Poems

Contents

Reading pages: 0.1–9.32 · 10.1–14.96 · 15.1–15.321 · 16.1–17.313 · 18.1–19.98 · 19.129–19.703 · 20.1–21.129 · 21.165–21.741 · 21.777–24.1 · 24.31–24.891 · 24.923–25.225 · 26.1–27.135 · 27.167–27.607 · 28.1–30.1 · 31.1–31.605 · 32.1–33.97

1. 0.1In a prose covering note, Paulinus apologizes for sending only a few small birds and adds verses to make up for their fewness.
2. 1.1Verses accompanying a gift of small birds, describing how the fowler caught them and arranged the fattest in front.
3. 2.1Paulinus sends sixteen shellfish in return for his friend's gifts of fish, asking him to value the small gift for the love behind it.
4. 3.1A fragment of a verse summary of the kings of Europe and Asia, listing obscure rulers and alluding to Icarus and Daedalus.
5. 4.1A prayer to God for a peaceful, honest, chaste and contented life, with a happy household, ending in the hope of eternal life.
6. 6.1Paulinus invokes Father, Son and Spirit to help him put the gospel story of John the Baptist into verse, as David set earlier words to the lyre, and introduces Zechariah and Elizabeth.
7. 6.33While Zechariah offers incense, an angel announces that his barren wife will bear a son, to be named John, in whom the whole world will rejoice.
8. 6.66The angel foretells John's abstinence, his baptizing, and his likeness to Elijah, and warns Zechariah not to doubt; Zechariah, thinking himself unworthy, does not believe.
9. 6.96Zechariah is struck dumb and repents; Elizabeth conceives; Gabriel announces to the virgin Mary that she will conceive by the Word of God the eternal creator, who will take a mortal body.
10. 6.128Mary believes and conceives; prompted by the unborn Christ, she visits Elizabeth, whose unborn son John stirs and fills her with prophetic understanding, and Elizabeth greets Mary as mother of the Lord.
11. 6.159Paulinus turns on unbelieving Judea, bidding it believe the unborn John's witness; John is born, and the relatives consult Zechariah about the child's name.
12. 6.191Zechariah writes the name John and recovers his speech; the child John grows up grave, learning the law, and resolves to seek a teaching beyond human teaching and to flee self-indulgence.
13. 6.224John goes into the wilderness, wearing camel's hair and living on honey and wild plants; his life recalls that of the first humans before pleasure and greed brought every evil.
14. 6.255A heavenly voice sends John to the Jordan to baptize the penitent; Paulinus praises God's mercy, which offers reason, then the law, and finally the washing that renews life.
15. 6.286Paulinus praises God's further pardon for those who sin after baptism and repent, then recalls Isaiah's prophecy of the forerunner who prepares the Lord's way.
16. 6.319The poem ends by recalling Christ's praise of John as greater than any prophet and any man born of woman.
17. 7.1A verse paraphrase of Psalm 1, expanded to describe the judgment: the impious rise only to punishment, while sinners who are not impious rise to be examined.
18. 7.33The fire of judgment rewards what survives it; the believing sinner is saved as through fire without glory; so all should walk the narrow way now.
19. 8.1A verse paraphrase of Psalm 2: the nations rage against the Lord and his Christ, the Father declares him his Son and heir, and rulers are urged to serve God with fear and joy before the judgment.
20. 9.1A verse paraphrase of Psalm 137: the captives in Babylon refuse to sing the Lord's songs for their captor, and instead announce God's vengeance.
21. 9.32The paraphrase of Psalm 137 concludes, and Paulinus interprets Babylon's little ones dashed against the rock as sins to be crushed early on Christ, the rock.
22. 10.1In a verse letter to Ausonius, after four years without a letter, Paulinus answers his complaints: he has renounced the Muses, for a greater God now claims his life.
23. 10.33Christ forbids vain literature and philosophy, which obscure the truth; he is the light, way, and power of God, who became man to unite humanity with God, and claims the whole of a person's life.
24. 10.65Paulinus explains that his renunciation of wealth is a deposit with Christ, who repays with interest, and insists that, as a Christian, he does not lack piety toward Ausonius, to whom he owes his education and career.
25. 10.97Paulinus answers Ausonius's reproach for his three-year absence in Spain: his return should be sought by prayer to God, who rules all things through Christ, not from the Muses; and if his course displeases, God is its author.
26. 10.131Paulinus admits he is no longer the man he was, since God has given him a new mind, and argues that Ausonius, who formed him, should rejoice rather than complain.
27. 10.156Paulinus denies that he lives like a mad recluse, while praising those who withdraw to deserted places for Christ's sake, scorning visible things for invisible ones.
28. 10.187Paulinus rejects Ausonius's charges that he is unhinged, ruled by his wife, or living among Basque savages, insisting he lives in civilized Spain and that a pure mind is not corrupted by its surroundings.
29. 10.218Paulinus answers Ausonius's picture of him among ruined Spanish towns by listing Spain's great cities, and asks whether Ausonius would like to be described by the roughest places near Bordeaux.
30. 10.249Paulinus turns Ausonius's jesting back on him and asks that he not believe malicious rumour, but judge whether his change is for the better or the worse.
31. 10.278Paulinus declares that he has vowed himself to Christ for eternal rewards and does not mind seeming foolish to men, since he fears Christ's coming judgment more than human reproach.
32. 10.304Paulinus fears that the last day may find him weighed down by cares and unable to rise to meet Christ in the air, so he has given up his cares now; Ausonius may rejoice or leave him to Christ.
33. 11.1In a second verse letter to Ausonius, Paulinus rejects the charges of neglectful silence and of being ruled by his wife, protests his constant respect, and denies he was ever Ausonius's equal yoke-mate in letters.
