jerome falsely ascribed into
the ninth Volume of his Works he rejected, very many
judges the style of Paulinus to be redolent of, and namely
the fourth to Marcella, on enduring
adversities; the fifth to a Virgin, into exile
sent; the twenty-third, in which is convicted
a certain one, that a Levite fallen
he did not console; and the twenty-fourth to
last is beyond controversy, and now long
among the letters of Paulinus published was read. * Of the rest
the fourth most to approach to the diction
of Paulinus seems, and therefore we have published
that too here: with the others, although not wholly
unworthy of Paulinus, yet because his to be not
we judged, of the labor we did not think to burden the volume.

[76] [On St. Jerome's letter 103 to Paulinus on the books of Scripture.] In which place that too I would note, the letter
of holy Jerome on the books of the sacred Scripture,
plainly to be to our Paulinus given seems,
although the greatest Scribe on account of this conjecture
denies it, that both somewhat it differs from
the letter on the profession of the Monk to the same
before written, and no mention of that one makes. [Baronius, year 394]
Which conjecture, by the inscription first
he refutes, to this time by the learned received: then,
that to a Monk it is written, who his patrimony
from the Gospel's counsel sold
and distributed; whose morals' honesty, contempt
of the age, fidelity of friendship, love of Christ
is praised; besides that it is inscribed to a man
eloquent, whose prudence, and
eloquence's charm his very to Jerome
letter had set forth; who much to advance in
divine letters could: finally, who not only
most sweet letters, but also little gifts had sent,
which custom was perpetual of Paulinus of Nola. And
these all so in him fall, as in no one
more aptly. Nor indeed between the former letters
and the later a discrepancy greater, than
agreement is. For not obscurely had invited
to himself even in the former letter Paulinus
Jerome; whom when by artful insinuation
nothing allured he saw, then namely to open
monition he proceeded. But what
in the last letter about the patrimony not
slowly to be divided he advises; not therefore, that
in that matter slower Paulinus had been, he mentions; but
that to build at Fundi and Nola basilicas
when something he had reserved, a less sincere perhaps
rumor of the matter to Jerome into the Bethlehem
retreat had penetrated.

[77] Let someone ask, why so a man of such great expectation
and faculty great Works he undertook
not, [Why he did not write great Works.] or certainly why the renowned wealth of his tongue,
and that rare light of talent not to
illustrating of set purpose the divine monuments he applied:
and likewise what it is, that so easily
what we know him to have composed, flowed away. I answer,
that of each thing the cause is the same, the marvelous
humility of the man, and contempt of himself,
so that in great part it suits him what about
holy Pamphilus the Martyr written by Eusebius
reports holy Jerome: "And he himself indeed
of his own work nothing at all wrote; except
the letters, which to his friends perhaps he sent:
to such a degree by humility he had cast himself down. [letter 67.] But of the ancient
treatises of Writers he read most studiously,
and in their meditation continually
was engaged." Certainly Paulinus not only of the ancient,
but at the same time of the flourishing Doctors
writings most eagerly read through, especially
however holy Augustine's. [How greatly he was esteemed by St. Augustine.] But he himself very greatly
was esteemed not by others only, but even by
holy Augustine himself, who both consulted the same
in matters more obscure certain, and consulted
by him professed that he profited through his
interrogations, about which he said: "When by interrogating
you dispute, and ask keenly, and
teach humbly": whose breast too, as a little
before was demonstrated, the oracle of the Lord
he called. [letter 59.] But Paulinus desirous of lying hidden,
nor himself fit reckoning who the sacraments Christian
with a Doctor's authority should handle, in Little works
of lighter labor content was. [letter 35.] To Desiderius,
who an explication had asked of the words,
by which the Patriarch Jacob his sons blessed, ingenuously
he answers, [How he despised himself.] that of so great names and mysteries
the weights he not with a finger even dared
to touch. [Wisdom 1. 4.] "For I read," he says, "Into a malevolent
soul will not enter wisdom: and therefore
of my malice conscious, I could not of divine revelation
have confidence, since of prudence
the light with a dark heart I did not grasp."

[78] In which place there comes the calamity of our
times, when the most frivolous and most wicked of men
not to touch only of the heavenly the secrets of letters
dare, but also to themselves alone, against
the holy oracles of the ancient Doctors, and against
the firmament and column of truth the Church
entrusted and laid open, with an impious heart and a mouth
polluted boast. But Paulinus not from impious
arrogance only, but also from of hidden almost
inquisition of things, of which slight traces
the divine codices set forth, although holy
Doctors them piously searched out, to be abstained
by himself he thought, with care almost all to action
from cognition led over. [letter 44.] And so to holy
Augustine himself thus he answers: "What indeed after
the resurrection of the flesh in that age of the Blessed
to be about to be our action, you me to interrogate deigned.
But I about the present of my life's state
both a physician and a master spiritual consult,
that you may teach me to do the will of God,
and in your footsteps to walk after Christ: and
that death Evangelical first to die, by which
the carnal dissolution by a voluntary we may anticipate
departure; not by death but by resolve withdrawing
from this age's life, which wholly of temptations
full; or, as you once to me spoke,
wholly a temptation is." Nor however afterward does he omit
to the proposed question piously and learnedly,
what occurred to bring.

[79] And Augustine, to the sense accommodating
himself of the most modest man, in the following letter many
to him doubtings, which not so much to knowledge
as to conscience pertained, [A question to be considered by the curators of souls.] and to teaching that the whole life is a temptation, he proposes,
the beginning from it drawn, "Every question, which
acting and seeking disturbs men, such
as I am, that is, In what manner one is to live,
either among those, or for those, who
not yet to live by dying have known, not by the dissolution
of the body, but by a certain themselves from corporal
allurements turning-away affection of mind. [letter 250.] For mostly
it seems to us, that unless to them somewhat
we conform, to those very things, whence
to draw them we desire, nothing with them salubriously
to do we shall be able. Which when we do, of such
the delight creeps in also to us; so that often even
to speak vain things delights, and an ear to afford
to those speaking; not to smile only, but even
by laughter to be conquered, and dissolved. Thus by certain dusty,
or even muddy affections our souls aggravating,
more laboriously and more sluggishly we are raised to
God, that we may live the Evangelical life, by dying
the Evangelical death." How I would wish
to this, and the subjoined of that kind questions, and
to that which in the letter sixty-fifth on
recognizing God's will to the same he proposed,
there existed Paulinus's responses! they would have surely
of solace much and of light, who the same to
a loftier wisdom a way through the same difficulties
take. Thence however shines forth, those most holy
and most learned souls, which with a golden
between them knot Christ's charity had coupled, with what
offices, with what businesses the commerce of letters
they knit; how accurately in polishing
themselves to the purest religion, how submissively
and candidly communicating mutually the state of their souls,
and seeking and conferring
help, they persisted.

[84] Moreover Augustine, that to Paulinus he might do a pleasure,
who had inquired, [Augustine's books to Paulinus] whether it profited
near the Saints to be buried bodies, a book published,
which exists, on the Care to be taken for the dead.
To the same is, equal to a book indeed weighty, a letter
against the Pelagians: of which the same in the book
on the Good of perseverance, and Prosper against
the Collator made mention. But this he wrote
therefore, that at Nola he had heard to be Pelagians
so pertinacious, that sooner Pelagius himself,
if to the Catholics (which he had simulated) he consented,
than the now drunk-in into his mind heresy to forsake
they would bear. Therefore that more fortified Paulinus
to storming men's pertinacity, and
to refuting errors might become, Augustine if
anything he could of support to be suggested thought,
as he himself toward the end testifies, when himself
too by Paulinus's letters to be helped to that faculty
he said: and brings forth from the eighth to Severus
letter that place, in which Paulinus
to Severus about the asked of him painted image of himself
answering, how varied his nature is, and how greatly
the divine grace it needs, professes. Whence
two things are established: first, how Paulinus's letters
were scattered, since both familiarly given into
Gaul, even into Africa were carried. Wherefore
also Uranius written left,
that when all desired the man of God only to see,
to whom this to obtain was not given, at least
they desired something of his letters to obtain. Then,
how without cause that of holy Augustine
against the Pelagians letter to Bonifacius is inscribed.

[80] But to Paulinus's Works that we may return, he
those so far neglected, [Paulinus how negligent of his Writings] that of the few which
survive (if however those very ones survive) letters,
to Sanctus and Amandus, who collected them,
the chief gratitude is owed. Which so beyond
the opinion of Paulinus was done, that them thus he addresses
in a letter, which now first into the Plantin
edition to be inserted we took care. "We read,"
he says, "on the back of your letter a note of the letters,
which mine to be you indicate: for truly
nearly of all my letters so unmindful
I was, that mine to be I did not recognize,
unless your letters I had believed. [letter 26.] Whence a greater
I received document of your charity, because
more me to you, than to myself known to be I perceived."
And so when a man wholly to acting
turned, so nearly contemptuously wrote,
and his writings neglected, no wonder it is,
if his offspring as if by a parent deserted prematurely-dead
are, with a great indeed our loss. * That too
to note it seemed, that there exist in the name of Paulinus
to Rufinus letters two to his Works prefixed,
which I have suffered to be added to the Paulinian; although
the style, more affected by someone to the likeness
of Paulinus, than genuine of Paulinus himself
seems. [Letter 32] Moreover of Paulinus's writings
this proper praise is, by holy Augustine's judgment,
that with a sweet they were fragrant odor of Christ. [though by others praised.] Apollinaris
Sidonius indeed, when other to other Writers
praises he attributes, "Paulinus," he says,
"provokes." Which of his singular sharpness I interpret,
and a force most sweet, by which his readers to the obsequy
of Christ, and the exact of his counsels
custody he provokes, allures, and inflames. [book 4, letter 3.]
At the end, to remember that it behooves, that these
very things which we have, much are inferior to that plausible
of the most eloquent man's talent and mouth:
because through that time, those who seriously dedicated
their minds to piety, a certain religious not of other
only things, but also of eloquence
temperament assumed, which of holy
Cyprian namely holy Augustine written
left. [On Christian Doctrine, book 4, chapter 21.] Besides in so great of profane
letters erudition altogether a wonder it is, [A marvelous despiser of Ethnic erudition.]
how sparingly those Paulinus, how considerately
uses; so far now nothing himself except with Paul
Christ, and this crucified, to know he reckoned.
Nay even, how far in those is to be engaged
letters, and how far their help to be used,
beautifully he teaches, and worthy of observation
it is, in the letter to Jovius, whom to bring over
to Christ he strove.

