Chapter XLII

Petronius,²⁶⁴⁶ bishop of Bologna in Italy²⁶⁴⁷ 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,²⁶⁴⁸ 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.