34. 11.35Paulinus insists he cannot be Ausonius's equal yoke-mate in learning, but only in friendship, which neither absence nor death will break, since the immortal soul keeps its love.
35. 12.1On St Felix's feast, Paulinus, still far away, prays to the confessor of Nola for a safe journey there and for the privilege of serving at his shrine for the rest of his life.
36. 13.1Celebrating Felix's feast at Nola for the first time after fifteen years, Paulinus thanks him for protection on his travels, describes the crowds, and praises Nola as second only to Rome.
37. 14.1Felix's feast falls twenty days after Christmas; though he did not shed his blood, God counts his readiness as martyrdom, and his power is shown in the expulsion of demons at his shrine.
38. 14.36Paulinus describes healings and the joyful night-long crowds that flock to Felix's feast from Lucania, Apulia, Calabria, and the cities of Campania.
39. 14.65Pilgrims come even from Rome and from Latium and Samnium along the Appian and Latin Ways, and Nola, honoured by Felix as presbyter and martyr, rises in the likeness of Rome.
40. 14.96Paulinus describes the lamps and garlands at Felix's tomb and asks Felix to commend his servants to Christ, so that at the judgment they may be placed among the sheep on the right.
41. 15.1For Felix's feast Paulinus rejoices that Christ has given him to Felix, who has become his father, home and wealth, and under whose care he is reborn; he tunes his lyre without the Muses.
42. 15.32Paulinus asks Christ, who made a donkey speak and water flow from rock, to inspire his song, and begins Felix's life: his family came from the East, the land of patriarchs and prophets, as Abraham went to Canaan.
43. 15.64Felix, born at Nola of a Syrian father, shared the inheritance with his brother Hermias, who chose the world while Felix chose Christ; Paulinus compares them to Esau and Jacob.
44. 15.95Hermias chose a soldier's life, while Felix served God as reader, exorcist and presbyter under Bishop Maximus of Nola, who fled into the wilderness when persecution broke out.
45. 15.126With the bishop gone, the persecutors seek Felix as the people's leader, foolishly thinking to destroy the faith through one man; but God himself fights in his servants.
46. 15.161Felix does not flee but stands like a good shepherd before his flock; he is seized and imprisoned in chains, stocks and on potsherds, yet Christ suffers with him and his spirit is free.
47. 15.194While Felix suffers in prison, Bishop Maximus, hiding in the mountains, endures another martyrdom of cold, hunger and anxiety for his flock, and is near death.
48. 15.225God sends an angel at night to free Felix from prison; his chains fall off and he walks out past the sleeping guard to rescue Maximus.
49. 15.257Like Peter freed by an angel, Felix is led through the darkness and finds Maximus near death, but has neither food nor fire to revive him.
50. 15.287In answer to Felix's prayer, a bunch of grapes appears on a briar; Felix revives Maximus with its juice, and the bishop explains that he fled not from fear of death but from the weakness of his body.
51. 15.321Felix carries Maximus on his shoulders back to his house and entrusts him to an old woman; Maximus blesses Felix with the laying on of his hand.
52. 16.1For the feast of 399 Paulinus resumes Felix's story, recalling his origins, imprisonment, release and rescue of Bishop Maximus told in the previous poem.
53. 16.32When peace seemed to return, Felix resumed teaching his flock to scorn danger, until the devil stirred up new persecution against him.
54. 16.63The persecutors, failing to recognize Felix, ask him where Felix is and he says he does not know; told their mistake, they pursue him, and he hides in a doorless ruin.
55. 16.95God shields Felix's hiding place with rubble and a spider's web, and the persecutors, judging no one could have entered, go away.
56. 16.127Paulinus marvels that God protected Felix with a spider's web, as he brought down Goliath, Pharaoh and Jericho by weak means; that night Felix moves to a new hiding place by an old cistern.
57. 16.158A devout neighbour, without knowing it, brings food to Felix's hiding place day after day, like the ravens that fed Elijah or Habakkuk carried to Daniel.
58. 16.190Felix lives hidden for six months, fed by Christ and given water by a cloud during a drought; when peace returns he comes out and is greeted as one returned from the dead.
59. 16.224After Maximus's death the people want Felix as bishop, but he humbly defers to Quintus, ordained presbyter seven days before him, and serves under him as his voice.
60. 16.256Felix refused to reclaim his confiscated estates despite the urging of the widow Archelais, rented three acres, worked them himself, shared everything with the poor, and died full of days.
61. 17.1A farewell poem in Sapphic stanzas for Bishop Niceta, returning from Nola to Dacia: Paulinus says he remains present in their hearts and prays for his journey through Apulia and Calabria.
62. 17.29Paulinus prays that, as Moses sweetened the waters of Marah with wood and as Israel had light amid Egypt's darkness, God will give Niceta healthy air and prosper his journey.
63. 17.57Paulinus yields to the prayers of Niceta's people for his return, both hating and loving the roads that take him away, and prays that Christ make his way smooth.
64. 17.89Paulinus wishes he had a dove's wings to join the singing; he foresees Niceta crossing the Adriatic in a ship whose yard makes a cross, the sailors singing hymns and the sea creatures listening.
65. 17.121Even sea monsters will praise God, and the beast that swallowed Jonah will now feed only on Niceta's songs; Paulinus prays that an angel guide him as Raphael guided Tobias and God guided Jacob.
66. 17.153Like Jacob, Niceta climbs a ladder to heaven, the cross; his name means victor, as Jacob was named Israel; Paulinus prays that Christ, the way and the light, steer their voyage through life.
67. 17.185Paulinus follows Niceta's route through Macedonia to his see and praises his mission among the northern peoples, especially the once-savage Bessi, now gathered into Christ's flock.
68. 17.217Through Niceta's preaching, robbers have become monks, and the wild peoples of the north call him father.
