Now I desire thee to see the paintings on the porticoes decorated with a long series and to take the slight trouble of bending thy neck backwards, taking stock of everything with head thrown back. He who on seeing this recognizes Truth from the idle figures, feeds his faithful spirit with a by no means idle image. For the painting contains in faithful order everything that ancient Moses wrote in five books (The Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.), what Joshua did, marked by the name of the Lord, under whose guidance the Jordan stayed with its current in its momentum, the waves remaining fixed, and fell back before the countenance of the divine Ark. An unknown force divided the river, a part stopped because of the water having flowed back and a part of the river, gliding on, rushed seawards and left the bed dry, and at the side where the river with powerful current poured forth from its source, it had held fast and piled high the waves and as a quivering mass a water mountain hung menacing, seeing beneath it that feet were crossing a dry bottom and that in the middle of the river-bed dusty human soles were speeding over hard mud without the feet getting wet (Josh. 3.). Now run tense eyes over the portraiture of Ruth, who separates periods by a booklet, the end of the time of judges and the beginning of that of Kings. This seems to be a short history, but it points to the mysteries of a great war that two sisters part from each other for different regions.

Ruth follows her holy relative, whom Orpah leaves (Ruth 1: 6–22.); one daughter-in-law gives proof of faithlessness, the other of faithfulness. The one places God above her country, the other her country above life. Does not, I ask, this discord remain in the whole world, as a part follow God and a part rush through the world? And if only the part of death and that of salvation were equal, but the wide road takes many, and irrevocable error sweeps down those who slip.

It may be asked how we arrived at this decision, to paint, a rare custom, images of living beings on the holy houses.

Hark and I will attempt briefly to expound the causes. What crowds the glory of St. Felix drives hither, is unknown to none; the majority of the crowd here, however, are peasant people, not devoid of religion but not able to read. These people, for long accustomed to profane cults, in which their belly was their God, are at last converted into proselytes for Christ while they admire the works of the saints in Christ open to everybody's gaze.

See how many from all parts come together and how they look wonderingly round, their rude minds piously beguiled. They have left their remote dwellings, they despised the boar frost, not becoming cold because of the fire of their faith. And now, behold, in great numbers and waking they extend their joy over the whole night, keeping sleep from them with merriment and the darkness with torches. If only, however, they would spend this joy with wholesome wishes and not intrude into the sacred houses with their beakers! Even though a sober congregation lets us hear a preferable service making the sacred hymns ring with undefiled voices, and presenting a song of praise to the Lord as an offering without having drunk, I think such joys should be pardoned, if they derive them from small meals, because the error stole upon rude minds; and simplicity, unconscious of such heavy guilt, falls in piety, in the false belief that the saints are glad when reeking wine is poured over their graves....

Therefore it seemed to us useful work gaily to embellish Felix' houses all over with sacred paintings in order to see whether the spirit of the peasants would not be surprised by this spectacle and undergo the influence of the coloured sketches which are explained by inscriptions over them, so that the script may make clear what the hand has exhibited. Maybe that, when they all in turn show and reread to each other what has been painted, their thoughts will turn more slowly to eating, while they saturate themselves with a fast that is pleasing to the eyes, and perhaps a better habit will thus in their stupefaction take root in them, because of the painting artfully diverting their thoughts from their hunger. When one reads the saintly histories of chaste works, virtue induced by pious examples steals upon one; he who thirsts is quenched with sobriety, the result being a forgetting of the desire for too much wine. And while they pass the day by looking, most of the time the beakers are less frequently filled, because now that the time has been spent with all these wonderful things, but few hours are left for a meal

(Paulinus of Nola, Carmina XXVII, 512–95 in Paulinus' Churches at Nola, Academisch Proefschrift door Rudolf Carel Goldschmidt (Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandische Uitgevers Maatschappig, 1940). pp.61–65).

Paulinus of Nola, Poem 27, excerpted in C. Davis-Weyer, Early Medieval Art 300–1150 (reprint Toronto, 1986), 18–19.