Paulinus Noster: Self and Symbols in the Letters of Paulinus of Nola

The letters of Paulinus of Nola and his correspondents show an early Christian 'web' of ideas in action. Catherine Conybeare examines how messages carried between members of a far-flung community helped to tie that community together. The letters reveal the profound impact Paulinus had in shaping the new Christian Church.
The aristocratic convert, Paulinus of Nola, was revered by contemporaries and correspondents, like Augustine of Hippo and Sulpicius Severus, as Paulinus noster - 'our Paulinus'. But his role as a shaper of, and exemplar to, the early Christian Church has, until recently, been often overlooked.

This literate and accessible study examines the profound impact Paulinus had on Christian thought during a crucial period of its development. His ideas on friendship, Christian symbolism, and the nature of personal identity were produced on the cusp of the transition from the classical world to the burgeoning Western Christian civilization by a thinker with strong links to both. Paulinus' letters and other writings reveal the roots of many important strands of Christian thought; the works of
Augustine and others attest to this influence.

The letters of Paulinus and his correspondents portray an early Christian 'web' of shared concepts, intellectual discussion, and group development. Catherine Conybeare examines how the very process of writing and transmitting letters between members of a far-flung community helped to bind that community together and to aid the creation of ideas which would continue to reverberate for centuries after. 'Our Paulinus' was key to that group iconic as a model of behaviour, as a conversion success
story, and as a intellectual contributor able to bridge the old world and the new.