69. 17.249Niceta's converts fulfil Isaiah's prophecy of wolf and lamb living together; he turns gold miners into gold and will hear his Lord's welcome.
70. 17.281God has bound Paulinus to Niceta by a love that no distance or death can break; Paulinus hopes to stand near him in heaven.
71. 17.313Paulinus asks Niceta, in Abraham's bosom, to cool the flames for him at the judgment, bids him remain present in spirit, and wishes him the crown of the just.
72. 18.1For the feast of 400 Paulinus calls the brothers to rejoice, sees the snow as a sign of Felix's glory, asks Christ for words, and grants that others bring costlier gifts.
73. 18.33Others adorn Felix's shrine with silver, lamps, ointment and alms; Paulinus, poor, offers himself and his verse, like the widow's two coins that Christ praised.
74. 18.65Having told Felix's life in earlier poems, Paulinus explains that souls live on after death and will be reunited with their bodies, and that Christ shows Felix alive through the wonders done at his tomb.
75. 18.97Paulinus recalls Felix's death and funeral, when all Nola, grieving but hopeful, crowded around his body to touch it.
76. 18.127Felix is buried in a flowering field outside the city, while angels bring his soul to God, who gives him both the white crown of peace and the red crown of martyrdom; healings begin at his tomb.
77. 18.160The small tomb built in persecution has grown into a complex of five basilicas like a city, crowded with pilgrims, where healing is given through Felix's relics.
78. 18.190If the saints' ashes do so much, their risen bodies will shine gloriously; farmers bring even sick cattle to Felix; Paulinus will tell one of his many miracles.
79. 18.219A poor peasant, whose living depended on his two oxen, finds them stolen in the night, and, despairing of human help, runs to Felix's shrine to demand them back.
80. 18.254The peasant complains to Felix, his patron, that he let the oxen be stolen, and demands those very oxen back from him.
81. 18.289The peasant proposes a bargain: Felix may pardon the thieves if he returns the oxen; he refuses to leave the shrine, and Felix, amused and moved by his faith, prepares to help.
82. 18.322Dragged from the shrine at nightfall, the peasant goes home weeping, lies down in the empty stall among his oxen's tracks, and keeps calling on Felix.
83. 18.355At midnight the peasant hears knocking and fears the thieves have returned, but it is his oxen, led home by Felix through the night without a driver.
84. 18.386The oxen butt the door and low until the peasant, scarcely believing, recognizes them at dawn and opens to them.
85. 18.415The peasant joyfully greets his oxen and leads them straight to Felix's shrine, where the crowd marvels and he gives thanks with words of praise.
86. 18.448The peasant asks Felix to heal his eyes, damaged by weeping, so that he can see his oxen; the people laugh, but his sight is restored.
87. 19.1For the feast of 405 Paulinus says the praise of the martyrs can never cease; God has scattered their tombs over the earth like stars, giving greater signs where unbelief is darker.
88. 19.34God has distributed the saints as physicians among the nations, placing the chief martyrs in great cities, Peter and Paul in Rome, which is now almost wholly Christian.
89. 19.65As pagan temples empty, God has placed the apostles' relics across the world: Andrew at Patrae, John at Ephesus, Mark at Alexandria and others, overthrowing the cults of Egypt, Crete, Phrygia and Greece.
90. 19.98Satan fled Egypt, where he had disguised Joseph as Serapis, whose statue was destroyed; the rites of Isis mourning Osiris are shown to be absurd.
91. 19.129Isis cannot be a goddess, for the one God is Father, Son and Spirit; Paulinus then lists saints of Africa and the West, Cyprian, the martyrs of Utica, Ambrose, Vincent, Martin and Delphinus, who drive out the ancient dragon.
92. 19.164Nola too was purified by Felix's tomb from its former worship of Venus, Bacchus and Cybele, whose rites Paulinus describes as frenzy and lust.
93. 19.192Felix was sent to Nola as a physician to heal its long corruption through faith in the cross, shining like the morning star before the day.
94. 19.225Christ chose Felix as his herald at Nola to drive out its demons, who are now bound and tormented at the saints' shrines while believers are released from sin through the saints' prayers.
95. 19.256The demons tormented at Felix's shrine are the old pagan gods, as their Bacchic cries and convulsions show.
96. 19.283Because one lifetime was too short to cleanse Nola, God continues Felix's healing work after his death through his relics, as he does for martyrs everywhere.
97. 19.313God has spread the martyrs to lands that lacked them by the transfer of relics, as Constantine brought Andrew and Timothy to Constantinople and Ambrose translated newly found martyrs at Milan.
98. 19.350Relic fragments taken along the way spread healing everywhere; Nola too has received apostolic relics, placed in a new basilica beside Felix, and Paulinus will tell a recent miracle there.
99. 19.382Paulinus begins the story of a thief who, out of all the treasures of Felix's basilica, stole the golden cross.
100. 19.412Paulinus describes the tree-shaped hanging lamps of the basilica; the thief scorned the silver and took the jewelled gold cross, but gained only guilt.
101. 19.445The thief, posing as a deserter and sheltered by the sacristans, studied the guards' habits and one night used the lamp-ladder to reach the cross-shaped lamp-stand.
102. 19.475The thief hid in a burial cell and slipped away at dawn; after days of vain searching, a servant boy, praying to Felix, met a man who told him the thief was near Vesuvius.
103. 19.514The thief is caught and brought bound into the basilica on the feast of St Priscus; Paulinus protects him from the angry crowd, and he confesses that he had been unable to get away from the region.
104. 19.546Felix kept the thief wandering in circles in open country, unable to escape or hide, with the stolen gold tucked into the folds of his tunic.
105. 19.577The thief was bound with the very strap in which he had hidden the gold; Paulinus turns to a further miracle the thief himself confessed.
