Eustochius

ON ST. EUSTOCHIUS, ROMAN VIRGIN,

AT BETHLEHEM.

In the year 420.

A HISTORICAL COLLECTION.

Eustochium, Virgin, at Bethlehem. (S.)

BY J. S.

§ I. The Saint's memory in the Martyrologies: her cult proved.

[ ] Although St. Jerome had frequently celebrated the most holy character of St. Eustochium the virgin, The Saint's memory in the more recent Fasti at 2 November, yet the name of this holy Virgin is not found in the ancient Martyrologies. But in the more recent Fasti, from the fourteenth century, the name of St. Eustochium is mentioned, and indeed on several days. The first perhaps to insert Eustochium into his Catalogue of the Saints was Peter de Natalibus, book 10, chap. XI, referring her death or burial to 2 November, and celebrating her with this elogium: Eustochium, a most sacred virgin, was the daughter of Paula, a most noble Roman lady, and a disciple of Blessed Jerome. Of whom the same Jerome testifies that she was in the holy places a most precious jewel of virginity and of the Church. And when her mother, leaving all the world and its worldly riches and all her children, set out from the city of Rome and sailed to Jerusalem to serve God, she alone was the companion of her purpose and of her voyage, … and together with that mother of hers built a monastery at the town of Bethlehem: and with her and with other holy women devoutly served God under the discipline of the blessed father Jerome: and after her mother's falling asleep she was mother of fifty maidens and more. For whom the blessed doctor established and dictated a rule of living to God. And she herself, intent with solicitude on fastings and prayers and the study of the sacred books, after very many contests overcome for Christ, rested in peace in her purpose of virginity: buried at Bethlehem on the IV Nones of November. Thus far Peter, bishop of Equilio, whence he drew the day of her death I do not know, unless he set it at his own discretion, as he sometimes does elsewhere. Meanwhile others have followed: for St. Eustochium is announced on the same day by Maurolico, by Ferrari in both his Catalogues, by Felici, and perhaps by others, whose words there is no need to bring forward.

[2] Others have referred the memory of St. Eustochium to the XX of February. as also at 20 February and other days, Of these the first who has become known to us, the author of the manuscript Florarium Sanctorum, mentioned Eustochium briefly in the fifteenth century, and Greven, Canisius, and Ferrari in his general Catalogue followed him, as was noted in the Prætermissi at that day. Similarly at 2 March it was said that St. Eustochium is honoured on that day in a certain Calendar of the Carmelites. For some Carmelites have attributed this Saint to their Order, which it may suffice to have indicated briefly. At the XX of September Greven also very briefly mentions Eustochia the virgin, so that it becomes likely that today's Saint was commemorated somewhere on that day too. For, although the true name is Eustochium, yet not rarely was she named Eustochia by the more recent writers.

[3] but in the chief Fasti at this 28 September. At this XXVIII of September we have St. Eustochium placed in a Usuardine codex which was written in the year 1412, and called by Sollerius the Haguenau one, where there are these few words: Likewise of St. Eustochia the virgin, from St. Jerome. Greven gave more, repeating St. Eustochium today, and Molanus somewhat enlarged them at the end, having it thus in smaller letters: On the same day, of Eustochium the virgin, daughter of St. Paula the widow. In how great veneration the divine Jerome held her, his frequent Letters to her and to her mother testify: likewise also this, that he calls her a precious jewel of virginity and of the Church in the Epitaph of her mother, where he also relates her services towards her mother when sick. Baronius, following these, inserted St. Eustochium into the Roman Martyrology at the same day in these words: On the same day, of St. Eustochium the virgin, daughter of blessed Paula, who, being brought up at the manger of the Lord with other virgins, shining with excellent merits, passed to the Lord. Castellan repeats this in his Universal Martyrology, and adds an annotation in which he observes that St. Eustochium lacked a cult until Peter de Natalibus, that is, that her name had not been inserted into the more ancient Martyrologies: for neither is a cult begun by the commemoration of a name in a Catalogue of the Saints or a Martyrology, although not a few writers speak as though they said that a person is honoured if they have found his name in a Martyrology, even a particular one or one of a private author.

[4] But if we consider what Quaresmius wrote about the tomb of SS. Paula and Eustochium in his Elucidation of the Holy Land, book 6, chapters 18 and 19, The Saint's tomb raised in the form of an altar. we shall scarcely be able to doubt that St. Eustochium was honoured in ancient times in Palestine. The author explains the holy places to which pilgrimages are wont to be made, and of the tomb of St. Jerome, chap. 18, he has it thus: This tomb is raised from the ground in the form of an altar, covered with a marble slab; like to it are two others, of which presently. And those two are, the one of SS. Paula and Eustochium, the other of St. Eusebius of Cremona. Of the former he treats in chap. 19 under this title: Of the tomb of St. Paula the Roman and of her daughter Eustochium the virgin, which is honoured in the twelfth place in the second pilgrimage. Then he subjoins this: Over against the tomb of St. Jerome, and on the eastern side of the sacred cave, is another, which is called that of St. Paula the Roman and of her daughter Eustochium the virgin; because tradition has it that the bodies of these holy women were buried there, and Vincent of Beauvais noted it in the Historical Mirror, book 31, chap. 65. This tomb of SS. Paula and Eustochium seems much more ancient than the fourteenth century, even as it is said to be raised in the form of an altar: for the tomb itself is certainly most ancient, if it is that very one in which the holy Mother and Daughter were first buried: nor is there just reason for denying it.

