Paulinus the Merciful of Nola

Paulinus the Merciful was a wealthy Roman senator and poet of Aquitanian stock who, after his conversion to Christ, gave away his vast inheritance to the poor and eventually became bishop of Nola in Campania. Born at Bordeaux into a distinguished family, he received a classical education and rose through the offices of the late Roman state, serving as a senator and as governor of Campania. The Orthodox Church commemorates him on January 23 with the title "the Merciful," a name earned by a lifetime of almsgiving that culminated, by tradition, in his offering his own person to redeem a captive.

By the accounts of his life, Paulinus and his wife were converted and baptized while still young, after which he disposed of his property and distributed the proceeds among the needy. Seeking seclusion, he withdrew first to Spain, where he was ordained a priest, and afterward settled at Nola in Italy, the resting place of the martyr Felix, to whom he was deeply devoted. There he built churches and charitable houses and was eventually chosen bishop of the city, an office he is said to have held for some twenty years until his death.

Alongside his episcopal labors, Paulinus was known as a Christian poet whose verses and letters survive; the tradition counts some thirty-two or thirty-three poems and roughly fifty letters of moral and religious instruction. His relics are reported to rest in the Church of the Apostle Bartholomew in Rome. He died, by the common account, at the age of seventy-eight in the year 431.