106. 19.608Paulinus describes the stolen cross: the cross is depicted either as a T-shape like a ship's mast or as a monogram combining the letters of Christ's name, signifying the Trinity and the incarnation.
107. 19.637The central rod signifies Christ's reign, the four arms his reach to the whole world, and the alpha and omega his embrace of heaven and hell; the restored cross combines both forms.
108. 19.672The thief had broken up the gold but could not bring himself to damage the jewelled crown attached to the cross, for each time his arms went numb; Paulinus rebukes him for not returning it.
109. 19.703Paulinus rebukes the thief for fearing the cross yet stealing it, and ends the poem with a hymn of praise to the cross.
110. 20.1For the feast of 406 Felix provided Paulinus with two pigs and a heifer to feed the poor, and Paulinus will tell true miracles involving these animals.
111. 20.32Christ is the Christian's true music: by uniting God and man in himself he restored the broken lyre of human nature, renewed it on the cross, and made of all nations one body singing God's praise.
112. 20.65A pilgrim from Abellinum vowed a pig to Felix but gave the poor only the innards and kept the rest; on the way home he fell from his horse and could not stand, his feet as if bound.
113. 20.94His horse turned back alone to the inn with the pork, while his companions carried the man, confessing his fault, back into Felix's basilica before the astonished poor and pilgrims.
114. 20.124While the horse waits at the inn, the man lies at Felix's threshold confessing his fraud, and finds that his punishment has brought him back to the shrine.
115. 20.159The man recognizes that his punishment was a merciful warning that exposed his guilt, and begs Felix, through the Lord's power, to release his bound feet.
116. 20.190The man orders the whole pig to be cooked for the poor; as soon as they have eaten and prayed for him, his feet are freed and he leaps up healed.
117. 20.223God first warns sinners with mild punishment so that they may repent; the healed man leaps for joy like the lame man healed by Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate.
118. 20.255The healed man gives thanks that he was cured without any physician but Christ working through Felix, and asks to be bound to Felix by love for ever.
119. 20.286The healed man warns the rich who hoard wealth from the poor; Paulinus begins a second story, of a pig vowed to Felix by Apulian farmers.
120. 20.321The vowed pig collapsed at the start of the journey and was left behind, so the farmers brought smaller pigs instead; but the next morning the fat pig appeared at their lodging near Nola, ready to be sacrificed.
121. 20.353Paulinus marvels that the heavy pig, which could not walk at first, found its way alone and unharmed over the long road from beyond Beneventum.
122. 20.384Another miracle: a heifer reared as a vow for Felix's poor refused to be yoked to its owners' wagon and ran off.
123. 20.416The heifer followed and then led the wagon all the way to Felix's basilica and went calmly to its slaughter; God works such signs through animals to strengthen human faith.
124. 21.1For the feast of 407 Paulinus rejoices in the peace after the defeat of the Goths threatening Rome, won by the young emperor through God's power and the prayers of Peter, Paul, Felix and the martyrs.
125. 21.29The deliverance was won by the prayers of all the saints, Felix among them; Paulinus will now sing Felix's gifts to his own household, in varied metres.
126. 21.60Paulinus welcomes the noble ascetic visitors to Nola, Turcius, Suerius, and the women led by Melania and the young virgin Eunomia, who leads the singing of psalms, and will vary his metres like a flower garden.
127. 21.97Paulinus introduces his mixture of metres and, in iambics, explains that the saints' feast celebrates their death, since no one should be praised before his end.
128. 21.129The church keeps the death days of martyrs and confessors; Felix, who fought for the faith but died in peace, received both the martyr's crown and the priest's crown.
129. 21.165The feast marks Felix's burial and birth into heaven; Paulinus counts it his own true birthday, cursing the day of his natural birth in sin.
130. 21.198This year's gift is the arrival of noble converts at Nola: Turcius Apronianus and Pinianus, descendant of Valerius Publicola, Rome's first consul.
131. 21.234As his ancestor freed Rome from the kings, Pinianus has freed himself from sin, frees his slaves, and pays the debts of imprisoned debtors.
132. 21.266Paulinus, now in elegiacs, calls the household to sing: the three mothers Albina, Therasia and Avita, the daughters Melania and Eunomia, the fathers Paulinus and Turcius, and Pinianus, named from the evergreen pine.
133. 21.298Pinianus is like the evergreen pine; the boy Asterius, dedicated to Christ from infancy like Samuel, was baptized together with his father, making them brothers.
134. 21.330With a tenth member, Aemilius, the household will form a ten-stringed lyre in harmony with God's law; Paulinus turns to thank Felix for his countless gifts.
135. 21.361Paulinus recalls how, as a young man from Gaul and as governor of Campania, he first came to love Christ at Felix's shrine, cut his first beard there, built a road and a hostel for the poor, above which he now lives.
136. 21.395After his governorship Paulinus returned to Gaul and married in Spain, which Felix permitted so that two might be saved; Felix protected him when his brother was murdered and his property was threatened.
137. 21.426Paulinus sold his property to buy the cross, exchanging earthly wealth for heavenly, which Christ repays with interest; through Felix he has gained Christ himself as his possession.
138. 21.458As a poor man Paulinus has more than he had as a senator: all of Felix's basilicas are his home, shared with his noble companions in their cells, and Felix himself is his lasting house.
139. 21.491Paulinus praises the poverty of Christ, which strips of earthly wealth to enrich with heavenly; money given away for Christ is gain, but money squandered on vice is as deadly as avarice.
140. 21.521Felix wants his household poor like himself, for the way of the rich leads by the broad road to hell, while Christ's narrow way admits only those unburdened by wealth.
141. 21.553Among Felix's gifts, which include the new buildings at his shrine, the greatest was that he allowed Paulinus to see and touch his very tomb.
142. 21.586The nard poured through openings above Felix's tomb was found replaced by earth welling up, and, fearing an animal was disturbing the relics, they decided to open the tomb.
