A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.
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March 9
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Bishop
Pacian had been married before he became a priest, and his son Dexter became high chamberlain to the emperor Theodosius. He was made bishop of Barcelona in 373. St. Jerom praised him and dedicated his Catalogue to him.
His surviving works are an Exhortation to Penance, letters to Sympronianus the Novatian, and a sermon on Baptism. Baring-Gould says he died before 390.
Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 73 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.
His son, Flavius Dexter, probably born before Pacian received episcopal orders, was an intimate friend of S. Jerome.
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Learn from the kind of life it was. A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.
Very little is known of this Spanish bishop, except that he was the author of some short works, of which one, named Cerbus, is lost. His "Epistles against the Novatians," his "Call to Penitence," and "Book on Baptism," addressed to catechumens, are extant. His son, Flavius Dexter, probably born before Pacian received episcopal orders, was an intimate friend of S. Jerome [translator of the Bible into Latin (d. 420)]. Pacian died at an advanced old age in the reign of Theodosius [name of Roman emperors; Theodosius I (379–395) made Christianity the state religion].
Feast: March 9
One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Pacian of Barcelona's story, and a nudge to keep going.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.