NOTES OF D. P.

a) By such an admonition other Feast-poems too Paulinus to have struck off became known. But a thirst moved to Muratori the price of the fragments, and some drops of the wave being seen, immediately wholly to him in his wishes was the fountain. And so while a most abundant series of manuscript Codices he surveys, which in the Ambrosian Library is preserved, fell into his hands a most ancient volume, in which Venantius Fortunatus's, Prosper's, Juvencus's, Arator's, and of other ancient Christians poems were contained; three and ten of St. Paulinus's Feast-poems there written he found; which collated with Dungal's fragments, the genuine forthwith of so great a writer offspring to himself and to the literary world he congratulated. The Codex tastes of venerable antiquity, the characters square and most minute, and with marvelous charm in straight lines between themselves distinguished in the century, as Muratori judges, ninth were elaborated. Fifteen moreover Feast-poems Paulinus to have sung hitherto was believed; since expressly the poems Dungal both from the 14th and from the 15th cited. But that Author, or the copyists in copying him deceived were: for the poems which from the 14th Feast-poem drawn are reported are altogether to be rejected into the 13th, the Codex found and the order of things prove. And so the Feast-poem in Dungal the 15th hence is to be inscribed the fourteenth, which in those Membranes described not to have been we greatly grieve. There followed in the aforesaid codex another of Paulinus's poem without a title; which, as filled with the highest erudition, to be brought forth too judged Muratori: from whose dissertations and Chifflet's animadversions about Paulinus's letters some things perhaps could be observed to this chapter of the Life useful, but it is not permitted now on such to linger.

b) "Happy Theodosius," says Jerome to Paulinus, "who by such an orator of Christ is defended. You have illustrated his purples" &c. to which words turning his mind Chifflet, "Scarcely about a dead man would anyone so speak," he says, "as of one whom of his purples death has stripped, and beyond the enemy's weapons thither has transferred, where he has no need of a defender. Therefore, whether the living or the dead Theodosius Paulinus praised, in doubt he leaves. Because however that oration, from the Nolan emerged hiding-places, into which at the end of the year 394 himself he had hidden, and Theodosius died in the year 395, on the 17th of January; fears the same Chifflet whether, Theodosius still living, to strike off through the time it was permitted a work so praised.

c) These words of Rosweyde without doubt are, as also those which follow marked with asterisks: and perhaps this whole Chapter. Some of them rubbed out Chifflet, of which previously mention I made from his Preface; the rest manifoldly he illustrated.

Here I had finished, when into my hands came a votive Poem to Paulinus of Nola, in the Jubilee year 1625, by the author Justus Rycquius the Belgian: likewise an Ode of the same subject, to the most illustrious Pietro Cardinal Valerio, Bishop of Padua, printed at Rome by the types of Andreas Phaeus 1626, which to Heribert Rosweyde, about Paulinus's works four years before so well deserving, the Author for the sake of respect as a gift sends, as by his hand inscribed I read. He prefaces, that what now for some years he was doing, in the Jubilee year he did a little more solemnly, that of the Divine Paulinus the most holy Bishop the Feast in verses he might celebrate. The Ode of fourteen strophes of lesser moment is and of lighter labor, as also that by which the Cardinal he asked, the Author, to protect he wishes the little verses, thrown-off, sudden, and perhaps unpolished. It suffices therefore the Poem which of more accurate plainly study is.

THE VOTIVE POEM OF JUSTUS RYCQUIUS THE BELGIAN.

A guest from the farthest borders of the Belgians, your altars
I come to, Paulinus, which the Dardanian of things
Queen, the head, established, and to peoples to be venerated
exhibits, and by so great a foster-son now herself measures.
Not I so with tawny metal the thick ceilings,
and the marble domes, and Augustan apparatus,
and the stones which the Phlegraean arms to have disgraced
could not, about to see I came; as the pledges of the gods
to the Romulean places fitted, as the chaste sepulchres
of the Key-bearing old man, and of the Divine interpreter of the breeze
the Tarsian's, and your ashes, O Nolan Priest.
There is a place in the City's midst sacred, where the Lydian river,
with Serranian waters twisted, drives, and its waves
marvels that nothing can do. If the ancient warning
fame we press, of the first venerable there
Liberty the honor: for the Kings being put to flight, that
Island the Tarquinian harvests, and the wicked crop
composed, and to the mound heavy sands heaped.
Such in the Ortygian (if true is the fable) Sea
the wandering lands could Nature in the deep
straits commit, and to the rocks fix Delos.
Once of marble the joining of the sides of a keel
it figures the appearance, nor of the gods from the seats anywhere
wholly is free: it seemed then for religions apt.
Therefore the temple of Lycaonian Jove, and the serpent's
roofs of the Phoebus-born by an ancient rite it disdained;
but after it sustains of the Bartholomean urn
the weights, and the Paulini placed, more purified it stands against
the floods, and holy now does not falsify honors.
Fortunate error, who so great the walls enrich
Romulean by such a deposit, and the Tiberine rivers with stars
you insert, the Eridanus not disdaining the prior!
Scarcely otherwise could the rare of the twelve-fold Senate
glory, not otherwise could Paulinus be held.
Him opening the mystic things of the starry Word
to nations innumerable, which the morning with the Eastern
star Phoebus visits, the dusky race born of Memnon
looked up to, and the Parthians fierce, and the extreme of things
India: but this one with pure Oenotria dedicates on altars,
Paulinus, of Nola the column, and of a great citizen
the stock, by whom Consul the Latin Calendars swelled.
Soon, the spoils of the realm laid aside, through the shady
of Hesperia woods lying hidden, and the lairs of silent wild beasts,
with his chaste wife. What then to you the feeling, friend
Ausonius, lost? with how great alas! weepings him
you pressed, vainly pitying, that the rocks of Pyrene
horrid for the Pierian he should change for Phocis, and those
which he cultivated, woods with the laurel-bearing Aonian shades,
alleging the seeds of the Bellerophontic disease?
But the consecrated to God happy breasts the foolish
laughed at the prayers: to Phoebus and the Muses is denied him whose mind wholly lies open to Christ. Who would compare with the garden's
narrow bounds the content Epicurus, and the shades
of Egeria's valley, and the Pandionian recesses?
Who the Libyan seers in a wooded seat lying hidden,
in the midst of the heats? not here oracles by blind
ambages entangled, not vain dreams, and a Sage
ambiguous; but from the upper citadels sent-down fire;
with the perpetual true, and of constant honor
inflames the mind with its rays, and with divine love kindles.
Not otherwise (nor vain the faith) in the Mareotic wood,
by an ethereal bird fed, renewed the honors
Thesbiac Paul, and the great Elias restores.
And as, by a now greater ray to be seen,
whom a little from the lands a cloudy shade had begrudged,
from the midst of the clouds is shown golden-haired the Sun,
and the whole with rosy light illumines Olympus;
so the people, snatched from the wise of light, and
much gleaming, and of his pleasing life the little shade
in vain desiring, for the seats of the Nolan citadel
chose as Father. Not so through the trackless country
the Maenalian shepherd guards the tender sheepfold,
whether in your lairs, Erymanthus, or on the cliffs of lofty
Stymphalus, and the timid from the huge beasts wards;
nowhere with faithful eye losing it: than with perpetual care
the beloved to keep the flock, Paulinus, you labor.
You the Stygian wolves trembled at, you in the light steep
pressing on, you by night to the work, and watchful guarding
all things with protection, the horrid-sounding lions trembled at
of the Taenarian seat. Nor so much your watchful
eyes do I admire, and the solicitous prayers, and the Numen to your friendly
peoples appeased; as (which is your greatest virtue)
your munificent with abundant money hands: as the estates, the census,
the Attalic garments, of gold, of silver, the talents
dispensed to men, whom either evil shamefully presses
hunger: whom devouring usury, whom a hard embitters
creditor, and with numerous offspring the much household-gods.
Do you anything Erechthean to us now, Fame, Solon
object, to bound citizens counting money
largely, or the Latian, Asiatic land, Luculli?
A greater honor comes: while pious Rome, and the pole
shall stand, and the watery earth shall be beaten by the wave;
always your honor, Paulinus, and praises shall remain.
And yet these could less to be admired seem,
if they were compared to you. What that will
of the egregious breast, when, the metal failing,
and the kingly census, for a dear citizen the workhouses
to be dreaded you undergo? Knew, the foreign trembling
sceptres, fierce Libya, which you (who could believe?)
with fetters to serve heavy, and with a hard mattock
the acres cleaving the Lord's beheld in the gardens.
Happy gardens, happy acres, by such
a wearied hand, with what praises shall I you adorn?
To you the Mopsopian of Hymettus in vain would have contended
the glory, or the sprinkled by the Zephyrite breeze fields
on the Idalian summit; or the Phaeacians' rich country
by the Dulichian old man trodden, or the Campanian land,
or by the Lacedaemonian region possessed by Phalantus.
Go now, the offspring of Latona bear, lying Greece,
Admetus's flock to have fed, when Cynthia at her brother
blushed seen: or who the Tirynthian limbs
might gird the knots of the polluted-with-blood walls
of the Snake-born people: Paulinus no crimes
agitate, no Furies torture beneath the breast;
but of divine Piety the love, and of the people to be ruled
care watchful, spur him to have undertaken holy labors.
Nor however unworthy long to endure labors
the Father of the gods willed, but the barbaric King
now familiar venerating (and nocturnal visions admonished)
with magnificent gifts increased, and the youth released
of fertile Ausonia, to his paternal shores dismisses him.
What was that day, when you, before the shore standing
the Ausonians, returning with festal keel beheld?
When the trembling mothers their sons, and the sons their parents
lost, and the partner of the bed, the most glad wife
received, whom long sad chains constrained?
At it to heaven both the clamor of men, and with the applause of roaring
gladness the rocks and the Campanian wave rebellowed.
Then sweet everywhere embraces, everywhere kisses, and with wet
cheeks the pressed eyes, flowing with glad weeping.
Nor is it enough to have pressed once; it helps continually to return,
and to rush into the known faces, and of the Powers above the benign
faith to explore: Paulinus all the shores,
Paulinus the seas and cities and the country speak of.
How great to your Nola then the joys, Great Priest!
How it feared to be conquered, while all the walls a Parent
recognize, and contends every place for your honor!
Recognized however it its own, and the constancy of the holy
breast the offices embraced with a nearer favor.
Such, from the Elean contest of the palm returning
(if less lofty things please) with bitter parsley begirt
his great head, or with the gray olive wreathed as to hair,
with kindred applause is received, and through the towns, and through
the peoples loftier goes, conspicuous in a golden chariot
with white-yoked [horses], and scarcely the fatherland holds so great a citizen.
But whither, Calliope, do you tend? to run through the whole
Hero with the plectrums would you wish, and so to go through all
Paulinus? nay, Muse, beware: ill-credulous to a skiff
you will go into the stagnant backs of the watery deep,
and with an unwarlike flight you will seek the stars of Hyperion.
And, you being leader, certain things sung in former years,
while the holy light returns, and a greater for the following presses
Paulinus: some shall be said in their own years,
if it be permitted; the honor reflourishes, and the to-be-praised virtue,
and nothing from so great a heap the sport diminishes.
You rather, the strings spurned, Divine I will pray,
Bishop, the mind which the chains constrain of Stygian
servitude, and the wretched under a hard fetter turn,
may you break gently, as in the Libyan citadel you are known
of your fellow-captives the paternal companies to have loosed.
Namely this, the sacred Mysteries of the old Jubilee,
by the Christ-born people in the Great Year to be sought again,
bid to aspire to: bids this your holy will
to trust, and the immense Piety attested through the world.
The Christ-born peoples too, whom the sad of things
discords, and of war the furious Enyo vexes,
under Urban's auspices, in a safe station may you replace:
that the golden leisures be recalled to a pacified World,
and the crimes, and the sources, the seeds of wars, the causes,
and the ill-persuading hatreds, and any to bear superior
unteachable pride, the happy realms may leave.
Then to your tombs, Evandrian Rome
gladder will pour itself, and the citizen to its vows will call
more readily, and to all the altars libations will offer.
Then to you, the harmless to Christ to serve Muses
you ordered, the chaste violet, and the pallid garlands
of the Hyantian frond, with snowy privets interwoven,
gifts they will bear: and always to your Temple a golden lyre,
always the songs of the Echionian plectrum will resound.

