“ He had married a wealthy Spanish lady named Therasia; this happy union was clouded by the death in infancy of their only child—a bereavement which, combined with the many disasters by which the empire was being visited, did much to foster in them that world-weariness to which they afterwards gave such emphatic expression. ”

“ PAULINUS, SAINT, of Nola (333–431) . Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus, who was successively a consul, a monk and a bishop, was born at Bordeaux in A.D. 353. His father, pracfectus praclorio in Gaul, was a man of great wealth, who entrusted his son's education, with the best of results, to Ausonius. In 378 Paulinus was raised to the rank of consul suffectus, and in the following year he appears to have been sent as consularis into Campania. It was at this period, while present at a festival of St Felix of Nola, that he entered upon his lifelong devotion to the cult of that saint. ”