PACIANO, bishop of BARCELLONA, saint. — The few details known about him are owed to St Jerome (De vir. inl., 106).
His testimony is valuable because of his relationship with Destro, son of P., at whose request he wrote De viris inlustribus. The imperial election of Theodosius in 379 and the composition of St Jerome’s De viris inlustribus in 392 indicate the period within which P.’s death may be placed, which occurred in extreme old age; this presupposes that his life unfolded from the beginning of the 4th century. His birth, or at least a long resi-
PACIANO - PACIFICO DA S. SEVERINO
His birth, or at least a long residence in Barcelona before his episcopal consecration, may be inferred from the ancient practice of appointing a member of the community as bishop. His origin in an illustrious family is proved by the position of his son Destro, «clarus in saeculo» and prefect of the praetorium. The lucid eloquence praised by s. Girolamo is attested by the excellence of his style and indicates a careful humanistic education. Virgil must have been his favorite author: by his own testimony, it is known that he read him from childhood (Epist., 2, 4); and he was able vigorously to defend against an adversary the appropriateness of a Virgilian quotation. The celebrated saying is his: «Christian is my name; Catholic my surname». His works mark a stage in the history of penance. In the anti-Novatian polemic he clarifies not a few points concerning the doctrine and practice of penance in the Church of his time. Three letters remain from him, in which he discusses the innovative objections of Sempriniano; the Paracensis sive exhortatorius libellus ad poenitentian; and the Sermo de Baptismo, which extols the life of grace communicated by the first Sacrament—all dogmatic works, more ascetic than disciplinary in character, but which reveal penitential life in Spain during the second half of the fourth century. The short work Cervulus, on the other hand, has been lost; he mentions it in the introduction to the Paracensis, condemning certain pagan spectacles (cervulum facere) held at the beginning of the year. The work De similitudine carnis peccati, attributed by its first editor, dom Morin (Etudes, textes, découvertes, Paris 1913, pp. 81-150), is instead by the priest Eutropius (Genmadio, De vir. inl., cap. 49; cf. J. Madoz, Herencia literaria del presbitero Eutropio, in Estudios eclesiásticos, 16 [1942], pp. 27-54).
In the history of penance in the early Spanish Church, P. occupies a prominent place among the Spanish bishops of the period immediately following the Council of Elvira, who seem to have adhered to a discipline more moderate than that contained in the canons of that assembly. Universality of forgiveness, without any exception, for every kind of sin, in reaction to Novatian rigorism. For the three capital sins, the ordinary remedy was canonical penance, consisting of confession, satisfaction, and absolution: the latter was the responsibility of the bishop together with his clergy. For non-capital sins, private extracanonic penance was introduced, although in P. references to it do not appear as clear as they do in Gregorio di Elvira. The practice of penance was becoming increasingly mitigated with regard to its rigor and duration. It represented a transitional step from the severity of the ancient canons to the excessive and degenerate indulgence of the time of the Third Council of Toledo.