I wrote at Rome on the 10th day before the Kalends of July, on the Paulinian Feast,
in the Jubilee year 1635.

APPENDIX

On the three Pauliniuses Bishops of Nola, Saints.

Paulinus, Bishop of Nola in Campania, a province of Italy (St.)

BHL Number: 6560

BY D. P.

§. I. On the immediate successor of the elder Paulinus, the younger Paulinus; and on a third Paulinus about the beginning of the 6th century, and their writings.

[1] [Paulinus the Younger] The Reverend Abbot Andrea Ferrari, Canon
and Treasurer of the Cathedral Church
of Nola, in the year 1644,
with Neapolitan types and in the Italian language a Commentary
published on the Nolan Cemetery and some
of the Holy Martyrs and Bishops there once
buried lives. He in chapter XII of several
Bishops the old Epitaphs recites such as on the sepulchral
marble urns engraved in his own time still
were read: [known from an Epitaph] and so on this St. Paulinus's coffer
he asserts to be seen letters of this kind.
"THE DEPOSITION OF ST. PAULINUS THE YOUNGER, BISHOP, ON THE 4TH DAY BEFORE THE IDES OF SEPTEMBER, FLAVIUS DIOSCORUS BEING VICE-CONSUL."

[2] If the aforepraised writer had been as expert in reading
such ancient monuments as he was
faithful in describing them, he would not have placed this younger
Paulinus after St. Felix the Younger, dead (as he himself judges) at
the boundary of the 5th and 6th century, nor would he have made
succeed him Leo I about the year 535; but the Epitaph of him
thus would he have read. [to have died in the year 442] "The deposition or deposit of St. Paulinus
the Younger Bishop, on the fourth day before the Ides of September,
Flavius Dioscorus, a most renowned man, being Consul": he would have found
moreover that this Dioscorus is Dioscorus Eudoxius
for the cause of nobility forenamed Flavius; in
the Consular Calendars in our Bucherius corrected
marking the year 442; which is the year
twelfth after the death of the elder Paulinus: but that one
who by him is referred to the end of the 5th century, because
he was a contemporary of St. Perpetuus of Tours, he would have believed from
each to have been distinct.

[3] Meanwhile the found by Ferrari distinction of a double Paulinus,
and observed by us the immediate after one another
succession a great afford convenience to saving
the life of the successor of St. Deodatus, on the 27th of this [month] to be brought forth.
For on his account that one to Milan went
to Valentinian the Younger, it is said, that from calumny he might free
that innocent Archpriest of his, at that
time in which the emperor now a daughter had begotten and so
not before the year 437. [perhaps the elder's nephew] But a strong to me suspicion
is that the Younger here Paulinus the elder's from his brother nephew
or otherwise consanguineous, by his example to the church's ministry,
the world dismissed, passed over; and to St. Ambrose
himself joined and to him dying was present, ordained
by him a Deacon and finally his life which exists
to Augustine wrote; but afterward, hearing of the elder
Paulinus's among the people of Nola promotion to the Episcopate
and the renowned everywhere fame of his virtue, thither hastened,
worthy finally who into his cathedra,
in the year 431 dead, should be substituted. And because by no argument
is it gathered that the elder Paulinus after his
Episcopal ordination ever returned into the Gauls, probable
to me it becomes that the Younger is who the use of his eyes
recovered at St. Martin's tomb already old, through
the occasion of going to Milan to Tours making an excursion,
of such a benefit so much the worthier as greater the charity
was which the Milanese journey, even to a blind or dim-sighted man
so inconvenient, to retrace compelled; whose also
reward after a few years he received dead, as
was said, in the year 442. [who at Milan made a Deacon,] A third moreover Paulinus necessarily
is to be admitted on account of the authority of a double
Gregory, the Roman and the of-Tours, and also of Venantius
Fortunatus in those things which they narrate about St. Paulinus
of Nola the Bishop, and which not to the first (as
hitherto believed) nor to the second but to the third
referred no from any head suffer difficulty.
Gregory of Tours on the miracles of St.
Martin the second chapter thus begins. "Paulinus
too the blessed of the Nolan city Bishop, [different he was from the writer of the poems on St. Martin] after
written in verse on his virtues, which Severus
embraced, five books, those comprehended
miracles, which after his were done
passing, that is in the sixth of his work the book." The related
then certain ones toward the end of that chapter thus
he speaks. "These Paulinus in the sixth of his work the book
in verse wrote, [from whom the last seeks to be illumined] received from St. Perpetuus the Bishop
of these a little index." Baronius at the year 402,
number 52, these citing does not doubt to assert that Gregory
plainly is deceived; and in it consenting to himself he has
Andrea Ferrari, to his opinions everywhere wont
to adhere: but he the more willingly because his assertion
Baronius seems evidently to demonstrate from
the very of the aforepraised work author who in the second book,
after various of St. Martin's miracles, thus proceeds:
"Nay also to Paulinus a like medicine health
Restored, whom the glory of remarkable faith widely
Exalted, over whom drawn with a cloud lay hidden
his Sight, and the gloom stretched with infused darkness
warded off all the light with a covering of spots, [as the elder Paulinus had been illumined]
which light and with a slight touch suspended put to flight
a sponge, by the near gift of a blessed right hand;
scarcely brought to the eye, learned, now restored, the light
to bear his vision, and the new light marveling received."
These, I say, about Paulinus the Elder having pursued, on his own behalf thus he prays:
"And would that the darkness of our heart to touch [or rather the Younger.]
with such a light might wish the medicine of the holy Patron,
that of the ancient deed again the mysteries it render:
the same name, the same physician, an equal cause of healing."
He could not much more clearly distinguish the person of his predecessor
Paulinus, already once by Martin cured, from himself
writing the book, and similarly to be cured in spirit wishing.
Would that equally clearly he had distinguished the condition
then his own from that which had the other Paulinus,
when the healing of St. Martin's hand he experienced.
If however it first was done, [That third one wrote in verse the life of St. Martin] it must have been when
that one still secular was, perhaps not even baptized
but only a catechumen. But if the miracle happened
to the other whom they call the Younger, as our
conjecture has it; to be distinguished he nonetheless will be
from him who received the little index of the miracles of St. Martin,
as above we saw asserted by the of-Tours [Gregory]. That
indeed nowhere in that work is indicated; not could
however have erred Gregory in so near to himself a predecessor's
name, who his ordination about the year
575 made by a century not whole preceded, ordained
Bishop about the year 460, and the Episcopate held
up to the year 490. And so is solved the difficulty
to Baronius seeming insoluble as indeed it was
in respect of Paulinus the Elder; although even here he seems
to Baronius to have been solicited, that what about St. Martin
had written in prose Severus Sulpicius, he himself with these
his verses might adorn. For thus (as notes Baronius)
at the end of the Dialogues on St. Martin speaks
Severus himself about Paulinus: "He, of Martin's glories not
envious, and of the holy in Christ
virtues a most pious estimator, will not refuse
our Prelate with his own Felix to compare."
Something more to Baronius seemed to indicate and so
to be deceived Venantius Fortunatus when about the year
600 thus he sang:
"In lineage, in heart, in faith, prevailing Paulinus; and in art [the work praised by Venantius Fortunatus.]
in verses explicated the doctrine of Martin the Master:
whose in prose sang first the deeds Severus;
in verses thundered then blessed Paulinus."

[5] Yet I do not see why here it ought to be judged that
erred even Venantius about the name of Paulinus, since
the nobility, [Him preceded] fidelity, virtue by which the first was renowned
could also have been in the third equally as the poetic faculty;
and only it remains that this we show to have been
a contemporary of St. Perpetuus of Tours, that from him he could
have received the aforesaid little index of miracles. This
that it be done, the series of successors is to be woven. But it is woven
in this manner: There succeeded to Paulinus the Younger St. Deodatus
his and perhaps also the elder's Archpriest, [Deodatus and Felix,]
and the seat he held for thirty years; and so up
to the year 462. To Deodatus mediately or immediately
succeeded Felix II, of whom such is found
an Epitaph.
"THE DEPOSITION OF HOLY FELIX BISHOP ON THE 5TH DAY BEFORE THE IDES OF FEBRUARY
AFTER THE CONSULSHIP OF FAUSTUS FLAVIUS, A MOST RENOWNED MAN," that is, [then the seat being vacant John Bishop of Alexandria] "The deposition
of St. Felix the Bishop on the 5th day before the Ides of February after the Consulship
of Faustus Flavius a most renowned man," that is: in the year
484. Meanwhile it had happened that John Talaia
(as narrates Liberatus the Deacon in his Breviary
of the Cause of the Nestorians and Eutychians, chapter
XVIII), driven from his seat by Zeno the Emperor, to the Roman
appealed to the Pontiff. And when this one, the cause
of him handling, had died, there was substituted Felix Pope II,
and nothing he profited. John, having the Bishop's
dignity, remained at Rome: to whom the Pope the Nolan
gave Church, which is in the region of Campania
(namely through the death of Felix aforesaid vacant),
in which residing very many years, in peace deceased
he was.

