Paulinus of Nola: Life, Letters, and Poems (Volume 27) (Transformation of the Classical Heritage)

This study offers a comprehensive reconsideration of the life and literary works of Paulinus of Nola (ca. 352-431), a Roman senator who renounced his political career and secular lifestyle to become a monk, bishop, impresario of a saint's cult, and prominent Christian poet. Dennis Trout considers all the ancient materials and modern commentary on Paulinus, and also delves into archaeological and historical sources to illuminate the various settings in which we see this late ancient man at work. This vivid historical biography traces Paulinus's intellectual and spiritual journey and at the same time explores many facets of the late ancient Roman world. In addition to filling out the details of Paulinus's life at Nola, Trout looks in depth at Paulinus before his ascetic conversion, providing a new assessment of this formative period to better understand Paulinus's subsequent importance within the influential ascetic and ecclesiastical circles of his age. Trout also highlights Paulinus's place in the swirl of rebellions and heresies of the time, in the pagan revival of the 390s, and especially in the development of a new genre of Christian poetry. And, he examines anew Paulinus's relationships with such figures as Jerome, Rufinus, and Augustine. Trout fully explores the complexity of a figure who has too often been simplified and provides new insights into the kaleidoscopic character of the age in which he lived. BORN TO A PROVINCIAL FAMILY OF WEALTH, status, privilege (ca. 353) in Roman Gaul, Meropius Pontius Paulinus entered upon the career of a Roman officeholder to which this birth virtually entitled him. He advanced creditably, serving a suffect consulship and being appointed to the governorship of Campania in 380. It was after he had returned from this Italian service to his ancestral estates that he encountered Martin of Tours and embarked upon an earnest review of the world and his place in it, leading to his receiving Christian baptism. His subsequent withdrawal to Spain (ca. 389) culminated in his remarkable renunciation of the world and his dedication to an ascetic monasticism for which there were as yet very few avatars in the western Roman provinces. Not long after, he returned to Italy and settled at Nola where, sometime between 408 and 413, he was ordained bishop, a post he held until his death in 431. This is the first thorough study in any language of the fascinating and appealing mind that passed through this spiritual choreography.Dennis Trout traces Paulinus's intellectual, emotional, and spiritual journey, setting him meticulously in the contexts -- political, literary, and religious -- that shaped him and were in turn shaped by him. Paulinus contributed importantly to the Christian redefinition of classical ideals like amicitia and classical genres like the epithalamium and consolatio. He was well connected to influential thinkers and churchmen of his time and lived through the heated and divisive Origenist and Pelagian controversies without becoming involved in any of the dogfights. But he was not enabled to do this, Trout insists, by being theologically or exegeticallyinert -- though so he has often been cartooned in the past. Paulinus was instrumental in the conceptualization of Christian piety before the tombs and relics of the holy dead and helped to shape the religious transformations so often deemed characteristic of his age.Illuminating the significant ways in which Paulinus's magisterial reconceptualization of life under the pressure of Christian imperatives was to some degree influenced by the vagaries of his own longings and emotional turmoil, Dennis Trout has given us at last the thick and rewarding biography of Paulinus that we needed and that Paulinus deserves. This study offers a comprehensive reconsideration of the life and literary works of Paulinus of Nola (ca. 352-431), a Roman senator who renounced his political career and secular lifestyle to become a monk, bishop, impresario of a saint's cult, and prominent Christian poet. Dennis Trout considers all the ancient materials and modern commentary on Paulinus, and also delves into archaeological and historical sources to illuminate the various settings in which we see this late ancient man at work. This vivid historical biography traces Paulinus's intellectual and spiritual journey and at the same time explores many facets of the late ancient Roman world.In addition to filling out the details of Paulinus's life at Nola, Trout looks in depth at Paulinus before his ascetic conversion, providing a new assessment of this formative period to better understand Paulinus's subsequent importance within the influential ascetic and ecclesiastical circles of his age. Trout also highlights Paulinus's place in the swirl of rebellions and heresies of the time, in the pagan revival of the 390s, and especially in the development of a new genre of Christian poetry. And, he examines anew Paulinus's relationships with such figures as Jerome, Rufinus, and Augustine. Trout fully explores the complexity of a figure who has too often been simplified and provides new insights into the kaleidoscopic character of the age in which he lived.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1999.This study offers a comprehensive reconsideration of the life and literary works of Paulinus of Nola (ca. 352-431), a Roman senator who renounced his political career and secular lifestyle to become a monk, bishop, impresario of a saint's cult, and promin