Paulinus

Family: Church · Role: minister of the Word · First appears: Book I · Chap. XXIX

Around 582, Gregory sent Paulinus with Mellitus, Justus, and Rufinianus to assist Augustine’s mission as a fellow labourer and minister of the Word. Around 624, Paulinus baptized Eanfled, the first of the Northumbrians to receive baptism, learned of Edwin’s vision and urged him to fulfil his vow, and preached to Coifi, who renounced his former worship and declared, “But now I freely confess, that such truth evidently appears in this preaching as can confer on us the gifts of life, of salvation, and of eternal happiness.” On 21 July 625, Justus ordained him bishop to accompany Ethelberg to Edwin; he instructed Edwin, who entrusted his daughter Eanfled to him for consecration to Christ.

In 627, Edwin gave Paulinus his episcopal see at York and built a larger stone church there by his direction. Paulinus preached for six years with Edwin’s consent, baptizing Osfrid, Eadfrid, Ethelhun, Ethelthryth, Wuscfrea, Yffi, and many others; at Adgefrin he spent thirty-six days catechizing and baptizing people from the surrounding villages. At Lincoln he converted Blaecca and his household, built a stone church, and consecrated Archbishop Honorius in Justus’s place; he also worked with the deacon James, and baptized a man in the river Trent in Edwin’s presence. Pope Honorius sent him a pall and authorized him and Archbishop Honorius to provide successors for one another.

In 633, after Edwin’s fall, Paulinus returned by sea to Kent with Ethelberg, Eanfled, Wuscfrea, and Yffi, under the conduct of Bassus, and was received by Archbishop Honorius and Eadbald. At their request he took charge of the church at Rochester, where he remained until his death in 644 after nineteen years as a bishop. Later accounts recall Osric receiving the faith through his preaching, Hilda receiving the faith with Edwin, James continuing the Catholic Easter tradition as his former deacon, and Bede translating Paulinus’s metrical life of Saint Felix into prose.