[5] And not only in the place of their burial with an honourable mausoleum, or rather an altar built over the tomb, or rather an altar built over her tomb, were Paula and Eustochium likely honoured for many centuries; but also with an ecclesiastical Office, which was continued after their sacred bodies were taken away thence. For at present, says Quaresmius, as the tomb is said to be despoiled of those sacred pledges, so the epitaph composed by St. Jerome and the verses are no longer read there. Yet the cult persevered, nor is it credible that it was begun after the bodies were taken away: but rather we believe it was begun many centuries before the taking away of the bodies, and afterwards persevered. Of the cult of his own time Quaresmius speaks thus, chap. 20: Over this tomb (of St. Eusebius of Cremona) and the others of the saints Jerome, Paula and Eustochium, Mass is celebrated, and the Office is solemnly chanted at them on the solemn days of these Saints, the brethren (of the Order of Minors, as it would seem) flocking also to the festivity from Jerusalem. Cornelis de Bruyn, in the Work which he wrote in Dutch about his travels, and which was afterwards reprinted in the French tongue, testifies at chap. 51 that he with other pilgrims visited the cave in which the Lord is believed to have been born, and was present at the sacred ministries which were performed at the several altars, among which he names the tomb of SS. Paula and Eustochium.

[6] These things are again confirmed from the Life of St. Eusebius of Cremona, and another ecclesiastical cult in the same place. given at the V of March. For there, at chap. 7, page 383, the biographer proves the cult of St. Eusebius of Cremona from the things that are done at his tomb, which he rightly names an altar: for neither shall we with reason doubt that the sacred Offices, which are there said to be performed at the altar of St. Eusebius, are likewise performed at the altar of SS. Paula and Eustochium, namely daily the Sacrifice of the Mass, … the divine praises, … vows and supplications; and the same, says the author, is rendered by all pilgrims; and he cites for these things as witness the superior of that very monastery, as may be more fully seen in the same place. He adds another witness also, who had visited those sacred places, the Rev. Fr. Luigi Vulcano of Padula, likewise of the Order of Minors Observant, from whose printed account he recites the following: Towards the West is another cave, and at its entrance on the right side we found an altar, within which is the burial-place of St. Eusebius, … and on the left side is another altar, within which is the tomb of St. Paula the Roman and of her daughter Eustochium; and over against it is the place where the body of St. Jerome lay, afterwards translated, as is said, to Rome. All which tombs are seen covered with marble slabs after the manner of altars, and before each of them a glass lamp burns. That Franciscan writer seems to have believed that in his time the bodies of Paula and Eustochium had not yet been taken away from the tomb, since he is silent about their being taken away, while he speaks of the translation of the body of St. Jerome. Where they now are, I have nowhere been able to find.

§ II. The Saint's noble family; her earlier doings at Rome.

[ ] St. Eustochium's most noble family, St. Eustochium the virgin, called by another name also Julia, because she had a father of the Julian house, had most noble parents, Toxotius her father, and St. Paula her mother. Their family St. Jerome sets out in some fashion in the Epitaph of St. Paula, written to Eustochium herself, which is placed among the Letters,

where formerly it was the twenty-seventh, and now, in the latest Verona edition, which I shall use, the hundred and eighth. It will be enough about these matters to give the words of St. Jerome without further inquiry. He, when he had said more about the family of St. Paula, subjoins this about her marriage with Toxotius Julius, the father of St. Eustochium: Born therefore of such a stock, she was joined to a husband Toxotius, who draws the most exalted blood of Aeneas and of the Julii. Whence also his daughter, Eustochium the virgin of Christ, is called Julia, and he himself Julius, "a name handed down from great Julus." The father Toxotius therefore referred his family to Julius Caesar, whom Virgil makes to be of the posterity of Aeneas and of his son Julus. The mother Paula the said Jerome celebrates thus at the beginning of the Epitaph: Noble by family, but far nobler by sanctity; once mighty in riches, but now more distinguished by the poverty of Christ; a stock of the Gracchi, offspring of the Scipios, heir of Paulus, whose name she bears, the true and genuine progeny of Martia Papyria, the mother of Africanus. On this Henschen, tom. 2 of January, page 713, briefly notes the following: Papyria was the daughter of C. Papyrius Maso, the wife of Lucius Aemilius Paullus, to whom she bore the Aemilii, Fabius and the younger Africanus. And so the family of St. Paula is referred to Scipio Africanus Aemilianus, the son of Paulus Aemilius, and inserted by adoption into the family of the Scipios, who took and overthrew Carthage.

[8] Hence again at num. 3 Paula is called on her mother's side the progeny of the Scipios and the Gracchi. which is briefly set out: and her three sisters and a brother. But her father Rogatus is reported through almost all the Greek lands even to this day, by his pedigrees and riches and nobility, to draw the blood of Agamemnon, who destroyed Troy by a ten years' siege, says Jerome. With what has been said agree the verses which St. Jerome composed to be carved on Paula's tomb, of which I transfer hither the former:

She whom Scipio begot, whom the parents of Paulus brought forth, offspring of the Gracchi, famed progeny of Agamemnon, lies in this tomb: Paula did those before us call her, mother of Eustochium, the first of the Roman senate.