[6] Scarcely doubt to me is but that the Nolan Church
equally as the Neapolitan some then had Parish-priests of the Greek
rite both within and without the city; [for a time he governed at least the Greeks at Nola]
that to the faithful of each language promiscuously dwelling
might be relieved in the administration of the Sacraments. Wherefore
I will not hesitate to believe that the people of Nola, to Latin
Bishops holding the Cathedral under the Latin rite
accustomed, quickly obtained a proper for themselves Bishop
to be instituted, under whom John, a fitting to himself being assigned
pension for his sustenance, the Greeks might serve,
and after very many years, (of whose number
nothing we can define) at Nola passed, in some
of them so was buried, that no of a monument
indication still anywhere is found.

[7] The first who, that one there acting, was ordained by the Latin
rite Bishop after Felix II, can be judged
Theodosius, [But over the Latins presided Bishop Theodosius] whose tomb Ferrari asserts page 74
to be beheld at the steps of the ambo or pulpit with this inscription:
"THE DEPOSITION OF THEODOSIUS THE BISHOP ON THE 7TH
DAY BEFORE THE IDES OF DECEMBER, FAUSTUS THE YOUNGER BEING VICE-CONSUL." Although
indeed of this Younger Faustus a Consulship is not
found in the Calendars, probably because substituted
that one was for some during the course of the year of another consul
beginning to be marked by name; I think however not ineptly
it is judged that the consulship of the son not far from the Father's
consulship succeeded and so to that Theodosius very
conveniently a place be given between Felix II
and Serenus, to the Roman Councils subscribed under
Symmachus the Pope in the year 499 and 501. But lest
even Felix's epitaph itself suspect
anyone wish to hold because the year after the consulship
of Faustus ascribed to the deposition of Felix proper had
consuls, namely Theodoric, of the Goths
the King and Venantius, I note that there seem the people of Nola
together, [up to the Consulship of Faustus the Younger,] with the Neapolitans not yet fully subdued by
the Goths, the Gothic Consuls to have made of no account: but Zeno
the Emperor, who at least could a Consul of the East
name, that to do scorned, since to the West
too him to give he could not. So the first Council
Roman under Symmachus in the year 499 is entitled
"After the Consulship of Paulinus," although that year in the West
had John Gibbus; and the fifth Council
of the year 501 "After the Consulship of Avienus," in which Dexiocrates in the East,
Volusianus in the West were named; nay Pagi in
the dissertation Hypatica, page 316 and following, with various examples teaches,
that it was free with Post-consulships to mark writings whether
public or private, especially in the 5th and 6th century.

[8] However however these things may be, and at whatever
time Theodosius sat; [not long after the Consulship of Faustus the elder] to me certain it seems and
from what is to be said below will appear that the middle space between
Felix II and Severus not enough suitable is
for Paulinus III: granted that his time so would agree
with the time of Perpetuus of Tours who was from
the year 461 up to 491, but rather
I would place him in the 6th century between Severus and
Leo I. For although it is not established in what year
this one began that one ceased; easily however appears
between the year 501 and 535 in which the first of this,
of that the last mention is found, easy is it to conceive
twenty years or more, [and so before Severus the Bishop.] in which Paulinus III
sat and not only wrote poems about St.
Martin; but also in Africa the Vandal served
servitude, about which to Paulinus I referred
so doubtful hitherto was among the learned the dispute,
that Ludovico Antonio Muratori, of the Ambrosian
library at Milan the Prefect, of his Anecdota
the beginning making from some newly found
of the Elder Paulinus Poems and these illustrating with learned
commentaries; [subscribed to the Roman Synods 499 and 501] preferred, as he himself to me writes, from
a question of this kind fasting to withdraw, than
the most difficult matter to handle, from which with honor
of escaping no hope there was: inasmuch as in which
easier it was another's opinion to refute than
his own rightly to establish.

[9] I twisted also myself, I confess, in all directions,
as long as one only Paulinus before my eyes I had:
but when, Muratori suggesting, to think I began about
distinguishing several, of whom the first from the last would be distant
by a whole nearly century; I saw in the Gregorian about Paulinus
narration so rightly to agree all things with
the Vandals' history, [whom succeeded Paulinus III] that either here was to be stood or
nowhere: for what to Perpetuus of Tours's little index
pertains, the words of Gregory likewise of Tours
about him in the beginning related, could hence from him have received
Paulinus still plainly a youth much before
than Bishop he was elected, since he had proposed to himself in
St. Martin's Acts to exercise his style, nor however the work
to have completed and to Tours to have sent before a mature age
the Episcopal ordination undertaken about the year 505
or 510. Moreover as of the aforesaid Severus no is found
Epitaph, so a wonder it is not neither of Paulinus
III any to be indicated. But what if abroad
dying each obtained a foreign burial?

[10] Certainly Leo I aforesaid; a tomb for himself
made which Ferrari cites thus inscribed. [before Leo]
"LEO THE FIRST. I BELIEVE TO RISE AGAIN."
Which beginning of a Christian epitaph, a wonder it would be by
no one to have been after his death supplied, [in the year 535 known.] if he at Nola
died and buried was.

§. II. On the Vandal servitude which in Africa not the Elder nor the Younger Paulinus but the third in the 6th century served.

[11] Among the other of egregious piety works which St.
Gregory Pope I to the catholic Church to be read
left, not least of usefulness praise have the books
of the Dialogues, [Gregory the Pope, book III of the Dialogues] which even the Greeks, into Greek rendered
by Zacharias the Pope, more studiously read, and the very of them
author from the work's title surname the Dialogue,
just as John "of the Ladder," that is the Ladder
(which is the title of the work leading to perfection)
they call the Climacus. Of the third book this is the beginning:
"While to neighboring very parts I attend,
the deeds of greater ones I had left; so that of Paulinus the miracle
of the Nolan city Bishop, who many
of whom I have made mention in virtue and time preceded, [he narrates how Paulinus Bishop of Nola]
from memory to have been lacking seems." This therefore takes the author
of Chapter I as argument, and accurately through all the circumstances
deduces it with that tenor, which first it pleases word for word
to transcribe, before into the time of the deed done a question
be instituted. But the history is such.

[12] "When in the time of the raging Vandals
Italy in the parts of Campania had been depopulated,
and many were from this land into the African region
led across, the man of the Lord Paulinus all things,
which to a Bishop's use he could have, to the captives
and needy bestowed. [book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 1.] And when now
nothing at all remained, which to those asking to give
he could, on a certain day a certain widow came,
who from the King of the Vandals' son-in-law her
son to have been led into captivity declared,
and from the man of God his price demanded; if
perhaps his Master this would deign to accept,
and this one would grant to his own to return. But
the man of God greatly to the asking woman what to give
he could inquiring, nothing with himself else but
himself he found: and to the asking woman answered, saying:
Woman, what I can give I do not have;
but myself take; a servant me of your right to be
profess; and that your son you may receive, me
in place of him into servitude hand over. [offering himself to servitude in Africa] Which she from the mouth of so great a man hearing, a mockery rather believed,
than a compassion. But he, as he was
a most eloquent man, and especially in exterior
studies too learned, the doubting woman
more quickly persuaded, that the heard she should believe, and for the recovery
of her son, into servitude the Bishop to hand over
not to doubt. Went therefore both
into Africa. But the King's son-in-law advancing,
who his son had, the widow about to ask offered herself;
and first asked, that his son to give
he ought. Which when the barbarous man, with the pride of haughtiness
swollen, and with the joy of transitory prosperity
puffed up, not only to do, but even
to hear scorned; the widow subjoined, saying:
Behold this man for him a substitute I offer,
only piety on me show, and to me
my only son restore. And when he the of-comely
countenance man had beheld, what art he knew
he inquired. To whom the man of God Paulinus answered,
saying: An art indeed any I do not know, but
a garden well to cultivate I know. Which the gentile man
very gladly accepted, when in nourishing vegetables
that he was skilled he heard.

[13] He received therefore the servant, and to the asking widow
restored her son. Which received, the widow from
the African region departed; but Paulinus of cultivating
the garden took the care. [he was assigned to cultivating a garden.] And when the same
King's son-in-law frequently entered the garden,
and his gardener some things asked, and
a wise very man saw him; his friends he began
familiar to desert, and more often with his
gardener to converse, and with his sermons to be delighted.
To whom Paulinus daily to the table vegetables
and green herbs to bring was wont, and,
the bread received, to the care of the garden to return. And when
this he longer did, on a certain day to his lord
with himself more secretly speaking he said: See what
you do, and the kingdom of the Vandals how it ought to be disposed
provide; because the King quickly and with all
celerity is about to die. Which he hearing, [And the King's death there foretold,]
because by the same King above the rest he was loved,
to him by no means was silent; but what from his gardener,
a wise namely man, he had learned, he indicated.
Which when the King had heard, immediately he answered: I
would wish this, about whom you speak, man to see.
To whom his son-in-law, of venerable Paulinus the temporal
lord, answered, saying: Green
herbs to me for dinner he is wont to bring:
these therefore to the table him to bring I make,
that who he is who to me these has spoken, you may know.
And it was done: and while the King to dine
reclined, Paulinus from his work vegetables and
green things about to bring came. And when
this the King suddenly beheld, he trembled; and
his lord summoned, to himself through his daughter near,
to him the secret, which before he had hidden,
indicated, saying: True it is what you have heard:
for in this night in a dream, sitting in tribunals
against me judges I saw; among whom
this one too at once sat; and the scourge which
once I had received, by their judgment from me
was taken. But inquire who he is, for
I this of so great merit man, a commoner, as
he is beheld, to be do not suspect.

[14] Then the King's son-in-law secretly Paulinus
took, and who he was inquired. To whom the man of the Lord
answered: A servant of yours I am, whom for
the widow's son a substitute you received. And when instantly
he required, that not who he was, but
who in his own land he had been, he should indicate, and this
from him by the repetition of frequent inquiry he exacted;
the man of the Lord constrained by great conjurations,
now not being able to deny what he was,
hearing, [he is freed together with the captives of his city.] greatly feared, and
humbly offered, saying: Ask what you wish,
that to your land from me with a great
gift you may return. When the man of the Lord Paulinus
said: One there is, which to me to bestow benefit
you can, that all of my city the captives
you release. Who all forthwith in the African region
sought, with ships laden with grain,
for the venerable man Paulinus's satisfaction, in his
company were freed. After not many indeed
days the Vandals' King died, and the scourge,
which to his own destruction, God dispensing,
for the faithful's discipline he had held, he lost.
And so it was done, that of the omnipotent God the servant
Paulinus true should foretell: and, who himself into
servitude only had handed over, with many from servitude
to liberty should return. Him namely
imitating, who the form of a servant assumed, that we
might not be servants of sin, whose following the footsteps
Paulinus, for a time voluntarily a servant made
was alone, that he might be afterward free with many."
These St. Gregory premising that as of the good
deeds to become known more quickly to like ones are wont,
to the elders through the just ones' examples walking,
of the aforesaid venerable man the renowned name became known
and his work admirable itself to their to be instructed
zeals tended; "of whom," he says, "me it was necessary
to the gravity (otherwise great-age) so certainly to believe,
as if those things which they said with my eyes I had seen."

