Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola. Volume 1 and 2. Letters 1 - 51. Ancient Christian Writters (35, 36).

Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langj�igem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Altersbedingt leicht vergilbt, sonst guter Zustand / Slightly yellowd due to age, otherwise in good condition. - INTRODUCTION The prose letters of Pontius Meropius Paulinus, whose birthplace and family estate were near Bordeaux but who established a monastic house at Nola near Naples and ultimately became bishop there, extend over approximately the second half of his life.1 There are none dating from his early years in Aquitania, where he was born in or shortly before A.D. 355/ Nor have any survived to shed light on the course of his secular career, the high point of which was his appointment as governor of Campania in his early twenties.3 The absence of such documentation makes it impossible to reconstruct the detail of his tenure of that important post, or of the circumstances under which he relinquished it to return to private life in Aquitania, probably late in 383. And no letters survive to explain the circumstances under which he shortly thereafter journeyed to Spain to marry Therasia, or to describe their comfortable life on his wealthy estates near Bordeaux.4 The immediate reasons impelling him to seek baptism and to return to Spain in 389 are likewise obscure.