Paulinus of Nola Paulinus of Nola (also known as Paolino di Nola; full name, Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus)[1] (ca. 354 Bordeaux – 22 June 431 Nola) was a Latin poet and letter- writer, and a convert to the Christian faith. His renuncia- tion of wealth and a senatorial career in favour of a Chris- tian ascetic and philanthropic life was held up as an exam- ple by many of his contemporaries, including Augustine, Jerome, Martin of Tours, and Ambrose. After his con- version he wrote to his friend and teacher, the poet Au- sonius, affirming his friendship but insisting on the prior- ities of his new life. He and his wife settled at Nola near Naples, where he wrote poems in honor of St. Felix and corresponded with Christian leaders throughout the Ro- man Empire. After his wife’s death he became Bishop of Nola, and was invited to help resolve the disputed elec- tion of Pope Boniface I. He was recognized as a saint in the undivided Church and is commemorated on 22 June. 1 Life Pontius Meropius Paulinus was born ca. 352 at Bor- deaux, in southwestern France. He was from a notable Statue of St. Paulinus in Nola senatorial family with estates in the Aquitaine province of France, northern Spain, and southern Italy. He was edu- cated in Bordeaux, where his teacher, the poet Ausonius, terwards, his wife and he moved to their estates in Spain. also became his friend. At some time during his boy- When they lost their first child, a boy, only eight days af- hood he made a visit to the shrine of St Felix at Nola ter birth, the couple decided to live a secluded religious near Naples.[1] life. His normal career as a young member of the senatorial In 393 or 394, after some resistance from Paulinus, he class did not last long. In 375 the Emperor Gratian suc- was ordained a presbyter on Christmas day by Lampius, ceeded his father Valentinian. Gratian made Paulinus Bishop of Barcelona.[3] (This was similar to what had suffect consul at Rome ca. 377, and appointed him gover- happened with St. Augustine of Hippo, who had been nor of the southern Italian province of Campania ca. 380- ordained against his protestations in the year 391 at the 1, but in 383 Gratian was assassinated at Lyon, France, behest of a crowd cooperating with Bishop Valerius in and ca. 384 Paulinus returned to Bordeaux. There he the north African city of Hippo Regius.) However, there married a Spanish Christian woman named Therasia.[2] is some debate as to whether the ordination was canon- Paulinus himself became a Christian and was baptized ical, since Paulinus received ordination “at a leap” (per ca. 389 by Bishop Delphinus of Bordeaux. Shortly af- saltum), without receiving minor orders first.[1] 1 2 1 LIFE Paulinus refused to remain in Barcelona, and in late spring of 395 he and his wife moved from Spain to Nola in Campania where he remained until his death. Pauli- nus credited his conversion to St. Felix, who was buried in Nola, and each year would write a poem in honor of the saint. He and Therasia also rebuilt a church commemo- rating St. Felix. During these years Paulinus engaged in considerable epistolary dialogue with St. Jerome among others about monastic topics. Therasia died some time between 408 and 413, and shortly afterwards Paulinus received episcopal ordina- tion. Paulinus died at Nola on 22 June 431. The following year the presbyter Uranus wrote his De Obitu Paulini, an ac- count of the death and character of the saint. 1.1 Influence Already during his governorship Paulinus had developed a fondness for the 3rd-century martyr, St. Felix of Nola.[3] Felix was a minor saint of local importance and patronage whose tomb had been built within the local necropolis at Cimitile, just outside the town of Nola. As Bas-relief of St. Paulinus in Torregrotta governor, Paulinus had widened the road to Cimitile and built a residence for travelers; it was at this site that Pauli- nus and Therasia took up residence. Nearby were a num- ber of small chapels and at least one old basilica. Paulinus Alypius’s autobiographical response does not survive; St. rebuilt the complex, constructing a brand new basilica to Augustine’s ostensible answer to that query is the “Con- Felix and gathering to him a small monastic community. fessions.” Paulinus wrote an annual hymn (natalicium) in honor of Around 410 Paulinus was chosen Bishop of Nola. Like a St. Felix for the feast day when processions of pilgrims growing number of aristocrats in the late 4th and early 5th were at their peak. In these hymns we can understand centuries who were entering the clergy rather than taking the personal relationship Paulinus felt between himself up the more usual administrative careers in the imperial and Felix, his advocate in heaven. His poetry shares with service, Paulinus spent a great deal of his