[15] Who here does not understand that Gregory could not
with so certain faith hand down the aforesaid all things, as if
those he himself with his own had seen eyes, unless from them immediately
he had received who had seen them, men of great age and faith
most worthy. [These he as received from eyewitnesses,] Such without doubt were they who born
about the beginning of the 6th century, to Gregory about the year 540
brought into the light and in the year 493 the Dialogues writing
the aforesaid narrated, men then nearly
centenarians, so that it suffices that those Acts were not
many years before the nativity of Gregory; and if indeed
about Paulinus III (such as above I have described) be understood
all things before the ordination of Leo I made
before the year 535.

[16] Our Sacchini as the vulgar hitherto opinion
even by the Roman Breviary's suffrage confirmed
having followed, nothing doubted but that the whole matter to
Paulinus I was to be referred, so never thought
or certainly did not weigh how difficultly it could be done
that St. Augustine, under whose almost eyes
the matter was done, [therefore to Paulinus I wrongly attributed] or the intimate of Paulinus Uranius, both
profuse in commending the Saint's toward the afflicted mercy,
and toward the needy liberality, and other contemporary
to Paulinus writers at once and praisers of him
nowhere would have wished (if truly they could) to mention the charity,
whose fame on account of the example's novelty through Europe
and Africa ought to have been most renowned. By the same
also persuasion led the same Sacchini to the History from
the Dialogues word for word transcribed of such kind a not unlearned
animadversion and from the Elder Paulinus's
talent taken subjoined with these words: [to a lover indeed of gardens,] "This only
of light I would add, that not rashly Paulinus
to the barbarous satrap professed the science of cultivating a garden
to be his. For that he was delighted at Nola with such culture,
both from the placed above number 50 of Sulpicius jest
appears and from his frequent mention of cultivating
fields, [but with the Vandals in the year 427 Africa they entered] whence he teaches by what reason
each one's mind is to be cultivated. Of which
kind a most convenient admonition is that to
Aper: 'Therefore when in the field you are, and your country
behold, you too yourself Christ's field to be
consider: and in yourself, as in your field look.
What kind of appearance of your field to be made by your bailiff
you demand, such to God the Lord of your heart render
culture, and understand whatever in your field
to you displeases or pleases, [seventy years older.] the same in your soul
to please Christ or to displease.'"

[17] Finely all things: but that this aptly be noted
of Paulinus the Elder, his zeal for the gardens'
culture could even a third have imitated,
as he imitated him in the cultivation of Poetry. [Whose even then to the King] But
when of comely still countenance a man is said to the barbarian
to have seemed suited to the garden's culture; quite clearly
is indicated that it is not treated here of an old man of great age such as was
Paulinus I, when in Africa dominated the Vandals
there first entering in the year 427, of age
Paulinian the 74th. This consideration Cardinal
Baronius at the year 431 in which Paulinus died
doubtful held. Lest however all faith he should derogate
to the Gregorian narration about the death of the Vandals' King
by Paulinus foretold nor should he strike against King
Geiseric by whom it was established the Vandals into Africa
to have been led and for whole 37 years governed, [the Saint could not have foretold the death,] that
is up to the year of Christ 464, he looked to
his brother Gunthar at once with him and indeed
by a better right (inasmuch as the legitimate of Godigisel the father in
Spain dead son) and to this one the death by Paulinus
foretold to be believed could he thought. But Gunthar
in the first African years by fraternal fraud removed
quite it is established; nor through that death anything in
the rule changed which would require his care to whom
Paulinus was serving such as this him to have commended
insinuates Gregory.

[18] Our Chifflet thinking the last Paulinus's
years not to agree with the gardener's labor of his in
Africa, [much less several years before:] the servitude to refer he preferred to the times of the Gothic
into Italy irruption under Alaric the King about the year
of this century the 15th, under whom some of the Vandals serving,
a domicile however in Africa having, thither led away
a captive youth for whom Paulinus a servant
himself offered, of years about 62 born; [but after the reign of Geiseric,] in which
how many incongruous things there are easily will understand whoever
Gregory reads. Therefore the vain labor dismissed of the Vandal
servitude with Paulinus the Elder's age of composing,
I proceeded in Procopius as he is by Hugo
Grotius published to scrutinize the succession of the Vandal
in Africa Kings, and I found that to Geiseric
succeeding the cruel father a more cruel son Huneric
the tyranny held up to the year of Christ 474
for years 8; [Huneric,] Hence the kingdom came
to Gunthamund the son of Gento the grandson of Geiseric;
[Gunthamund,] who, the Christians being afflicted most badly,
perished, having held now of his reign the year twelfth, of Christ
486 about.

[19] His brother Thrasamund was his successor,
in form, talent, and greatness of mind excelling; [there is found Thrasamund,]
desiring to transfer [them], not by force against bodies he went
as the former ones, but honors and magistracies showing,
of money too to those obeying lavish,
who they were, dissembling to know; nay also if any
either by counsel or fortune in grave crimes themselves had involved,
to these, the sect changing, impunity
of crimes he gave. [A blander persecution, and so much
more harmful the less it was feared. Otherwise
far that Thrasamund the son of Gunderic whom in
Spain dominating describes Gregory of Tours
book II and says that the whole that to the perfidy
of the Arian sect to consent by torments and diverse
deaths he drove. But of this kind of the Vandals
in Spain Kings neither Procopius nor
St. Isidore of Seville nor others of the same age writers
knew, [different from him whom the of-Tours names] to Godigisel alone the father of Geiseric
ascribing all that of years 16 space, in which
in Spain Baetica abode the Vandals so that to confess
we are compelled by some fabulous narration deceived
to seem the of-Tours.

[20] Not however therefore less mild that in appearance
Thrasamund with impunity bore that placable and to Julian the Apostate once familiar against souls
rather than bodies cruelty; [In 511 Paulinus III seems to have threatened death] and first with
his sacrilegious nation a most grievous slaughter he endured
from the Moors: then the kingdom for years twenty-seven
possessed, to be stripped he merited by death, to him as we believe
foreshown by St. Paulinus not the first but the third,
whose Episcopate to these times most well to be referred
I judge, in which the aforesaid Thrasamund died in the year
511. For already we have seen, conveniently Paulinus
that last to be set the successor of Severus; [and then to have lived years 20 or more.] nor to hinder
anything on the side of age, why he should not in Africa have been
a little before the death of Thrasamund the King of years born
40 or 50 that is of plainly manly age, and however
to great labors equal which in Paulinus
the Elder never will be found. But he lived after
the return from servitude and held the seat to years
25 or more since of the previous one most recently ordained
no exists notice before the year 535.

[21] To this Paulinus's merits to be ascribed also
can it that the Christian cause, under the aforesaid four Kings
so greatly afflicted, through the African Provinces
formerly subject to the Roman empire, to breathe again began
when the kingdom came to Hilderic the son of Huneric,
of Geiseric and himself the grandson; who,
by the witness of Procopius, of a clement mind, neither to the Christians
nor to any other anyone grievous was. Against
this one however as to the kingdom equally as to war useless, rising
his nearest kinsman Gelimer, by parricide the gotten
kingdom whole lost, and to Justinian the Emperor's
Generals to be occupied left, more than once into captivity
led with all his kindred and
at last dead at Constantinople. So the Vandal
kingdom in Africa, in the nearly hundredth from when it had begun
year, an end had; God avenging the continuous nearly
through one whole century tyranny, by a cruel and barbarous
nation against the Christians exercised.

§. III. How to the return of Paulinus III from Africa to look seems the Anniversary of the Diocesan Parish-priests' procession to the Bishop of Nola.

[22] After our Sacchini the premised of Gregory
place about the servitude of Paulinus in Africa word for word
transcribed with a little observation not inept illustrated, [That the Saint was most festively received cannot be doubted,]
thus he proceeds. "Returned from servitude to
his fatherland Paulinus with ships filled with provision,
and a crowd of freed citizens, besides with that immortal
crown shining, and with rare glory triumphing,
that himself the substitute of his commoner
he had offered; it is ready to thought
to subject, with what zeal the citizens and dwellers nearby, with what
congratulation, with what applause mixed with tears they received him.
He indeed, as a most loving father
his most sweet sons, to embrace all, to address sweetly,
to kiss, to exhort to render to God
thanks, to preserve piety, to all
of Christian duty's glory: his former benignly
doing custom at once to resume, and to increase."

[23] But these rightly indeed conceived all but
general very are. Something more we seem to understand
to be able from that procession which on the 25th day of April
to his Bishop lead the Parish-priests Diocesan, for that end
at Nola gathered: wherefore worth the labor it would be
that minutely described to propose from him whom
in the preliminary Commentary number 8 we praised, Ambrose
Leo in Ughelli among the Bishops of Nola
Volume 6 of Italia Sacra, column 284. "An ancient,"
he says, "custom at Nola has fallen, that all the Priests
Episcopal, whom Presbyters they call,
both who in the city and who in the bordering
towns dwell, to the city and the Bishop
themselves betake. Yet it is not permitted to the Clerics
the city to enter, except crowned and in order
singing, with several pipers. The songs
are of God and the Saints hymns; the garlands
indeed woven with roses and citron flowers and others,
which the most beautiful that day is wont to produce; in the hand
too bearing little bundles of roses skillfully
woven, and with art distinguished.