143. 21.618In the presence of the presbyters the tomb was opened and found intact; it was resealed so that Felix's bones might rest until the resurrection.
144. 21.650When the buildings at Nola were finished, only water was lacking; after delay, the people of Nola agreed to share their supply, and Paulinus will tell of the gift of water.
145. 21.679Christ, the rock that gave water in the desert, gave water to Felix's shrine; Paulinus prays for the living water and the Spirit's light, and turns to praise the town of Abella.
146. 21.711The people of Abella, six miles from Nola, freely and eagerly restored the ancient aqueduct through rough mountain country.
147. 21.741The aqueduct was quickly finished and flowed more in summer than before in winter; Paulinus playfully rebukes Nola for having feared to share its water with Felix's shrine.
148. 21.777God repaid Nola's share many times over, so that water flowed even in summer; Paulinus honours Abella for restoring the ancient aqueduct, which now floods Nola with Felix's water.
149. 21.816Paulinus bids Nola cherish Abella and rejoice in Felix's gifts, including the heavenly fountains of Pinianus, Melania and Albina, whose charity feeds the poor, and prays that Christ's fountain may always spring up in his household.
150. 22.1Paulinus urges Jovius, a cultivated friend, to give up pagan mythological poetry and turn his gifts to the true wonders of God.
151. 22.33Instead of Epicurean cosmology and pagan myths of creation, Jovius should learn from Moses how God made the world and humanity in his image, and from John that the Word, who is God, made all things.
152. 22.64Through Christ humans can master their bodies and passions; Jovius should rest in Christ's bosom to learn that God, who renews all things, rules nature and life, as the exodus showed.
153. 22.96God, not chance or fate, rules nature and life, as shown by the parting of the sea, Jonah, Nineveh's repentance, and Hezekiah's fifteen added years; astrology and Plato's fates are vain.
154. 22.126The sun's retreat for Hezekiah and standing still for Joshua refute astrology; Christ teaches that God governs everything; Paulinus urges Jovius to write sacred poetry instead and so become his brother in Christ.
155. 23.1Felix's feast is spring for Paulinus even in midwinter; he asks Christ, who saved the world with a drop of blood, to make him sing like the nightingale.
156. 23.33Paulinus asks for varied song like the nightingale's, for Felix's wonders vary each year; the exorcisms at his shrine grow more frequent and powerful as his feast draws near.
157. 23.61As the feast nears, the demons are tormented and lifted into the air in the bodies they possess, though the possessed feel nothing; one possessed man hung upside down without his clothes falling.
158. 23.96Paulinus tells a smaller miracle: on the eve of the feast, after the fast and the evening service, his companion Theridius stepped out of the hymn-singing into a dark portico where a lamp-rope hung.
159. 23.129Paulinus describes the floating-wick oil lamp; it had been taken down, and the boy left its hooked holder hanging low on a slack rope in the dark.
160. 23.160In the dark the hook pierced Theridius's eye under the eyelid; he held it fast, fearing to lose the eye, while a boy ran up with a lamp.
161. 23.187Not daring to pull out the hook, Theridius calls on Felix, who hears him from his nearby tomb or from God's throne, to come as physician and remove it.
162. 23.220Theridius confesses he deserves to lose both eyes for his sins, but appeals to Christ's coming to save sinners and to his own dedication to Felix's service.
163. 23.249Theridius prays that the feast become his eye's birthday; strengthened by Felix, he draws the hook out and his eye is unharmed.
164. 23.282Only the hand that made all things, Christ, could have held the hook without injuring the eye, the same Christ who healed the man born blind with clay as he had formed Adam from clay.
165. 23.317Paulinus rejoices that this sign shows his household to be under Felix's special care, and calls the accident a happy fall.
166. 24.1In an iambic verse letter to Cytherius, Paulinus reports that Martinianus, whom Cytherius had sent with letters, has arrived after losing them in a shipwreck, having sailed from Narbo.
167. 24.31On a calm, starry night at sea, the old ship began to come apart and fill with water while the passengers slept.
168. 24.63God had provided a skiff in tow; the Novatianist captain tried to cut it loose and escape in it alone, but the others prevented him.
169. 24.97The ship sank in a calm sea from sheer age; Paulinus sees divine judgment in the outcome, since no Christian died, while Jews and schismatics perished.
170. 24.129Those marked by faith were saved, along with some unbaptized who clung to the Christians, prefiguring the separation at the end of the world; the captain, already shipwrecked in faith, drowned through greed.
171. 24.161Martinianus, asleep in the prow like Jonah, was woken by the cries and, running along the gunwale, leapt into the skiff and was saved.
172. 24.191Martinianus escaped naked like Joseph, and was received by the skiff as Jonah was by the sea creature; Paulinus turns to reflect on Jonah as a figure of Christ's three-day burial.
173. 24.223Jonah, imprisoned in the sea creature, was free to pray and learned that God cannot be escaped; Martinianus, carried in the skiff like Jonah, slept soundly though naked and wet in the bilge water.
174. 24.259When the skiff reached shore Martinianus found he had saved, without knowing it, the book of Paul's epistles, through which Paul again rescued men from the sea.
175. 24.291The survivors landed near Marseilles, where the poor Christian community received Martinianus with food, prayers and a pair of cheap boots.
176. 24.323Rather than be taken for one of the beggars who pose as shipwrecked monks, Martinianus chose to sail again, and God provided a sound ship.
177. 24.355After a calm voyage Martinianus landed at Centum Cellae and went on foot to Rome, where he was welcomed by fellow Christians in the house kept by Paulinus's household.
178. 24.387In Rome Paulinus's companion gave Martinianus his own clothes; travelling on by the Appian Way, Martinianus hired a mule at Capua, was thrown, and was kept unharmed by Felix.
