St. Paulinus, bishop of Nola, lived at this time. He was born at Bordeaux in the year 353, and was descended from a long line of illustrious senators. One of the several estates he owned near the city still bears the name of Le Puy Paulin, puy being a word from the langue Romaine, perhaps synonymous with the Latin word podium. One of the public squares of Bordeaux also bears the same name. Paulinus possessed great elevation of mind and a poetical genius, which he cultivated under Ausonius, for whose care he expresses his gratitude in verse. But Ausonius was magnanimous enough to acknowledge that Paulinus excelled him as a poet and that no modern Roman could vie with him.
In his early life Paulinus held dignified offices under government, but his intercourse with St. Delphinus, bishop of Bordeaux, inspired him with a love for retirement, in which his wife, a Spanish lady of wealth, participated. They passed over into Spain, and spent four years there in the retirement of the country, but not as anchorites. He seemed to have given up all of life but its sweetness when he composed the following prayer: "O Supreme Master of all things, grant my wishes, if they are righteous. Let none of my days be sad, and no anxiety trouble the repose of my nights. Let the good things of another never tempt me, and may my own suffice to those who ask my aid. Let joy dwell in my house. Let the slave born on my hearth enjoy the abundance of my stores. May I live surrounded by faithful servants, a cherished wife, and the children she will bring me."
While in Spain they lost their only son, whom they buried at Alcala, near the bodies of the holy martyrs Justus and Pastor. This loss weaned them completely from the world. Their Spanish solitude had been a garden of roses, but now they chose the lily as their emblem, and resolved to lead a monastic life. Paulinus received holy orders, and they both sold all they possessed and gave the money to the poor. This drew upon Paulinus the contempt of the world. Even his own relatives and former slaves rose up against him, but to all their invectives he only replied: "O beata injuria displicere cum Christo." "O blessed scorn that is shared with Christ." Ausonius, in particular, was grieved to see the extensive patrimony of Paulinus cut up among a hundred possessors, and reproached him in bitter terms for his madness. But if the world rejected him, he was received with open arms by such men as St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine. His devotion to St. Felix, whose tomb he had visited in his childhood, induced him to fix his residence near Nola in Campania. Here he lived close by the church where his favorite saint was enshrined. He had put on the livery of Christ's poor ones, and contented himself with his cell and garden-plot. And his meekness and sanctity, joined to his talents as a writer, drew upon him the admiration of the world. Persons of the highest rank from all parts went to see him in his retreat, as St. Jerome and St. Augustine testify. In his seclusion he writes poems that have all the delicacy and grace of Petrarch. He describes the church of his loved saint, whose life and miracles he is never weary of dwelling on, as hung with white draperies and gleaming with aromatic lamps and tapers; the porch is wreathed with fresh flowers, and the cloisters strewn with blossoms; and pilgrims come down from the mountains, marching even at night by the light of their torches, bringing their children in sacks, and their sick on litters, to be healed at the tomb; for all the world, a picture of an Italian shrine of these days.
He loved the humblest duties of the sanctuary. "Suffer me to remain at thy gates," he says. "Let me cleanse thy courts every morning, and watch every night for their protection. Suffer me to end my days amid the employments I love. We take refuge within your hallowed pale and make our nest in your bosom. It is herein that we are cherished, and expand into a better life. Casting off the earthly burden, we feel something divine springing up within us, and the unfolding of the wings which are to make us equal to the angels." These words sound as if coming from the cloistered votary of the middle ages, or even of the nineteenth century; the same is the spirit of the church in all ages.
The writings of St. Paulinus show his devotion to the saints and their relics, a belief in the efficacy of prayers for the dead, and in the doctrine of the Real Presence. What can be more explicit, for instance, than these lines on the Holy Eucharist?
"In cruce fixa caro est, quâ pascor; de cruce sanguis
Ille fluit, vitam quo bibo, corda lavo."
He adorned the walls of his church with paintings and composed inscriptions for the altar, under which were deposited the relics of St. Andrew, St. Luke, St. Nazarius, and others, and sings thus:
"In regal shrines with purple marble graced,
Their bones are 'neath illumined altars placed.
This pious band's contained in one small chest
That holds such mighty names within its tiny breast."
After fifteen years of retirement, St. Paulinus was made bishop of Nola. Shortly before he died, as the lamps were being lighted for the Vesper service, he murmured,
"I have trimmed my lamp for Christ."