other · 394 · Barcelona
Paulinus was of a senatorial family of Aquitaine, had been governor of Campania in his twenties, and had the largest private landholding in Gaul. After the death of an infant son he and his Spanish wife Therasia began disposing of it. He was at Barcelona for Christmas in 394 when the congregation demanded he be ordained, and he consented on one condition: that he was not thereby attached to that church. Ambrose reports the ordination with visible approval and Jerome wrote to him about it. It is one of very few ordinations in this dataset performed against the candidate's stated intention and recorded as such by people who were pleased about it.
Nothing he intended — he was at the Christmas liturgy and the congregation would not let him out of the building.
A consular ordained by acclamation on a condition, and a career nobody planned.