Most illustrious therefore was Eustochium's family on the mother's side, out of Roman and Greek nobility; but on the father's side, from the Julian house, she referred her forebears back to Aeneas himself. But St. Jerome, having set these things out, subjoins the following, directing his speech to St. Eustochium: And these things we say, not because they are great in those who have them, but because they are wonderful in those who despise them. The men of the world look up to those who are strong in these privileges. We praise those who have despised these things for the Saviour's sake: and in a wonderful manner, those whom we value little for having them, we proclaim if they have refused to have them. Let these things about her noble stock suffice. She had sisters, Blesilla and Paulina, older by birth and married to noble husbands; Rufina, younger, carried off by an untimely death; and Toxotius her brother, born last.

[9] St. Eustochium will have been born before the year 370, since she had already professed virginity in the year 384, The Saint born about the year 368, when St. Jerome wrote to her, as we shall see. Yet she cannot have been born many years before 370, since she was the third of the daughters, and Paula her mother was born in the year 347. But from the age of her sister Blesilla, whom Jerome in his 39th Letter (elsewhere the 29th) calls a young girl of twenty years when she died in the year 385, so that she was born about the year 365, I further conjecture that St. Eustochium was born about the year 368: for between the two came Paulina, so that Eustochium was likely almost three years younger than Blesilla. Her fourth sister Rufina was already marriageable, yet not yet married, as Jerome testifies in his 108th Letter, when Paula with Eustochium was departing for Palestine in the year 385, so that she, who followed Eustochium, seems to have been born about 370. I find therefore nothing more probable than if we say that St. Eustochium was born about 368.

[10] The first upbringing of St. Eustochium was doubtless such after her childhood she was for some time instructed by St. Marcella, as is wont to be that of noble girls, until the death of her father Toxotius, whom we believe to have died about the year 380, because, as Jerome testifies towards the end of the 108th Letter, St. Paula lived in her holy purpose at Rome five years, which perhaps were not complete before she sailed for Palestine in the year 385. As he likewise testifies in the same place at num. 5, she began so to live after her husband's death: for she so turned herself to the service of the Lord, he says, that she seemed to have wished for his death. Wherefore it does not seem to be doubted that at that time too the piety of St. Eustochium, who was then almost twelve or thirteen years old, took great increase, at the urging of her mother, whom Eustochium always followed with wonderful love. To both it profited not a little to have the example of St. Marcella, a most noble widow, whom Jerome celebrated with many elogia, and did not hesitate to call the sole pattern of Roman sanctity, as may be more fully seen at the XXXI of January, where St. Marcella was treated of. For St. Paula contracted a friendship with Marcella, and handed over St. Eustochium to her to be instructed, as we have from the Epitaph of Marcella, that is, from St. Jerome's 127th Letter (elsewhere the 16th), in which, at num. 5, these words are read: Of her (Marcella's) friendship the venerable Paula had the benefit: in her chamber was nourished Eustochium, the glory of virginity; so that it is easy to judge what the mistress was, where the disciples were such. That dwelling of St. Eustochium will have begun after her father's death, when she had conceived the purpose of keeping her virginity; but about the year itself nothing is established.

[11] Another master of keeping and adorning her virginity St. Eustochium obtained about the year 384, and she professed virginity, St. Jerome, who had come to Rome and was imbuing Marcella, Paula, Eustochium and other illustrious women with the knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, as will be said more fully in Jerome at the XXX of September. And Jerome afterwards wrote the prolix 22nd Letter to Eustochium On keeping Virginity. But she had already chosen virginity before, and Jerome at num. 15 says that she was the first of the noble girls at Rome who had professed virginity, when he speaks thus: Now let all my discourse be directed to thee, who, in proportion as thou hast begun to be the first noble virgin of the city of Rome, so much the more must thou labour, lest thou lack both present goods and future. This passage Tillemont expounds, in St. Jerome, art. 38, as though Eustochium had been the first in time among noble virgins. But I should rather judge that she is called the first in nobility and riches, or in the goods of the world which she had left. For he thus argues rightly: the more and the greater things thou hast left than the other virgins, the more must thou labour lest thou lack both present goods and future. This would not be so rightly inferred if she had been the first only in time. It is moreover established from elsewhere that Marcellina, the sister of St. Ambrose, and many others at Rome professed virginity before Eustochium, whom we cannot call ignoble, even though they could not number among their forebears Aeneas, Agamemnon, and the Aemilii Paulli and the Scipios, as Eustochium could.

[12] with many resisting, Not a few resisting her purpose did St. Eustochium find, and Jerome himself suffered great ill-will among the Romans on account of her and her mother, as may be gathered even from the few words of the 45th Letter (elsewhere the 99th) to Asella, in which Jerome, about to depart from Rome, sets out at length how great detractions he was suffering, and briefly indicates the cause thus: Greet Paula and Eustochium, mine in Christ whether the world will or no. Notable is the example which Jerome reports in his 107th Letter (elsewhere the 7th) to Laeta, whom at num. 5 he exhorts to clothe her daughter in modest dress, and this he relates about St. Eustochium: Praetextata, once a most noble lady, at the bidding of her husband Hymetius, who was the paternal uncle of Eustochium the virgin, changed her dress and her adornment, and dressed her neglected hair after the fashion of the world , wishing to overcome both the Virgin's purpose and her mother's desire. And behold, on that same night she sees in her sleep that an angel had come with terrible countenance , threatening punishments and breaking forth in these words: "Hast thou dared to prefer a husband's command to Christ? Hast thou dared to touch the head of God's Virgin with thy sacrilegious hands, which even now shall wither, that in torment thou mayest feel what thou hast done, and at the end of the fifth month be led to hell . But if thou shalt persevere in thy wickedness, thou shalt be bereft at once of husband and of children." All things were fulfilled in order, and a swift death sealed the wretched woman's late repentance. So does Christ avenge the violators of his temple: so does he defend his jewels and most precious ornaments. And this I have related, not because I wish to insult the calamities of the unhappy; but that I may warn thee with how great fear and caution thou oughtest to keep what thou hast promised to God.*

