He was a member of the Roman elite, an eloquent and cultured man, a man of senatorial rank who came from old money, a man wealthy beyond imagination, whose vast estates and business interests stretched across the empire. And yet he renounced it all, the world and its treasures, to seek those treasures that moth and rust cannot destroy and that thieves cannot steal. Paulinus of Nola stands as proof that even though “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God… with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:24, 26).
In the middle of the fourth century, c. AD 354, Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus was born to one of the wealthiest families of Aquitania. His was an old patrician family. Having been educated in rhetoric and law, as a senator (a role inherited from his father) he quickly rose to some prominence and was, it seems, named a suffect consul by the emperor Gratian at the age of about 23 or 24. A few years later, at about age 27, he was given the role of governor of Campania in southern Italy.1 Being rich and powerful did not lead to a life without difficulties, however. Managing and protecting vast wealth was a monumental task, especially with the ever-present threat of those seeking in some way to rob one of it, and with the threat of imperial confiscations necessary to fund a faltering empire. After Gratian’s murder, perhaps in order to remove himself from the attentions of the new regime, Paulinus moved his family and his great wealth to his wife’s family estates in Spain (yes, he had gained even more wealth through marriage!).2
He had been baptized before leaving Bordeaux, and had been influenced by the great Ambrose in Milan.3 As his fortunes in the world began to turn, Paulinus and his wife Theresa became even more devoutly invested in the Faith. After the death of their only child, the couple, recognizing the emptiness of worldly life, decided to renounce their immense wealth and their place among the Roman elite in exchange for a life of service to the Lord and to the poor. Although lauded by great churchmen like Martin of Tours, Augustine of Hippo, and Ambrose of Milan, it was a decision that many of Paulinus’s friends simply could not comprehend.4 St. Ambrose reports on this momentous turn of events: “Paulinus, the lustre of whose birth was inferior to none in the region of Aquitania, has sold both his own possessions and those of his wife, and entered upon a course of life which enables him to bestow upon the poor the property which has been converted into money; while he himself having become poor instead of rich, as one relieved of a heavy burden, has bid farewell to his home, his country, and his kindred, in order to serve God more diligently… When the great of the world hear this, what will they say? That a man of his family, his ancestry, his genius, gifted with such eloquence, should have seceded from the senate, that the succession of a noble family should become extinct, such things, they will say, are not to be borne.”5
But the bewilderment and even animosity of others would not deter Paulinus from his chosen path. Writing from Barcelona to his friend, Sulpicius Severus who was following a similar course of action, Paulinus says: “For them the flesh and cross of the living God are foolishness, or a stumbling block; for flesh and blood, to which they are slaves, do not reveal to them that Christ Jesus is the Son of God. But may our belief in the flesh and death of God become the odour of life unto life. Dearest brother, let not our feet be diverted from the ways of the Lord or from treading the narrow path, should the wicked or foolish voices of worldly men from time to time bark around us… We should not fear the displeasure of such men; indeed we should desire it, for from their taunts and curses is born the abundant reward which God has promised in heaven… So let us displease these men, and be thankful that we displease those who find God displeasing. For, as you know, it is not our work that they assail in us, but that of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is almighty God.”6
A year after renouncing his wealth, on Christmas Day 395, Paulinus was ordained to the priesthood.7 Much like St. Augustine with whom he often corresponded, this ordination was somewhat forcibly conferred upon him at the insistence of the populace. He acquiesced only after first having gained the assurance from the bishop that he would not be bound to any particular parish or diocese, a practice later condemned by the Council of Chalcedon.8 Having begun to have been freed from the bonds of worldly obligations (for the disposal of such great wealth was no easy or quick task), Paulinus did not wish to be obliged to remain in Barcelona. Rather, he longed to return to a place he had known as governor of Campania, the shrine of St. Felix in Nola.9 And it is there that Paulinus, who was eventually made bishop of Nola, remained for the rest of his life, and from there that he used his vast wealth to enrich the Church and her poor.
We know of Paulinus not only from the reputation of the churches he built and beautified, and not only from the reports of his more famous contemporaries, but also from his own correspondence and poetry. These literary treasures reveal to us an eloquent and surprisingly humble man whose faith was deeply rooted in the grace of Christ Jesus and who knew well the Holy Scriptures, the language of which is generously peppered throughout his works. For example, when writing to the poet Ausonius, who was both his mentor and one of those mourning his renunciation of wealth and position, he contrasts the writings of pagan philosophers, rhetoricians and poets to the truth of Christ. “[The pagan authors] fill hearts with false and empty opinions and instruct only in rhetoric, making no effort to confer salvation or clothe us with the truth. What good or truth can they have, when they do not have the Head of it all, the flame and fount of the true and the good, God, whom no one sees except in Christ? He is the Light of truth, the Way of life, the Power, Mind, Hand, and Strength of His Father, the Sun of justice, the Fount of good, the Flower of God, the Begotten of God, the Creator of the world, Life of our mortality and Death of our death. He is the Teacher of virtues. He is both God to us and Man for us. He deprived Himself by taking us on, establishing eternal fellowship between man and God, being Himself both. Therefore, when He sends His radiance from heaven on our hearts, He wipes away the sick filthiness of our indolent flesh and renews the disposition of our mind. Everything that delighted us before He draws out and replaces it with holy pleasure.”10
And when writing to his friend Jovius, a fellow writer and poet, he exhorts him in regard to Jovius’s love of the pagan writers: “I beg you, devote your zeal and work to reading and writing these things [of Christ]: Sing of the great beginnings of the Thunderer’s universe. Write of the foundations of things created by His Word, the chaos before the first day, and the dusk of the first light, and what was said and done by God through all the elements in various ages. You will learn them through the Holy Scriptures, the things which Moses taught, written down on the tablets of the Law, or the things which the new Law of the Gospel Testament confirms, which uncovers the mysteries of Christ previously hidden. Then I will call you a truly divine poet and I will drink up your poems like a draft of sweet water.”11 Such sweet draft we find throughout the letters and poems of Paulinus, the rich man become poor, that in Christ he might be found rich. By His faithful confession and works he shows us that in the grace of our Lord Jesus all things really are possible.
1 W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1984), 713. A suffect consul is one elected to complete the term of a consul who dies or resigns before the end of his term. Note that there is some debate among historians concerning whether Paulinus ever actually held this post.
2 Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD, (Princeton University Press, 2012), 210.
3 Saint Paulinus of Nola, Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola: Volume 1, Letters 1-22, Letter 3, trans. P.G. Walsh (New York: Paulist Press, 1966), 46.
4 Brown, 216-217.
5 “The Letters of S. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, by Saint Ambrose—A Project Gutenberg eBook.,” n.d., Letter 58, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58783/58783-h/58783-h.htm.
6 Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola: Volume 1, Letter 1, 30, 33.
7 Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola: Volume 1, Letter 1, 37.
8 Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola: Volume 1, 213-214.
9 Brown, 219.
10 Saint Paulinus of Nola, Poem 10, lines 39-62, trans. Christian Preus
11 Poem 22, lines 148-158, trans. Christian Preus
