bishop of
Bologna in Italy a man of holy
life and from his youth practised in monastic studies, is reputed to
have written the Lives of the Fathers, to wit of the Egyptian
monks, a work which the monks accept as the mirror and pattern of their
profession. I have read a treatise which bears his name On the ordination of bishops, a work full of good reasoning and notable for its humility, but whose polished style shows it not to have been his, but perhaps, as some say, the work of his father Petronius, a man of great eloquence and learned in secular literature. This I think is to be accepted, for the author of the work describes himself as a prætorian prefect. He died in the reign of Theodosius and Valentinianus.