[13] to whom, persevering in her purpose, she bravely stood up, Not without reason did St. Jerome narrate an example of that kind, which might strike terror into the enemies of the Christian virtues. For very many, and among them some otherwise by no means bad men, in no way think that they make it a matter of religion if by any means whatsoever they can cast down from a laudable purpose some youth or maiden who pants after a more perfect and religious life and desires to live to God his Creator alone, and by blandishments, or threats, or specious arguments can induce, or rather violently drag him, to the service of the world, where there is very much of malice, and little of wisdom, on Bernard's testimony. To enemies of that kind, whom the devil uses to turn men from the way of salvation, St. Eustochium bravely stood up, and despised very many enticements of the world. This fortitude of hers St. Jerome praises in his 66th Letter (elsewhere the 26th) to Pammachius, formerly the husband of Paulina, Eustochium's sister, where he enumerates the virtues of St. Paula's children, and attributes fortitude to Eustochium. For first he says: Eustochium reaps the flowers of virginity. And presently: In the Virgin, fortitude … is proclaimed. And this he then proves in these words: What is braver than Eustochium, who has broken the gates of nobility and the arrogance of a consular family by her virginal purpose, and in the first City subjugated the first family to chastity?

[14] That fortitude of Eustochium's is also the more to be praised, although she was only sixteen years old or fewer. the weaker was the age at which she overcame all those enticements, being about fourteen or at most sixteen years old, and drawn by no examples of her elder sisters Blesilla and Paulina, who had chosen marriage. Of Eustochium's tender age Jerome makes mention in his 33rd Letter (elsewhere the 25th) to Paula, whom he consoles over the death of her daughter Blesilla, who died without children, alleging the immature age of Eustochium, to whom Paula's immoderate sadness might do harm, that by that argument he may put reins upon her grief: Spare, he says at num. 5, at least thy Eustochium, whose age is still small and whose almost raw infancy is guided by thee as mistress. The devil rages now, and because he sees one of thy children triumphing (Blesilla, namely, wholly given to piety towards the end of her life), grieving that he is crushed, he seeks a victory in the one who remains (Eustochium, exposed to the danger of falling by her mother's excessive grief), which he has already lost in her who went before. This Jerome says about her age in the year 385, when already for some time, nay perhaps for two

or three years, Eustochium had entered upon her profession of virginity, so that she will at least have been not more than sixteen years old, and perhaps had not even completed fourteen, when she first chose to follow the counsel of Christ rather than to pursue the painted blandishments of the world.

[15] Now nothing shows so clearly the remarkable fortitude of soul with which St. Eustochium was endowed St. Jerome writes to the tender Virgin as Jerome's 22nd Letter to Eustochium, a girl of nearly sixteen years, given On the keeping of virginity. For the holy doctor knew to whom he was speaking: nor was he ignorant of that word of the Apostle, 1 Cor. 3, v. 2: As unto little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat: for you were not yet able. Wherefore it is not to be believed that the precepts which Jerome gave Eustochium were harder than he hoped would be fulfilled by that most brave Virgin, whose virtue he could accurately know from Marcella her mistress and Paula her mother. The Letter is too prolix to be recited here entire. But that the studious reader may perceive how sublime and hard precepts were set before the tender Eustochium, I shall recite each in order in a brief compendium: and this I shall do the more willingly because that most upright Virgin seems throughout her whole life, that is, for easily thirty-five or thirty-six years, to have diligently observed those sublime lessons.

[16] The first precept Jerome begins with these words of Psalm 44: precepts about humility, the fear of God, Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thine ear, and forget thy people and thy father's house, and the King shall greatly desire thy beauty. And the author's aim is that the Virgin, forgetful of all earthly things, should study to serve God alone, and should not turn her eyes back to the world once left. These things I write, he says, my lady Eustochium (for I must call the Spouse of my Lord "lady"), that from the very beginning of the reading thou mightest know that I am not now going to speak the praise of virginity, which thou hast approved as best and hast attained, … but that thou mightest understand that thou, going out of Sodom, must fear the example of Lot's wife. For there is no flattery in this little book. For a flatterer is a bland enemy. Then at num. 3 he warns her to beware of pride, and puts fear into her. I would not, he says, that pride should come to thee from thy purpose, but fear. Thou walkest laden with gold; the robber must be avoided by thee. This life is a race-course for mortals: here we contend, that elsewhere we may be crowned. No one walks safely among serpents and scorpions … We are surrounded by great troops of enemies; all things are full of foes. The flesh, frail and soon to be ashes, fights alone against many, etc. This discourse about right fear he carries far on, and proves by many examples how necessary that fear is, and how great the frailty of the flesh, that the Virgin may better understand how great caution must be used to preserve virginity.