[24] In that manner therefore adorned the Priests,
the city and the temple of the Bishop enter
(but the single companies of them, [and hence could have flowed the annual procession to the Bishop on the 25th of April] from the single towns
arriving [in the front of the temple halt].
Then when all in the choir gathered
are, one by one they are called to the Bishop.
He indeed then sits on a certain high throne, which
is situated under a small vault: but the vault
this between the larger cell (that is the chapel)
and the lesser left is erected, by two
little columns and a wall, three little arches
intervening; it is sustained too by thrones,
and by certain images is gabled: but
this throne, which in the larger cell ought to be,
is set forth in the manner which has been said.
Called therefore the Priest, of his order and company
alone, from the building to the cell, and from the choir to
the Bishop approaches crowned and with flowers
wreathed. Then the throne he ascends, [the clergy bearing flowers and from Stabiae a lamb.] and his knee
bent and the garland drawn from his head the Bishop
he venerates, and the garland and the little bundles of flowers
all to him he bestows, and his hand kissed approaches
to his own. The Bishop indeed when several garlands
shall have been collected, them sends to the chief
of the city matrons; for the people all,
to this as it were triumph to behold are gathered.
Among these indeed a Priest one
from Stabiae is sent, who a lamb a porter carrying
leads, (the lamb is great and white,
and with gilded horns) which he as a gift
to the Prelate leads, as the others garlands and roses bestow.
Done therefore in that manner the census of the Priests,
by the common of all of them singing the sacred
Rogations are finished, and home all their own
joyful return."

[25] Goes on then Ambrose Leo to inquire into
the origin of the procession; and "That thing," he says, "and of the Clerics
as it were a census, the use of the Basilica ancient
and authority designates"; which he himself seems to derive,
both from the use of the Praetor Roman, in
the Nolan building or Palace, the people being gathered yearly,
his even in the surrounding towns dominion thus
demonstrating; and from a certain treaty between the people of Nola
and the people of Stabiae once struck, and by the immolation
of a lamb wont to be renewed, when Gentiles still each both
were: which then all to the Bishop were transferred.
But I more probably judge that from the ancient to the Episcopal
Feasts of assembling rite a custom begun,
and so far (as one and another successively were ordained)
vague, fixed clung to the Feast of Paulinus: and that
with a great of festivity increase, and an unusual otherwise
of garlands apparatus, after the Saint returned
from the Vandal servitude, where a garden and in it
flowers he had cultivated, with the multitude of fellow-captive citizens,
he seemed to have merited, that its redeemer
by that extraordinary manner the people should venerate by offering
the firstfruits of the gardens, not only in his person,
as long as he lived; but also in his successors
Bishops; granted their Feasts, on each one's
day, should not therefore cease to be honored, by the customary Synods
of the Presbyters to be held, as has been said. But that
from Stabiae a lamb was offered, that (unless my
conjecture deceives me) to this regarded; that the youth,
whose vicarious servitude served the Saint, of Stabiae
was: whom because it was just, nor however opportune
perpetually to his redeemer's servitude to be enslaved,
it pleased for him a lamb, now horns bearing,
to offer; with regard to that ram, which
to Isaac to be immolated succeeded a victim for a holocaust,
Genesis XXII. [To another thing seem to look the fairs] Whether the Stabiae here mentioned are those
which on the seashore placed today are called and
noted in the Geographical maps Castle by the sea,
a city once Episcopal: or indeed some inland
Parish of the Nolan diocese; but in
the maps passed over I desire to learn.

[26] The same Ambrose not noticing how
aptly the aforesaid procession to Paulinus's from Africa return
could be referred, preferred in that which in the Commentary
preliminary number 8 we described place, thither to refer
the fairs there described and wont to be celebrated
at the little building of St. Paulinus from the 16th day before the Kalends of July up
to the 10th before the same with games and spectacles, [around the feast of the Saint.] which nothing
have whereby they may be referred to St. Paulinus except the place
and time and that from the most common custom of most
cities and towns, the chief of each one's
Patron's feast joining annual fairs,
to which that more frequent they may run together make games
and spectacles especially of those running to the prize.
On the contrary the aforenarrated procession of the Parish-priests to
their Bishop on the 1st of May more has of religion
and most well would have been instituted for that day on which returning
from Africa Paulinus had been by his own received; which also
day can have been Paulinus III's Feast either in
the Episcopate or in the heavens. Perhaps too his was
the house which to the Paulinian shrine clings, not Paulinus's
the Elder.

§. IV. On the Body and Relics of St. Paulinus, at Rome and elsewhere preserved.

[27] Of the Cassino Chronicle up to the year 1086
carried the Author Leo of Ostia,
book II, chapter XXIV, says that in the third year of Abbot
John, [Otto III in the year 1000] which is the thousandth from the Incarnation
of the Lord, Otto III the Emperor to Benevento
came; and for the cause of penance, which to him Blessed
Romuald had enjoined, he went to Mount Gargano;
and returning consequently to Benevento,
he asked of them the Body of St. Bartholomew the Apostle.
Who, nothing then to him to deny daring, craftily
for the body of the Apostle, [carries off to Rome the body of St. Paulinus,] the body of Blessed Paulinus
of Nola the Bishop, which quite decently at
the Episcopium of that very city was kept,
they showed; and it taken away, he withdrew by such fraud
deceived. Which after he learned, exceedingly
indignant; the body of the Confessor, which
he had carried off, honorably enough at the Island of Rome
he laid up.

[28] Thus far that not only in time, but also
in place so near a writer (for the middle between Rome
and Benevento Cassino is, [whether of the first or the third] from each by a two-days'
journey distant) so that to him faith not to give a shame
it would be at least as to the Body of St. Paulinus; especially
when not even the Beneventans about it dissent.
Only therefore it will be doubted, the supposed and now sufficiently proved
of several of that name at Nola Bishops
distinction, whether that Body is of Paulinus the Elder,
whom at Nola dead and buried to have been it is established
and his there still many Relics to be had and
the day before the feast processionally to be carried about some, asserts
Andrea Ferrari; or indeed of the Third whose no
there monuments survive; so that, as
above I have noted, it can be judged here that abroad dead and buried
he was and on account of the great sanctity's fame,
by a remarkable work of charity procured, for a saint held
and worshipped even himself then too when of each
a more distinct knowledge had flowed away from men's memory.

[29] Ferdinando Ughelli Volume 6 of Italia Sacra,
one only Paulinus knowing, when he had said his
Body to have been translated to Benevento "I believe," [whether at Benevento or Nola did they die?]
he says, "on the occasion of some barbaric incursion
or destruction inflicted on the Nolan city." But to one considering
me the Body of St. Felix, the chief of the City's Patron,
whom St. Paulinus with so many excellent poems and
a new basilica built honored, even now to remain
under the altar, under which this one laid it, by witness who up
to the present day thence gushes a miraculous liquid; as on the 14th of January of our [work] to read it is, in the preliminary
Commentary §. VII: that, I say, to one considering and at the same time
the memorials of so many other Bishops there
still with their bodies whole; with difficulty I am brought to
such a translation from Nola to Benevento to admit,
and not rather to incline in favor of the Third
hitherto unknown: granted that the Nolan territory
and the very Nolan city sometime suffered something
from the Vandals, Goths, Lombards who it and several
other towns stripped of their walls, Campania being divided
into the Capuan, Salernitan, and Beneventan
Principalities.

[30] As for the Body of St. Bartholomew, whether
the same Otto, against the Beneventans for the fraud done to him indignant, against them returned and the city
besieged a long time, [Whether also with the body of St. Bartholomew?] with nothing accomplished was compelled
to dismiss it, as consequently asserts the aforesaid Leo,
too perhaps credulous to the Beneventans asserting
the very body with them to have remained, or indeed it willing
or unwilling they granted to Rome to be carried off
as pretend the Roman and German writers;
it is not mine to judge. The most eminent Orsini
the present Archbishop of Benevento, it by himself lately
as he believes dug up again, contends that never from Benevento
it was moved: the Romans that they have it of seven centuries
possession affirm. If the Sacred Congregation
of rites, the cause's cognition undertaken, the sacred of each
place cases to be opened should order and what each contains
faithfully to be reported; perhaps will be found in each
a great part of the same to be of one body. Certainly if to Benevento
for that cause returned Otto and the city besieged
as writes the of-Ostia; probable it is not, the siege dismissed,
altogether empty to have returned; nor even the Beneventans
by that terror compelled the whole to have dismissed; but
rather so dear a pledge with the Emperor having shared,
the old shrine being retained with himself with the chief some
bones, and the inscriptions such as they were kept; the other
part at Rome to have been deposited as a body
whole, as commonly in such things is wont to be done.

[31] However it be, Rome has of some St. Paulinus
the Body; and probably of the Nolan Bishop; about which
matter Baronius in the Notes to this day from his certain
manuscript on the Lives of the Saints: "The Body now seems
to be joined to the Body of St. Bartholomew,
in the Lycaonian island, in the church of St. Adalbert,
which now is called St. Bartholomew's: of which
three Saints by the merits there very many are granted
benefits." Ottavio Panciroli, among the Treasures
hidden of the city of Rome, of those bodies
treating, that very church restored says by Paschal
II, who in the year 1113 confirmed there indeed
to be present the bodies of SS. Bartholomew and Paulinus;
consecrated indeed by Alexander III, about the year
1179.

[32] But when in the year 1557 the Church of St.
Bartholomew on the Island of the City, by the force of the river,
which in that year nearly the whole city Roman
inundated, [That in the year 1557 translated into the Vatican] a notable ruin, both
of the church itself and of the monastery had suffered,
so that the Brothers of the said church thence to withdraw
were compelled; and the church, its walls burst,
on every side open, to be closed could not;
Paul Pope IV, lest the Relics of the Saints,
which in the same church were and were venerated,
without the customary of the church enclosure and the Brothers' custody
there then should remain; them to the basilica
of St. Peter of the City to be translated caused; and there into
the custody of the Canons and Chapter of the said Basilica
by inventory were consigned, [it is carried to the church of St. Bartholomew] as
from a public instrument thereupon made narrates
Pius Pope IV in the Brief by which he mandates to the Canons
of St. Peter, that, since the Brothers aforesaid
from the faithful's alms the said church have closed,
the same Relics, as often as they shall be
requested, to the same Brothers and Convent, to
the church of St. Bartholomew, processionally,
as is the custom, to be carried they restore and consign.
That Brief receiving from the most illustrious Ciampini's
work on the buildings of Constantine, I am compelled to fear,
lest Panciroli, besides this inundation, [and in the year 1598 from the waters preserved by a miracle was.] wrongly
note another of the year 1157, through one letter wrongly
varied an error; more worthy of faith in that which
he says, that in the year 1598 the Tiber overflowing the last
time (but he wrote toward the beginning of the present century)
there was not of such caution need because
the holy Apostle himself forbade the surrounding
waters, lest the coffer they should touch, from an interval
of some palms, about which matter a public
instrument is had.