179. 24.415Martinianus arrived at Nola, told his story and news of Cytherius, and himself became a living letter, quickly dear to Paulinus.
180. 24.447Like seeks like, so Martinianus resembles Cytherius; God now calls not only the lowly but the great, and rich and poor are one flock under Christ.
181. 24.479Cytherius, a man of rank made humble, is promised a place with the poor in Abraham's bosom; like Abraham with Isaac, he has offered his son to God.
182. 24.509Cytherius's son, dedicated from infancy, is like Samuel growing up in the temple; Paulinus wishes him to remain consecrated like a Nazirite.
183. 24.541Paulinus wishes the boy to be like Samson in killing the lion through prayer, but not in his union with the foreign woman, who stands for the law of the flesh.
184. 24.569Like Samson in his death, the boy should die to the flesh; like Samuel he should remain consecrated all his life, slaying the sins of the flesh as Samuel slew the Amalekite king.
185. 24.600The boy should humble pride as David overcame Saul, and, like Samson breaking his bonds and slaying a thousand with a jawbone, should subdue the body by continence and fasting.
186. 24.633Samson's jawbone gave water as fasting bodies receive the Spirit; the Old Testament figures are fulfilled in Christ, who has freed Christians from the shadow and yoke of the law.
187. 24.665Christians see the truth unveiled; the boy should be nourished by both law and grace, keep his faith unshorn, and Cytherius and his wife flourish with their children for God.
188. 24.697Like Joseph sold into Egypt to feed his family, the boy, entrusted to Sulpicius Severus, will nourish his parents spiritually and, like Joseph, flee the world's enticements.
189. 24.731The boy should choose mourning and self-discipline; as Joseph was raised from prison to rule, the one who masters his own body will guide others to freedom from the world.
190. 24.763One who governs himself can steer the church; Paulinus wishes the boy, like Joseph, to become God's interpreter and ruler in the King's house, clothed with grace and the yoke of love.
191. 24.795Like Joseph given Pharaoh's ring and chariot, the boy will share Christ's kingdom if he imitates Christ, living in the world as a stranger, a citizen of heaven.
192. 24.827As Joseph stored grain in Egypt, the boy should store the food of eternal life by studying Scripture, and so feed his parents in their old age, as young eagles feed their aged parents.
193. 24.859Renewed, the old eagles fly with their young in a circle with outstretched wings, figures of the cross and the crown; the boy is to fly to glory, and his parents to follow him.
194. 24.891The boy will nourish his parents, and at the resurrection they will fly with the saints to Christ, while the rich, weighed down by their wealth, will be left on the ground to perish.
195. 24.923Paulinus urges Cytherius and his family to strip themselves of the world so that they may be lifted on the clouds to meet Christ and live for ever like the angels.
196. 25.1A Christian wedding poem for two young people from clerical families: Paulinus banishes pagan wedding gods and recalls God's creation of Eve from Adam's rib as the foundation of marriage.
197. 25.32Paulinus forbids pagan wedding customs and bids the bride reject gold, gems, silk and cosmetics for the inner adornment of virtue.
198. 25.65Paulinus warns, with Isaiah's oracle against the finery of Zion's women, that adornment brings punishment, and urges both bride and groom to care for the soul's beauty.
199. 25.97God's word and good works are the Christian's ornaments; Paulinus contrasts the modest Rebecca with the adorned dancing girl whose dance won the Baptist's head.
200. 25.129Herod's pride in his robes brought a loathsome death; the cleric and his wife should love each other's inner beauty, with Christ as head, Christ present as at Cana, and Mary, the virgin mother of God, honouring their marriage.
201. 25.161Mary, a virgin mother, prefigures the church, bride and sister of Christ, who gives birth to believers in baptism; in Christ there is neither male nor female, and in the resurrection marriage passes away.
202. 25.193The couple should love as Christ and the church; Bishop Memor, the groom's father, is to lead them to the altar, and Bishop Aemilius arrives to bless them, father and brother to Memor.
203. 25.225Bishop Aemilius veils and blesses the couple; Paulinus prays that they keep virginity, or else that their children be dedicated to God, and asks to be remembered.
204. 26.1For the feast of 402, during the Gothic invasion of Italy, Paulinus urges joy and trust in Christ despite frightening rumours.
205. 26.35As Israel kept the Passover even while fleeing Egypt, Christians should keep Felix's feast joyfully in a troubled time.
206. 26.67The barbarians are God's scourge for sin; safety lies not in arms or walls but in prayer, as Nineveh, Moses against Amalek, and Esther against Haman show.
207. 26.99Faith in God, not walls or legions, is the true defence, as Joshua's capture of Jericho without assault showed.
208. 26.130At Jericho only Rahab, who trusted God and marked her house with scarlet, a figure of Christ's blood, was saved; faith always prevails over arms, as with David, Moses and Jael.
209. 26.162Judith beheaded Holofernes, and Hezekiah's prayer over Sennacherib's threatening letter brought an angel who destroyed the Assyrian army in one night.
210. 26.195As Isaiah interceded for Hezekiah, Felix will intercede for Nola, bearing its burdens as Christ bore our sins; saints have always prayed for sinners, as Moses for Israel and Lot for Zoar.
211. 26.227As Elijah's prayer shut and opened heaven, Paulinus asks Felix, whose God led Israel through the desert and made the sun stand still for Joshua, to obtain victory for Rome.
212. 26.255Paulinus prays that, as Daniel tamed the lions and the three youths quenched the furnace, Felix may tame the barbarians and cool the fires of war, though his own miracles suffice as examples.
213. 26.283Felix's gifts differ from those of Daniel and the three youths but equal them; God has given him power over Satan's legions, as shown by a man possessed by a demon of ravenous hunger.
214. 26.316The possessed man is now healed and works a small rented field; Felix, by God's fire, conquers the demons that burn and devour souls, separating soul from demon.