[17] continence in food and drink, Then at num. 8 he gives these precepts: If therefore there can be any counsel in me, if one who has experience is to be believed, this first I advise, this I protest, that the Spouse of Christ flee wine as poison. These are the demons' first arms against youth … Easily do we lack other vices; this enemy is shut up within us. Wherever we go, we carry the foe with us. Wine and youth are a double kindling of pleasure. Presently he discourses much against the use or abuse of wine, and at num. XI answers an objection which Eustochium might have made, writing thus: But if thou wilt answer that thou wast born of noble stock, always in delights, always on down, and canst not abstain from wine and richer foods, nor live more strictly by these laws, I shall answer: Live then by thine own law, since thou canst not by God's. Not that God, the creator and lord of the universe, takes delight in the rumbling of our bowels and the emptiness of the belly and the burning of the lungs; but because chastity cannot otherwise be safe. He adds other things by which he proves this.

[18] the guarding of the eyes, avoiding the company of those who love pomp, Then he goes on to enjoin continence of the eyes, and at num. 12, from the fall of David after the sight of Bathsheba, briefly gathers this: Where note this also briefly, that no gaze is safe, even in one's own house. And having sharply censured those virgins who sought the company of men, at num. 15 he addresses Eustochium thus: These, then, being hissed off and driven out, who will not be virgins but only seem so, let all my discourse now be directed to thee, who, in proportion as thou hast begun to be the first noble virgin of the city of Rome, so much the more must thou labour, lest thou lack both present goods and future. And presently, after a few words, at num. 16: I would not have thee keep company with matrons: I would not have thee go to the houses of the noble: I would not have thee often see what, in despising it, thou didst wish to be a virgin. So are silly women wont to applaud themselves over husbands who are judges and set in some dignity. If the ambition of those who pay their court runs together to the emperor's wife, why dost thou do wrong to thy Husband? Why, Spouse of God, dost thou hasten to a man's wife? Learn in this matter a holy pride: know that thou art better than they. Nor indeed does he wish her only to avoid the meetings of those who are puffed up with their husbands' honours, whom troops of eunuchs hedge about, and in whose garments the metal of gold drawn out into thread is woven; but flee also those whom necessity, not will, has made widows — those, namely, who had not laid aside their pomp, as he sets out at greater length.

[19] frequent prayer and reading, Let thy companions be, he says at num. 17, those whom fasts make thin, whose faces are pale, whom both age and life have approved, who daily sing in their hearts: "Where feedest thou, where liest thou down at noon?" Who say from their heart: "I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." Be subject to thy parents: imitate thy Spouse. Let thy going forth in public be rare. Let the martyrs be sought by thee in thy chamber. Never will a cause of going out be lacking, if thou art always to go out whenever it is necessary. Let thy food be moderate, and thy belly never full. For there are many who, though sober as to wine, are drunk with abundance of food. When thou risest at night to prayer, let not indigestion cause thee to belch, but emptiness. Read the oftener, learn as much as thou canst. Let sleep steal upon thee holding the book, and let the sacred page receive thy falling face. Let thy fasts be daily, and thy refreshment such as flees satiety. It profits nothing, when two or three days are passed, to carry an empty belly, if it be as much overwhelmed, if the fast be compensated by fullness. At once the mind, being filled, grows torpid, and the watered ground brings forth the thorns of lusts. If ever thou shalt feel the outward man sighing after the flower of youth, and, when food is taken, the sweet procession of lusts shall shake thee as thou art laid on thy little bed, snatch up the shield of faith, in which the fiery darts of the devil are quenched. He subjoins more, to prove that a tickling lust is rightly resisted by prayers, by short petitions, or by the lifting up of the heart to God; and at num. 18 he teaches that in this life we must weep and sigh to God, beginning thus: Be a cicada of the nights. Wash thy bed every night, water thy couch with thy tears. Watch, and be like the sparrow in solitude. Sing with the spirit, sing also with the understanding.

[20] After a prolix discourse about the troubles of marriage, the profit of virginity, the love of solitude: and other things pertaining thereto, at num. 24 he begins to invite the Virgin to the love of solitude and silence. Incline not, he says, thine ear to words of malice. For often, speaking something unseemly, they tempt the mind's judgment. If thou, a Virgin, gladly hear what is said; if thou art dissolved at every jest, whatever thou sayest they praise, whatever thou deniest they deny: they call thee witty and holy, and one in whom is no guile, etc. … We are led by a natural evil. We gladly favour our flatterers, and although we answer that we are unworthy, and a warm blush suffuses our face, yet within the soul rejoices at its praise. The Spouse of Christ is the ark of the Testament, gilded within and without, the keeper of the law of the Lord. As in it there was nothing else but the tables of the Testament, so in thee let there be no thought of what is outside … Let there be no one to hinder thee, not mother, not sister, not kinswoman, not brother: the Lord has need of thee, etc. He adds much at length, to withdraw the Virgin from the commerce of men and join her to God alone, and again at num. 26 addresses her thus: And so, my Eustochium — daughter, lady, fellow-servant, sister (for one name is of age, another of merit, another of religion, another of charity) — hear Isaiah speaking: "My people, enter into thy chamber. Shut thy door, hide thyself a very little while, until the anger of the Lord pass by." Outside the foolish virgins wander; be thou within with the Spouse.