[33] At the entrance of the Shrine of St. Paulinus hangs
on the wall affixed a small little tablet, in which is had
the following writing on parchment: [Translated the bones of him and of others in the year 1601] "In the year of the Lord
1601 on the 27th day of August, sitting Clement
VIII the supreme Pontiff, the Body of St. Paulinus Bishop
of Nola, and parts of the bodies of St. Adalbert
Bishop of Prague and Martyr, and SS. Exuperantius
and Marcellus the Deacons MM., which first
were in this Church, into this Altar,
a place more lofty and more becomingly adorned, to be translated,
and the altar itself to the honor of God,
and St. Paulinus's memory, when by old age impeded
this service to my most holy Patron
a useless servant I myself could not perform; through
the most reverend Lord Leonard Abel Bishop
of Sidon, by sacred rites to be consecrated
I took care, I Francesco Maria, of this title
of the Holy Roman Church Priest Cardinal Tarugi,
Archbishop of Siena. [and a new chapel erected under Julius III,]" Likewise in the Shrine of St. Paulinus
on the right side is had a writing in Italian on marble
white. Which thus into Latin I render: "The Chapel of the guild
of the Millers, by the same from the foundations built,
through Gabriele Crispiati as of that very
guild the Chamberlain, in the time of Julius Pope
III of happy memory in the year 1626, and by
Francesco Morretto, and Alfonso Herculani
deputies and in the year 1626 Consuls
of the aforesaid Guild, restored in the name and at the expense
of it." Thus to me about the year 1697
the Reverend Father Aureliano de Baenst then for the Belgian nation
Pontifical Penitentiary at Rome at St. Peter's,
now of our Aalst College the Rector.

[34] Aegidius Davila, in the Theatre of the Church of Segovia,
writes, that the local Bishop John
Vasquez de Cepeda, [Whether also a body in Spain?] by the permission of King John to Rome
having set out for the Jubilee year 1400, having been made
to himself in passing by John XIII at Avignon
power, of translating which he could of the Saints'
bodies; lodging taken on the Island, with this end that the Apostle's
body he might carry off; when he was present at the opening
of a certain coffer, of many Saints' bodies containing,
he received thence the body of St. Paulinus Bishop
of Nola, and of the holy Martyrs Marcellinus and
Exuperantius, and them to be honored deposited in
the Charterhouse of Aniago; and that to be had from the account
of the journey rendered to the King. About the Martyrs we shall see
on the 30th of December, when their feast to be held
writes Tamayo, namely because then are inscribed
in the Martyrologies SS. Marcellus and Exuperantius: but
these, as already we have seen, still at Rome were at the beginning of this
century; but how thither they were brought from Spoleto
where with St. Sabinus their Bishop they had suffered, I desire
to learn on the day on which they are worshipped, the 30th of December. There
also then to have been the body of St. Paulinus we know nor
this or that furtively into Spain to have been translated easily
shall we believe from such a relation; which it must be
supposititious, which John XXIII (for so
it ought to be written not XIII) says found at Avignon,
where he was never; and that in the year 1400,
since first made Pope he was in the year 1410, and in the same
year the third after the death of King John. More easily
you would believe, truly of the Nolan to be two parts
of bones, among the Relics of the monastery of St. Saviour
to Antwerp brought from the Lusitanian Kings' sacrarium;
but those hither came through a donation in the year 1516
made by Francis I, Emmanuel likewise I, as is explained
in the Appendix to the 2nd of April on St. Mary
the Egyptian, number 2 and 3.

§. V. On the sacred at Nola buildings by Paulinus the Elder built and in verse adorned.

[35] After Muratori his about St. Paulinus
not before the year 409 ordained opinion
sufficiently to himself seemed to have established in dissertation XII, to
our preliminary Commentary referred; he passes to
dissertation XIII On the sacred at Nola buildings, with
which therefore the more willingly this Appendix I finish, because more conveniently
I judge it to be finished in an Argument most certainly
proper to this one, on whose account about the two synonymous
successors the preceding questions we have treated, deservedly
having hesitated to attribute all to one which into several should be divided
ought, that to the ancient about that name writers
their authority may stand, nor basely be they said to have hallucinated
about a person, so renowned and to their age
so near. Then from the very Saint's letter
XII to Severus I shall add the epigrams with which
his structures the Saint adorned, about to give a specimen
of the rest of the poems of so great a man, about which
to illustrate so many learned men with great praise
have been engaged; and to these about to refer whatever reader
desirous of greater about them light. Muratori
his dissertation thus weaves to the end.

[36] Three at least comings of Paulinus to Nola
are to be enumerated. The first happened, when still
in boyish age he was engaged, and scarcely from the Gauls
into Italy had come: which he hints in those to
St. Felix poems:
"For as a boy from the Western shores of the Gauls turned,
As soon as I touched with trembling step your thresholds &c."
Hence it is that, the very St. Confessor addressing,
again he sings:
"--- to you me
a possession from my first years gave Christ."
The other to Nola he undertook journey, [then as Consular of Campania;] when from the held
Consulship Campania as Consular made to be ruled
he undertook; for thus he says:
"Already then a pledge of the seat being sent ahead through honor
in the Campanian places to be measured a dwelling I fixed,
you founding your servant's coming resting-places."
Long at Nola was engaged Paulinus, which demanded
the undertaken dignity; and when daily wrought
through St. Felix miracles before his eyes
stood, [he prepares a way to the building of St. Felix,] then to the Christian faith from Ethnicism
himself to convert to meditate he began. Among
the Catechumens therefore placed, as I judge,
certain of piety works immediately by himself to be performed
he judged. Five hundred about from the city of Nola
paces St. Felix's bones rested, where even now
an illustrious Basilica is seen. Thither therefore
the leading way fortified Paulinus, that for the flowing
peoples' convenience he might consult. Thus
he himself St. Felix addresses:
"When in a silent inspiring care to me with a mind you bade
to be fortified, and to be paved a way to your roofs leading."
Nor with these content the pious man at the same
of Blessed Felix building to strike off a magnificent house
he willed. [and there a hospital he builds;] In a long tract was extended such
a building, and first for the poor's use destined
was a place, that hence too you may learn, how great
Paulinus's piety was, although into Christ's flock
not yet through the Baptism's waves he had been led.
Let us hear thus the following:
"And adjoining to your roofs in a long tract to rise
a covering, under which the prior use of the needy
inhabited. ---"

[37] The third at last Paulinus's to the Nolan city
coming happened, when, the world abjured,
and his wealth on the poor poured out, [and finally converted from the world] the Nolan retreat
he chose, that there to Christ alone dedicated a holier
he might institute and pursue life.
This was done in the year 394. Then Paulinus in all the offices of piety himself he turned, and nothing more important
he had, than those to promote, which St.
Felix's cult might increase. His first labor was,
as I think, the built in the second coming
house to amplify. Other therefore over
the former walls roofs having raised so the old
buildings he adorned, [it he amplifies] that to himself becomingly into a dwelling to yield
they could. The poor into cells under a portico
being cast, he himself in the upper roof a lodging
for himself constituted. Hence thus he sings:
"--- After these things with a doubled covering grew
the built house, which now remains hospitable to our
cells:
the placed-beneath portico serves the poor sick,
which us the placed-upon-the-imposed roofs dwelling
sustains with lodgings ---"
This building's charm moreover below he extols:
"Behold for me through so many of the blessed Martyr's halls [and in it for himself and his a dwelling]
both in spaces ample and in roofs lofty,
and with hollow on high paneled ceilings ambitious,
watered both with waters, and with porticos wreathed &c."
So however the building Paulinus had constituted, that
in its very amplitude for himself and his guests
humble cells to be he willed, namely which
no ambition would savor, but which rather
the immense of the powerful roofs would reprove. Hence about
his illustrious guests, to the people he says:
"--- Whom you behold, and now in the very [but humble.]
roofs of Felix with me measured beholding
lodgings, forgetful of the old of houses lofty
roofs, and content with narrow cells, the Martyr being near &c."
These narrated Paulinus another work adds:
"All the works being built, which seem to stand,
in diverse manners composed, lofty through the halls,
and through the vestibules extended surrounded widely
with porticos, the ground at once all of waters the gift
the roofs seemed to pray for the sad inhabitants, &c. [Thither water he leads]"

[38] A desired therefore aqueduct by the times'
antiquity interrupted from the town Abella
to St. Felix's Basilica to lead into his mind
he brought. A long was interposed of way a tract,
namely five of paces thousand. But by the work's difficulty
not terrified the holy man, the soft channels,
the Nolans resisting in vain, [to 5 miles.] and the sacred
building's benefit spurning, opened up.
Their labors to him the Abellans for the work contributed;
and so he was kindled, that a huge of water
force at last to the destined place he led.
These most fully in the always-praised Feast-poem
XIII are had. But other of Paulinus buildings
me to pursue the proposed of brevity institute
does not allow. Only I shall mention several
by him to have been built Basilicas, which all
from Letter XII to Severus by him described
to seek you can. [He founds also several Basilicas;] The chief among these place
held that, which to the Lord-of-the-house (as he says)
the common patron in the name of the Lord Christ
dedicated is celebrated. Ambrose Leo book 2 chapter II
on Nola, this Basilica to God the Best and Greatest dedicated
by Paulinus judges, for God, he says, then
Lord-of-the-house was called, which word in the mouth of those swearing,
and invoking God up to our
times preserved we hear. But the true of the word signification
he does not touch, since for
"Lord-of-the-house" St. Felix Paulinus understands. [especially of St. Felix] Of this kind
the word purely Lord or Patron signifies,
which likewise by me will be proved in
a certain of St. Maximus of Turin Sermon, which
together with several others of the same Bishop unpublished
in the remaining Anecdota books I shall bring forth. [whom he calls lord-of-the-house.]
There indeed "Lord-of-the-house" for Lord is used.
Paulinus too that he St. Felix hinted
shows in Letter 9 to Severus, where the Feast-poem in
the same St. Confessor's honor elaborated,
"a solemn to the Lord-of-the-house chant" he calls: and
in Letter 28 to Victricius, "of his holy Confessor
most beloved Felix the Lord-of-the-house" he makes mention. But that
elsewhere occurs. Nor better speaks
the same Leo book 2 chapter 12, when St. Felix's
Basilica anciently within the city of Nola's compass
placed he affirms, [this is distant from Nola by a mile,] for from it by an enormous
space it was distant, namely a thousand about paces.
This same now as an exceptional of sanctity inner-shrine
is seen in the place, which the Cemetery
(commonly Cimitino) is called. Its
moreover description to seek it will be permitted from Capaccio
in the History of Naples book 2 at the end, from the Most Renowned Sarnelli
in the Clergy's Mirror at the Life of St. Felix, from
Pacichelli in his Italian Letters, and from others
several.