money on his much of the work of the early 5th century an ornateness chosen church and city. of style that classicists of the 18th and 19th centuries We know about his buildings in honor of St. Felix from found cloying and dismissed as decadent, though Pauli- literary and archaeological evidence, especially from his nus’ poems were highly regarded at the time and used as long letter to Sulpicius Severus describing the arrange- educational models. ment of the building and its decoration. He includes a Many of Paulinus’s letters to his contemporaries, includ- detailed description of the apse mosaic over the main al- ing Ausonius and Sulpicius Severus in southern Gaul, tar and gives the text for a long inscription he had written Victricius of Rouen in northern Gaul, and Augustine in to be put on the wall under the image. By explaining how Africa, are preserved. he intended the visitors to understand the image over the Paulinus may have been indirectly responsible for Au- altar, Paulinus provided rare insight into the intentions of gustine’s Confessions: Paulinus wrote to Alypius, Bishop a patron of art in the later Empire. of Thagaste and a close friend of St. Augustine, ask- In later life Paulinus, by then a highly respected church ing about his conversion and taking up of the ascetic life. authority, participated in multiple church synods inves- 3 tigating various ecclesiastical controversies of the time, [4] Trout, Dennis E. (1999). Paulinus of Nola: Life, Let- including Pelagianism. ters, and Poems. Berkeley: University of California Press. p.267. [5] Posen, I. Sheldon; Sciorra, Joseph; Kahn, David M. 2 Relics (1989). The Giglio: Brooklyn’s Dancing Tower. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Brooklyn Historical Society. OCLC 22905350. About 800 Prince Grimoald III of Benevento removed Paulinus’s bones as relics. This article incorporates text from a publication now in From the 11th century they rested at the church of Saint the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Adalbert, now Saint Bartholomew, on the island in the extquotedblSt. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola extquotedbl. Tiber in Rome. In 1908 Pope Pius X permitted them to Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. be translated to the new cathedral at Nola, where they were reinterred on 15 May 1909.[4] The bones are now found in the small Sicilian city of 5 Bibliography Sutera, where they dedicate a feast day, and conduct a procession for the saint at Easter each year. • Ausonius, & Paulinus of Nola, Ausone et Paulin de Nole : Correspondance, tr. D. Amherdt (2004) [Latin text ; French translation]. Introduction, Latin 3 Modern devotion to St. Paulinus text, French translation & notes. Bern: Peter Lang Publ., 2004 (Sapheneia, Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie ; 9) VII, 247 p. ISBN 3-03910-247-8 The people of modern day Nola and the surrounding re- (very useful in order to understand what kind of dif- gions remain devoted to St. Paulinus. His feast day is ficulties Ausonius felt towards Paulinus religious con- celebrated annually in Nola during “La Festa dei Gigli” version.) (the Feast of the Lilies), in which Gigli and several large statues in honor of the saint, placed on towers, are carried • Paulinus of Nola, Sancti Pontii Meropii Paulini upon the shoulders of the faithful around the city. Nolani Opera, ed. G. de Hartel (2nd. ed. cur. In the United States the descendants of Italian immigrants M. Kamptner, 2 vols., 1999) [v.1. Epistulae; v.2. from Nola and Brusciano continue the tradition in Carmina. Latin texts] Brooklyn[5] and as well as in Manhattan’s East Harlem • neighborhood, where beginning in the early 1900s, the Paulinus of Nola, Paolino di Nola I Carmi ..., ed. A. Giglio Society of East Harlem holds its annual dancing Ruggiero (1996) of the Giglio on Pleasant Avenue on the second Sunday • Paulinus of Nola, Paolino di Nola Le Lettere. Testo in August. latino con introduzione, traduzione italiana ..., ed. G. Santaniello (2 vols., 1992) 4 References • Paulinus of Nola, The Poems of Paulinus of Nola translated ... by P. G. Walsh (1975) [1] Löffler, Klemens. “St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola.” The • Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Ap- Paulinus of Nola, Letters of St Paulinus of Nola pleton Company, 1911. 13 Jan. 2014 translated ... by P. G. Walsh (2 vols., 1966-7) [2] Foley O.F.M., Leonard. Saint of the Day, Lives, Lessons, • C. Conybeare, Paulinus Noster Self and Symbols in and Feast, (revised by Pat McCloskey O.F.M.), Francis- can Media the Letters of Paulinus of Nola (2000) [3] Bardenhewer, Otto. Translated by Thomas J. Shahan • Trout, Dennis E (1999). Paulinus of Nola - Life, (2006). Patrology: The Lives and Works of the Fathers Letters, and Poems.