[21] At num. 27 he excellently warns her to beware of vainglory: on fleeing empty glory, This too must be more cautiously avoided by thee, that thou be not caught by the ardour of vainglory. After other things he says: Let thy dress be neither too clean nor squalid, and notable by no singularity, lest the crowd of passers-by stand still to meet thee and thou be pointed at with the finger … Neither wish to seem too religious, nor more humble than is needful, lest by fleeing glory thou seek it. For very many, avoiding witnesses of their poverty, mercy and fasting, desire by this very thing to please, that they despise pleasing: and in a wonderful manner praise is sought after while it is shunned. To the other perturbations, by which the mind of man rejoices, sickens, hopes and fears, I find many strangers. Of this vice very few there are who have been free; and he is the best who, as in a fair body, is sprinkled with but a rare blemish. Nor indeed do I warn thee not to glory in riches, not to boast of the nobility of thy family, not to prefer thyself to others. I know thy humility … I know that with thee and with thy mother the pride by which the devil fell has utterly no place. Whence it were superfluous to write to thee about it … But lest this very thing beget boasting in thee, that thou hast despised the world's boasting; lest a silent thought creep in, so that, because thou hast ceased to please in gilded garments, thou shouldst strive to please in squalor; and, if ever thou comest into a gathering of brethren or of sisters, thou shouldst sit low and plead that thou art unworthy of a stool. Jerome, that is, disapproves affected humility, and adds: Do not of set purpose make thy voice thin, as though worn out with fasts; nor, imitating the step of one who is failing, lean upon another's shoulders. Those hypocrites who do this he presently pursues with a sharp discourse.

[22] and commerce with suspect persons. Again at num. 29 he exhorts her to beware of commerce with suspect persons, and not to treat with them even of doubts concerning holy Scripture. With various snares, he says, does the crafty enemy fight … If thou art ignorant of anything, if thou doubtest anything of the Scriptures, ask him whom his life commends, whose age excuses, whose reputation does not condemn; … or, if there be none who can expound it, it is better to be ignorant of something in safety than to learn it with peril. This admonition teaches that a Virgin must not treat even with churchmen or monks unless their reputation is unblemished. So a little later he teaches that neither with

those virgins or widows is familiarity to be contracted who, idle and inquisitive, go about the houses of matrons. Meanwhile he mixes in other precepts as well: If there are any handmaids who are companions of thy purpose, be not lifted up against them, be not puffed up as a mistress. You have begun to have one Spouse, you sing psalms together, you receive together the Body of Christ: why should your table be different? Thus he teaches that the good are to be honoured, the others to be instructed, and the bad avoided. Presently he subjoins: Neither wish to seem eloquent in speech, or gay with lyric songs, or to sport with metre. Do not, in thy daintiness, follow the enfeebled lisping of matrons, who now with clenched teeth, now with loosened lips, govern a stammering tongue into half-formed words, thinking everything rustic that is natural. Presently he calls her away, by his own experience, from profane authors.

[23] He exhorts her to the contempt of all earthly things, Then at num. 31 he exhorts the Saint at length to the flight of avarice, or rather to the love of voluntary poverty. The evil of avarice must be avoided by thee too, not that thou shouldst not covet what belongs to others; … but that thou shouldst not keep thine own things, which are alien to thee … Weights of gold and silver are alien to us; our possession is spiritual … The thought of one's living is the thorns of faith, the root of avarice, the care of the heathen. But thou sayest: I am a delicate girl, and one who cannot labour with my hands. If I come to old age, if I begin to be sick, who will pity me? Hear Jesus speaking to the Apostles: "Think not in your heart what you shall eat: nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the soul more than the meat, and the body more than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feedeth them." If clothing be lacking, let the lilies be set before thee. If thou art hungry, hear that the poor and hungry are blessed. If any pain afflict thee, read (the Apostle): For this cause I please myself in my infirmities, etc. So he goes on to cut off every excuse, and reports the life of various monks, heaping up good examples and bad, that he may teach that the whole burden of riches is to be cast off at one stroke: and he concludes with these words directed to Eustochium: Setting the examples of these (monks) before thee, thou shalt, despising not gold and silver and the other riches, but earth and heaven themselves, and being joined to Christ, sing: The Lord is my portion.

[24] Then about prayer, at num. 37, he gives these precepts: about prayers to be poured out at set hours, After these things, although the Apostle bids us pray always, and to Saints even sleep itself is prayer, yet we ought to have set hours of prayer divided off, so that, if perchance we have been detained by some work, the very time may admonish us to the duty. The third hour, the sixth, the ninth, daybreak also and evening, there is none who does not know. Nor let food be taken but with prayer first, nor let one withdraw from the table without thanks rendered to the Creator. By night one must rise twice or thrice; the things which we retain by memory from the Scriptures must be gone over. Let prayer arm us as we go out of our lodging; let prayer meet us as we return from the street, before we sit down; nor let the poor body rest before the soul is fed. At every act, at every step, let the hand trace the cross of the Lord. These things about prayer; others follow presently. Detract from none, he says, nor lay a stumbling-block against thy mother's son … Nor, if thou hast fasted two days or three, think thyself better than those who fast not. Thou fastest and art angry: he eats and is kindly of countenance, etc. He adds other things to show that a man's virtue is not to be measured by fasting alone; and he concludes, cutting off rash judgments, in these words: Considering thyself, be not minded to glory in another's ruin, but in thine own work. Then he inculcates that the examples of the wicked, and chiefly of heretics, are not to be followed, and briefly sets forth the life of blessed Mary, the Mother of the Lord, to be imitated. And having hissed off the virgins of the heretics, he addresses Eustochium thus: Rejoice, sister; rejoice, daughter; rejoice, my Virgin: because what others feign, thou hast truly begun to be.