215. 26.346Felix sweetens the possessed as the cross sweetened Marah and devours Satan's arts as Moses' rod devoured the serpents; the saints of both testaments differ in works but share one glory and one God.
216. 26.379The same God works through Felix: the sick are healed and shipwrecked travellers rescued, and recently a fire near Paulinus's house died out in still air, as though Felix had stood in its way.
217. 26.413As Felix turned aside a flooding river from his shrine, Paulinus asks him to turn the flood of war away from Nola.
218. 27.1For the feast of 403 Paulinus wishes the short winter day longer, but Felix's light never sets and his shrine is crowded every day; still his death day keeps a special honour.
219. 27.34God has given the year its feasts as he gave Israel its memorials: Christmas, Epiphany (the Magi, Christ's baptism, or Cana), Easter, and Pentecost, when the Spirit gave the apostles other tongues.
220. 27.69As one musician draws many notes from one instrument, the one God, Father, Son and Spirit, spoke through many tongues at Pentecost, when the ascended Christ poured out the Spirit.
221. 27.103God gave the church feast days so that those too weak to live every day for God may at least turn to him at intervals, touching the hem of Christ's garment.
222. 27.135Paulinus, as Felix's special debtor, leads the brothers in celebration; this year the feast is doubled by the return of Bishop Niceta, whose presence turns winter into spring.
223. 27.167Paulinus rejoices that Felix has brought Niceta back for the feast, and feels unworthy to speak in his learned presence.
224. 27.198Paulinus invokes Felix's kindred, the patriarchs, apostles, prophets and martyrs, believing they gather for his feast.
225. 27.225Paulinus wishes his lips were purged like Isaiah's; sitting by Niceta, he hopes to conceive fruitful thoughts as Jacob's flocks conceived before the peeled rods.
226. 27.257The three rods signify baptism in the threefold name, by which the church conceives children; allegorically the plane is the Spirit overshadowing Mary, the storax the virgin of David's line, the nut Christ, bitter in the cross and food within.
227. 27.288Christ, our life, hung on the tree for us; nothing can repay his love, since he took the form of a servant and bought us with his blood; Paulinus attributes his lofty theme to Niceta's inspiring presence.
228. 27.320Paulinus rejoices that Niceta has come back after four years despite the Gothic wars, and invites him for a walk.
229. 27.349Paulinus takes Niceta on a tour of the new buildings at Felix's shrine: the renovated portico and the forecourt built where a garden had been, opening the view to the tomb.
230. 27.382The basilica of Felix's tomb has been renewed with coffered ceilings, marble columns and paintings, and above the porticoes are cells for pilgrims; relics of apostles lie under the altar, including Andrew and John the Baptist.
231. 27.415The relics also include Thomas, whose doubt confirms the bodily resurrection, Luke the evangelist, the martyrs of Bologna, Euphemia of Chalcedon, and Nazarius, sent by Ambrose.
232. 27.445The saints' power works even through fragments of relics; guests in the upper cells can come down to pray at any hour; the three entrances signify the Trinity; cisterns collect rainwater for the fountains of the court.
233. 27.477Even a dry fountain may adorn the court, like Solomon's bronze sea; the new basilica opens on a garden court, and its growth reflects the spreading glory of Christ; Paulinus asks Niceta to pray for him at the liturgy.
234. 27.511Paulinus shows Niceta the paintings of the porticoes: the Pentateuch, Joshua crossing the Jordan, and Ruth, whose choice of God against Orpah's return figures the world's division.
235. 27.542Paulinus explains that he had the churches painted because the country pilgrims, newly converted from paganism, spend the vigil drinking at the tombs; he excuses their simplicity but rejects the custom.
236. 27.572Drinking at the shrine serves the devil; the paintings with their inscriptions are meant to occupy the pilgrims and draw them from wine to the holy histories. Paulinus asks Niceta's prayers that his spiritual building be completed.
237. 27.607Paulinus asks Niceta to pray that he may follow the patriarchs' example from Genesis and Exodus, and ends with a prayer to Christ, whom no building contains, to dwell in their hearts through the saints' intercession.
238. 28.1For the feast of 404 Paulinus describes the newly completed buildings: porticoes, halls, side chapels painted with martyrs, Job and Tobit, Judith and Esther, and a court with a covered fountain.
239. 28.33Paulinus describes the fountains and porticoes of the court joining three basilicas, and the outer forecourt with its cells like a fortress wall.
240. 28.62Two wooden huts blocked the view of the basilica's door, and their occupants refused to move; one night a spark set one of them ablaze, threatening the whole area.
241. 28.94Unable to fight the fire, the community prayed at Felix's tomb and the apostles' altar, and Paulinus held up a fragment of the true cross against the flames.
242. 28.125The fire died down at once where it began, as water could not quench it but the wood of the cross did; only one of the two obstructing huts burned.
243. 28.156The tenant pulled down the other hut himself; the way to the basilica is now open, where Old and New Testament scenes are painted, and a chapel with a baptismal font is being dedicated.
244. 28.187The bishop dedicates the chapel for both the eucharist and baptism, whose font always renews the old; the old basilica, restored with columns and paintings, matches the new one.
245. 28.218The buildings, at once old and new, figure the Christian's renewal now and the transformation of the risen body; believers should put off the old life and flee even contemplated sin.
246. 28.251Sinners are the serpent's food; it is time to wake; the conversion of a rubbish-strewn garden into a marble-paved court offers a pattern for the soul's renewal.
247. 28.282Vices are the rubble and thorns of the heart, rooted in greed; when that root is cut, Christ can build in the soul, and believers must leave the old life for the new.
248. 29.1A fragment of another poem for Felix's feast: Paulinus asks Felix to inspire him, admits the saints' wonders exceed all telling, and praises Christ through whom Felix heals the sick and the possessed.