[39] Thus far Muratori: from this I pass to
the promised above part of letter XII to Severus
by Paulinus given to which he referred us; [to which leading new] where
the Saint his at Nola and Fundi structures briefly describes
as to his friend, like things at Tours building, and
his buildings to be adorned Paulinus's epigrams asking,
both these sends and to those inscribed or to be inscribed
communicates as he had wished, thus nearly beginning,
"I congratulate, that one of heart and body
ours, of works too and of vows likeness
we have shown, at the same time basilicas
to the Lord's sheepfolds adding. You indeed
even a baptistery between two basilicas placed
have built: that us in these too works,
which visibly are built, in the building
you might surpass." Hence profuse in of mutual love the testification
and of praiseworthy on each side zeal the commendation,
with much of his own slenderness testification joined,
he sets forth verses by his command composed and
for that new baptistery to be inscribed, [it is inscribed with verses sent to Severus,] worthy altogether
which here too should be read, unless to judgment about them to be passed
sufficed those which for his own basilicas he himself composed
and which therefore himself in the same letter's series in which
the former in the little book or letter he embraced, that in this
too their conjunction might be figured, which, he says,
as is joined to souls, and is distant in places; so
also these, which in the name of the Lord with the same Spirit
elaborated we have built in diverse separated regions, …
to themselves as contiguous will seem.

[40] The Basilica therefore that which to the Lord-of-the-house
our common Patron in the name of the Lord Christ
dedicated is celebrated, [under the apse] to its four
basilicas added, with the relics of the Apostles
Martyrs within the apse, in a three-conched under the altars
consecrated, not by the sole of Blessed Felix honor venerable
is. The apse in floor and walls marbled
a vault with mosaic adorned brightens, of whose
painting these verses are:
"With full mystery gleams the Trinity,
Stands Christ with the Lamb: the Voice of the Father from heaven thunders:
And through a dove the Holy Spirit flows; [in which is painted Christ with the Apostles]
the Cross with a crown a bright globe girds;
to which crown are a crown the Apostles,
whose figure is in the choir of doves.
The pious of the Trinity unity to Christ unites,
the Trinity itself too having insignia:
God reveals the paternal voice, and the Spirit:
holy confess the Cross and the Lamb the victim:
the kingdom and triumph the purple and palm indicate. [and other symbols;]
The Rock stands upon, himself the rock of the Church,
from which sonorous four fountains go,
the Evangelists, the living rivers of Christ."

[41] But in the lower band, by which of wall and
of vault the confine the interposed plaster ledge
joins or divides, this title indicates the deposited
under the altar Holy of Holies. [and in the rim under which is placed a particle of the Cross]
"Here piety, here nourishing faith, here the glory of Christ,
      Here is the Cross associated with its Martyrs.
For of the Cross from the wood a great pledge a short splinter,
      And whole in a small segment the force of the Cross is.
This by holy Melania's gift brought to Nola,
      the highest good came from the city of Jerusalem.
Holy altars to God a twofold honor veil, [and the holy Apostles.]
      Which with the Cross the Apostolic ashes associate.
How well are joined to the wood of the Cross the bones of the pious,
      that for the Cross to those slain on the Cross there be rest!"
The whole indeed outside the conch the space of the basilica,
with high and coffered roof on both sides with twin
porticos is widened, [The Basilica a double portico surrounds with little chambers.] in which a double through
the single arches order of columns is directed.
Chambers within the porticos four in number on the long of the basilicas
sides inserted, for the privacies of those praying or in
the law of the Lord meditating, besides for the memorials
of the Religious and intimates accommodated
to the rest of eternal peace, places afford. Every
chamber with two through the lintels' fronts verses
is prenoted, which to insert with these letters I have been unwilling:
those however which the very basilica's entrances have,
I have written because they could, if to use you wish,
even to your basilicas' doors agree,
as that is:
"Peace to you whoever the inner shrine of God Christ
      with a peaceful breast bright you enter."
Or this, about the sign of the Lord over the entrance
painted in this appearance, which the verse indicates: [Other verses above the vestibule]
"Behold the crowned over the courts of the Lord Christ
to stand the Cross, to the hard toil promising lofty
rewards: take the cross who wish to carry off the crown. [and under the Cross.]"

[43] But to the other basilica, by which from the little garden
or orchard as if private is opened the entrance,
these little verses this more secret door open:
"The heavenly ways enter, through pleasant green-places, [Likewise on each face of the little door to the garden,]
Christ-worshippers; and from glad here is fitting the entrance from the gardens,
whence a sacred to the deserving is given exit into Paradise."
This same little door with other verses on the interior
of itself front is marked:
"Whoever from the building of God, your vows perfected in order,
go out; return in body, in heart remain."
But the prospect of the basilica, not as the more usual custom
is the east faces, but to my Lord
blessed Felix's basilica pertains, his memorial
looking at: yet since with two on the right and left
little conches within its spacious compass the apse
curved is relaxed, one of them to the immolating victims
of jubilation Bishop lies open, the other behind the Priest
with a capacious bosom receives those praying. [and to the crosses on both sides painted,] With a most glad
indeed view the whole at once this basilica into
the basilica of the aforementioned Confessor is opened by triple
arches equal through a translucent lattice, through
which in turn to themselves the roofs and spaces of the basilica
of each are joined. For because the new from the old
a wall by the apse of a certain monument interposed obstructed
would exclude, with as many doors
laid open on the side of the Confessor, as on the front
of its entrance with doors new was opened,
as a lattice-window, an appearance from each into each
to beholders affords, as by the given between each
doors titles is indicated. And so on the very of the basilica
new entrances these little verses are:
"The nourishing house with a triple arch lies open to those entering,
and attests a pious the threefold door the faith. [and over the middle arch opposite the old basilica;]"
Likewise on the right and left with crosses in red overpainted
these epigrams are:
"The lofty flower-bearing Cross is girt with the orb of a crown,
      and with the Lord's poured-out blood stained is red.
And the doves which over the heavenly sign reside,
      to the simple set forth the kingdoms of God to lie open."
Likewise about the same:
"By this Cross us to the world and to us slay the world
      by the death of fault giving life to the soul.
Us too you will perfect as doves pleasing to you, Christ,
      if there flourish in pure breasts your part."

[42] But within the very lattice (by which that short,
which the near to themselves basilicas rather
separated, interval is continued) opposite
the new basilica over the middle arch
these verses are:
"As the midst of the wall our peace Jesus resolves, [and over the arch of each side]"

"And by the Cross the dissension destroying he made two into one;
So the new, the partition of the old roof destroyed,
roofs we behold by the covenant of the doors joined.
The holy court washes between for the servants with waters
the laver, and the hands of those entering washes with a river ministering.
A twofold people Christ in the hall of Felix adores,
which Paul the Priest with apostolic mouth governs."
But these with two little verses noted epigrams
over the other arches on the right and left are:
On one this:
"To astonished eyes a new light is opened; and from one
threshold standing he beholds twin halls at once."
On the other this:
"With thrice-twin arches the twin halls were opened,
and they marvel at their own through mutual thresholds adornments."

[44] Likewise on the same arches at the front, which
to the basilica of the Lord Felix lies open in the middle,
these are:
"Whom devoted faith with dense to celebrate the Blessed
Felix peoples from diverse mouths persuades,
through the triple entrances pour your loose assemblies:
the courts however spacious to innumerable will lie open.
Which joined to themselves through the open near arches
Paul the Bishop to eternal uses dedicates."
On the others these two:
"From the old, having departed, of holy Felix the hall [then to the two secretaries.]
into the new of Felix roofs cross over."
Likewise.
"One faith, which under a threefold name worships the one,
the unanimous with a threefold entrance receives."
But in the secretaries two, which above I said
to be around the apse, these verses indicate the offices
of each.
On the right of the apse:
"This is the place, where the venerable store is hidden, and where
is brought forth the nourishing pomp of the sacred ministry."
On the left of the same:
"If anyone a holy in the law to be meditated will holds
here he will be able sitting on the sacred to attend books."

ON THE FUNDI BASILICA.

[45] Let us now go out of this Nolan basilica,
and into the Fundi let us pass. To Fundi
the name is to the town which equally familiar to me
was, [Verses fitted to the Fundi basilica too] while remained a possession, which there more frequently
I had. And so either as a pledge as of civic
charity, or to the memory of my past patrimony
a basilica to give in that town (since
both it needed it; a ruinous and small one having)
of my vow it was. Therefore also these little verses
to be added I thought, which for it in that town
to be dedicated for the basilica we prepared; for still
in work it is, but, God being propitious, to dedication near.
Which however this to me especially reason
persuaded, because both in its apse the designated
painting my Victor loved, and to carry to you
wished, if perhaps also it of the two you should choose
in this more recent your to paint, in which equally
an apse to be made he indicated. But about this "apse"
or "abse" rather I should have said, you shall see:
I confess myself not to know, because this kind of word
neither to have read I remember.

[46] But this also little basilica of the blessed Apostles' and Martyrs'
Relics the sacred ashes, in the name of Christ, [they explicate the painting of the apse and indicate the Relics placed there.] of the Saints
the Saint, and of the Martyrs the Martyr, and of the Lords
the Lord will consecrate. For he himself testified
himself in turn of his Confessors a Confessor
to be about to be. Therefore over this besides the painting
for the sake of grace a doubled is the title.
On the painting:
"The Saints' labor and reward to themselves duly cohere,
the lofty Cross, and the price of the Cross sublime the crown.
God himself for us, the Prince of the Cross and of the crown,
amid the flower-bearing heavenly grove of paradise
under the bloody cross white stands Christ in
the lamb;
the Lamb as an innocent for the unjust given a victim to death.
Whom with a placid bird the holy bedews gaping
the Spirit, and from a ruddy cloud the Father crowns.
And because lofty as a judge on a rock he stands above,
twice twin flocks; a discordant from the lambs kind of kid,
surround the throne: the left-hand kids turns away
the Shepherd, and the deserving with his right embraces the lambs."
On the Relics:
"Behold under the lit altars the bones of the pious
a royal with purple marble crust covers.
Here also the Apostolic presents grace its powers
with great in a small dust pledges.
Here father Andrew, and with a great name Luke,
and a Martyr and illustrious by his blood Nazarius;
and whom for his own Ambrose after long he reveals
ages, Protasius with his peer Gervasius;
here at once one a pious embraces little-coffer the company,
and holds in a small bosom names so great."

[47] These meanwhile my Brother, and other of this kind
works visible from earthly things on earth a labor
I had striven: but blessed be the Lord day
by day, who does wonders alone: as he turns
a rock into a pool of water, so also earthly things
into heavenly he changes, and this with us (although
about his here and there things) exchange
to make he deigns, that the things which corporally I had striven
on earth, secretly in heaven through him may be built;
then to be revealed with us in appearance we shall see,
which now through faith we promote.