[25] Lastly Jerome, not ignorant how hard were the precepts he had given, and he adds strong incitements. strives to stir the Saint to their observance by the examples of Christ and the Saints, by the hope of an eternal reward, and by other reasons. All these things which we have set in order, he says at num. 39, will seem hard to her who loves not Christ. But he who has counted all the pomp of the world as refuse, and has held all things under the sun to be vain that he might gain Christ; who has died with his Lord and risen again, and has crucified the flesh with its vices and concupiscences, will freely proclaim: Who shall separate us from the charity of God? , etc. And having set forth the example of Christ, who suffered so much for the human race, he teaches that all the Saints suffered hard things, and asks: Is it not better to fight for a short time, to bear the rampart, to take up arms, to grow weary under the breastplate, and afterwards to rejoice as victor, than by the impatience of one hour to serve for ever? Nothing is hard to those who love; no labour is difficult to one who desires; as he proves by the example of Jacob loving Rachel. Then he rightly subjoins: Let us too love Christ, and always seek his embraces, and everything difficult will easily seem light: we shall count short all things that are long: and, wounded by his dart, we shall say at every moment of the hours: Woe is me! that my sojourning is prolonged, etc.* I pass over the rest, elegant and strong though it be, as I have generally omitted the proofs eloquently added. For I wished only to recount the precepts briefly, that from them the studious reader may gather what the character and virtues of St. Eustochium were. For neither do we doubt that she strove to observe them all, both because she had the same Jerome as her director until her death, and because she was afterwards often celebrated by his elogia as a most perfect pattern of Virgins.

[26] Now as regards the time at which St. Jerome gave the aforesaid precepts to St. Eustochium, it can easily be proved that they were written in the year 384, as will indeed be proved in St. Jerome. How great his care for her was thereafter [At what time these admonitions were written: afterwards, on receiving little gifts.] appears first from his 30th Letter (elsewhere the 150th) to Paula, where at num. 14 he says: Greet Blesilla and Eustochium, our young recruits … Greet the rest of the choir of chastity, and thy household church, for which I fear all things, even those that are safe, lest, while the father of the family sleeps, an enemy sow tares over it … No one is safe while a hostile army besieges. No one, as blessed Cyprian says, is safe enough who is near to peril. In the year 385, on the festival of St. Peter, that is on the XXIX day of June, St. Jerome received certain little gifts, namely a bracelet, a letter and doves … and a basket filled with cherries, from Eustochium, to whom he wrote on this occasion his 31st Letter (elsewhere the 19th). The holy doctor plays festively and devoutly out of the sacred Writings upon the little gifts received, and seriously warns the holy Maiden to be mindful of her purpose. And so, he says, that something of pepper also may bite thee, and that thou mayest even now remember the earlier Little Book (On the keeping of virginity), beware lest thou let go the ornaments of good works, which are truly bracelets for the arms; lest thou rend the letter of thy heart, which, delivered by Baruch, the profane king (Joakim, Jerem. 36) cut with a knife; lest, after the likeness of Ephraim, thou hear by Hosea: "Thou art become foolish, like a dove."

[27] Jerome writes back to Eustochium. Too austerely, thou wilt answer, and in a way not befitting a feast day. Thou thyself hast provoked such gifts: since bitter things are joined with sweet, and thou wilt receive their like from us, bitterness shall accompany praise. And on occasion of the cherries he exhorts her to fervour, alleging as his reason: For the Saviour loves nothing that is midway. And as, not refusing what is cold, he delights in what is hot, so in the Apocalypse he says that he will vomit out the lukewarm. Whence we must the more carefully provide that we celebrate a solemn day not so much by abundance of food as by exultation of spirit. Because it is very absurd to wish to honour by excessive fullness a martyr whom thou knowest to have pleased God by fastings. Thou must always so eat that both prayer and reading may follow thy food. But if this displeases some, sing the words of the Apostle: "If I yet pleased men, I should not be the handmaid of Christ." Thus did Jerome deal with Eustochium, whose virtue, known to him according to her age, the wise master strengthened the more by that severity.

elsewhere pexuit*.

elsewhere voce*.

elsewhere duceris*.

elsewhere Christi*.

§ III. The Saint sets out with her mother for Palestine: her monastic life at Bethlehem until her mother's last sickness.

[ ] St. Eustochium with her mother Paula in the year 385, Thus far we have seen St. Eustochium dwelling at Rome with St. Paula her mother, and in the last period placed under the discipline of St. Jerome, who was then living there also. But both St. Jerome and St. Paula, together with Eustochium, afterwards left Rome, and in the same year set out for Palestine, that they might pass the rest of their life at the manger of the Lord, that is, at Bethlehem. Baronius, and several others following him, referred that journey to the year 385. That opinion labours indeed under a notable difficulty from the words of St. Jerome about the time of St. Paula's death and about the years in which she dwelt in Palestine. For in her Epitaph he says that she died on the seventh of the Kalends of February, … Honorius Augustus for the sixth time and Aristaenetus being consuls, that is, in the year 404: and presently he adds: She lived in her holy purpose at Rome five years, at Bethlehem twenty years. Certainly twenty years cannot be found in the dwelling at Bethlehem, even incomplete ones, however much we include the journey itself, if she departed in the year 385; but only eighteen years with four or five months will be found. Nevertheless the opinion of Baronius and the others is to be followed, as I shall show at greater length in St. Jerome, where I had rather answer the opposing arguments, lest the same thing have to be done twice.