249. 30.1Verses, probably an inscription, celebrating the enlargement of the sanctuary around Felix's tomb, so that there is now room for the altars and the worshippers.
250. 31.1A poem of consolation to Pneumatius and Fidelis on the death of their son Celsus, aged seven, recently baptized: Paulinus is torn between grief and joy, since the boy was taken innocent to God.
251. 31.31Celsus died of a throat swelling; Paulinus urges his parents not to grieve excessively for a soul with God, and turns to Christ, who took the form of a servant to free humanity.
252. 31.63When neither law nor prophets could heal humanity enslaved to sin and death, the Father sent the Son, who became man without sin, God and man together.
253. 31.95Christ took a mortal body without sin, so death had no claim on him and, having unjustly seized him, lost its hold on humanity; he showed both his human weaknesses and his divine power.
254. 31.127On the cross Christ suffered as man and acted as God, giving paradise to the believing robber; he rose in the same body and let Thomas touch it, so that believers may be sure of their own bodily resurrection.
255. 31.159In Paulinus's paraphrase the risen Christ shows his wounds and declares that he has conquered death in the body and restored Adam; no greater consolation is possible.
256. 31.189Since Christ has conquered death and opened paradise, believers should put away grief and believe in the bodily resurrection, which faith, like grace, holds without seeing.
257. 31.221Nature everywhere shows the pattern of resurrection: day and night, sleep and waking, the seasons, and seed that dies and rises multiplied.
258. 31.253If the earth returns seed, God, who made us from nothing, can restore us from our dust; however bodies are dispersed, drowned or eaten, all remain in the Creator's keeping for the resurrection.
259. 31.287Only human flesh, as the vessel of a rational soul, will rise; at the trumpet soul and body will be reunited to share reward or punishment, as Ezekiel's vision shows.
260. 31.315Ezekiel saw dry bones rise; Christ, the life, proved it when at his death he harrowed hell, the tombs opened, the sun was darkened and the temple veil was torn, foreshadowing the temple's destruction.
261. 31.347Christ is the end of the law; the torn veil signifies that faith now unveils the law's hidden meaning, which remains veiled for the Jews, while believers see Christ by faith.
262. 31.377Paulinus urges the parents to leave grief to those without hope and to take comfort from Scripture, which shows Christ ascending bodily and promises his return, for which all should prepare.
263. 31.409Rather than grieve for Celsus, one should weep for sin like David; Paulinus asks Christ to break his stony heart and become in him a fountain of living water, which satisfies and yet makes one thirst.
264. 31.441Paulinus prefers the tears of penitence now to reap eternal joy, choosing to be like the prodigal son restored and like Lazarus at the rich man's gate rather than the rich man in the flames.
265. 31.475Not the myths of the underworld but the gospel's story of the rich man and Lazarus teaches the reversal after death; the rich who despise the poor are inwardly filthier than the beggar's sores.
266. 31.507The greedy rich are lepers in soul; their surplus belongs to the poor; Christ became poor and chose the lowly, and the parents should give themselves to God while time remains.
267. 31.539The parents should use their wealth for the poor so as to rejoin Celsus; following Paul, they should not grieve without hope, for the dead in Christ will rise first, while the wicked will rise to punishment.
268. 31.571The wicked will suffer without end, the godly be conformed to Christ; Celsus rests in Abraham's bosom or with the Holy Innocents, and Paulinus recalls his own infant son, also named Celsus.
269. 31.605Paulinus's infant son, buried beside the martyrs at Complutum, plays with young Celsus in paradise; he asks both children to intercede for their parents and for Paulinus and Therasia.
270. 32.1A poem in which the speaker, Antonius, having examined all the sects, finds nothing better than faith in Christ; he begins with the ingratitude of Israel and the absurdity of pagan idolatry.
271. 32.32The poem mocks the philosophers, Cynics, Platonists unsure of the soul, and an ascetic who threw away his cup, then turns to the scandalous myths of Jupiter worshipped on the Capitol.
272. 32.64The poem mocks Janus, a deified king, whom the Romans invoke before Jupiter, and the cult of the Great Mother and Attis with its eunuch priests.
273. 32.96The poem mocks the myths of Saturn, the human sacrifice of the Latiar, the cave-worship of Mithras as the Unconquered Sun, and the rites of Isis and Serapis.
274. 32.128After mocking the cult of Vesta and the feeding of a sacred serpent, the speaker says he once practised all these rites until the church received him into the harbour of salvation.
275. 32.161The speaker confesses one God, Father and Son of one substance and power; Christ the Word made the world from chaos, ordering sky, earth, sea and air, above which, beyond seven heavens, God dwells in inaccessible light.
276. 32.191The world, cosmos or mundus, was made by the Word; believing in one God is not enough without honouring his Word, who is as invisible as the Father, created all things with him, and saves the world.
277. 32.221God, knowing human frailty, will be more merciful than just, granting pardon to those who ask and to the repentant, so that the faithful may reach eternal life, as the passing storm shows his restraint.
278. 33.1The Death of Baebianus: a wealthy noble, near death, repents, is baptized and receives the sacrament and chrism, and, feeling a wondrous fragrance, refuses to pray for longer life.
279. 33.33Baptized at the last like the penitent thief or the eleventh-hour labourer, Baebianus refuses his wife's plea to pray for recovery, lest he lose his baptismal innocence, and falls into a deathlike trance after a vision of light.
280. 33.63For two days Baebianus lay as if dead while an angel showed him heaven; reviving, he described, during the next morning's liturgy, the angelic hosts, Christ reigning with the Father, and the jewelled city.
281. 33.97Baebianus died declaring that he and his wife were one; the poem foretells that when his widow Apra dies, he and their dead son will welcome her into heaven, where their marriage continues in a better union.