[29] That St. Paula departed with St. Eustochium in the month of August or September she sails to Palestine in the month of August or September, becomes most likely from Jerome, who in book 3 against Rufinus says that he with the companions of his journey went aboard ship at the Roman Port in the month of August. For no one doubts that Paula and Eustochium departed shortly after St. Jerome, so that it must necessarily be said that they sailed either in that same month of August or in the following September, especially since the voyage from Italy to Palestine is long, and winter might have come upon them as they sailed, had the journey been put off beyond September. But now, how bravely St. Paula left her own, St. Jerome sets out in the Epitaph, num. 6, where he makes mention of St. Eustochium thus: And despising the love of her children by a greater love of God, she rested in Eustochium alone, who was the companion both of her purpose and of her voyage. But if the fortitude of the mother Paula is deservedly celebrated with many elogia, no less praise seems to be deserved by the most brave soul of Eustochium in forsaking all things. For although she was scarcely seventeen years old, she could not be ignorant that all human or worldly consolations must be cut off from her in a foreign land, under a mother most devoted to poverty and a master

Jerome, who inculcated excellent precepts indeed, but ones difficult to human frailty and suited only to those who love God vehemently. These things, I say, St. Eustochium could not be ignorant of: but the Virgin, as brave as she was prudent, having overcome the enticements of the world, had already transferred all her love to heavenly things, and knew that divine help would in no way fail those who seek God alone.

[30] The journey the said Jerome briefly narrates, as may be seen in St. Paula. and with her she afterwards visits the holy places of Palestine and Egypt. This only I observe, that SS. Paula and Eustochium, when they had landed in Cyprus, came to St. Epiphanius, whom they had seen before at Rome, and were detained by him for ten days; not for refreshment, as he supposed, but for the work of God, as the event proved, says Jerome; for he writes that the monasteries of Cyprus were visited by them and helped by Paula's alms. From Cyprus they sailed into Syria, and came to Seleucia and thence to Antioch, to bishop Paulinus, likewise seen at Rome, by whose charity Paula with her Daughter is said to have been detained a little while. Presently he adds that St. Paula, thence in mid-winter, perhaps in the month of December, carried on an ass, continued the journey — her Daughter doubtless likewise carried — and he leads them through very many places to Jerusalem, where Paula refused the praetorium which the proconsul had ordered to be prepared for her, and chose a humble little cell; and she most devoutly visited the sacred places, without doubt again with Eustochium, who never withdrew from her mother, although Jerome speaks of her alone. The further journeys to Bethlehem, and thence to many places of Palestine and Egypt, I pass over, since all were given at the XXVI of January in St. Paula. It is only needful to remember that St. Eustochium, of whom we are treating, always clave to her mother. For, having related all the journeys through Palestine and Egypt, which seem to be tied to the year 386, he subjoins this: So far let her journey be described, which she made through with many virgins and with her Daughter as companion.

[31] She writes with her mother from Palestine to St. Marcella The journeys through the holy places of Palestine and Egypt being accomplished, St. Eustochium began to dwell constantly with her mother at Bethlehem, likely in that very year 386, about the beginning of which, by our chronology, they first came into Palestine. And how they applauded themselves on that new and quiet dwelling appears from the Letter which among Jerome's is the 46th (elsewhere the 17th), which was given in the name of Paula and Eustochium to St. Marcella, and likely written by St. Jerome. For what he wrote was composed after their mind, and approved by those whose name the Letter bears. They invite St. Marcella to leave Rome and come to Bethlehem, and begin thus: Charity has no measure, and impatience knows no bound, and desire brooks no delay. Whence we too, forgetful of our strength, and thinking only not what we can do but what we would, desire, as disciples, to teach our mistress, and, as the common proverb has it, the sow to teach her who invented the arts. Thou, who first didst put the spark to our tinder, who didst exhort us to this pursuit both by word and by example; and, as a hen, didst gather thy chicks under thy wings; wilt thou now suffer us to wander freely without our mother , and to dread the terror of the hawk, and to fear at every shadow of birds flying by? Therefore, which alone we who are absent can do, we pour out plaintive prayers, and attest our longing not so much with weeping as with wailing, that thou wouldst give back to us our Marcella, and wouldst not suffer her — that gentle one, that sweet one, that one sweeter than all honey and sweetness — to be stern towards those, and to wrinkle a sad brow at those, whom by her affability she called on to a like pursuit of life. Certainly, if what we ask is better, our desire is not shameless. If all the voices of the Scriptures agree with our judgment, we do not act boldly in calling thee to those things to which thou hast very often exhorted us.

[32] praising the quiet life at Bethlehem, Presently they begin to exhort her from the sacred Writings to leave her native land and to come to a land which, the more it is free from the delights of the world, they say, the greater delights of the spirit has it; and they bring forward much at length in praise of the Holy Land, chiefly for the sepulchre of the Lord and its very many holy places. The throng too of devout men, hastening thither from the most remote provinces, they commemorate in order to move Marcella. Then they set up a comparison between Rome and Bethlehem, at num. XI, in this manner: There is indeed there (at Rome) a holy Church, there are the trophies of Apostles and martyrs, there is the true confession of Christ, there is the faith preached by the Apostles, and, heathendom being trodden down, the Christian name daily raising itself on high. But the very ambition, the power, the greatness of the city — to be seen and to see, to be greeted and to greet, to praise and to detract, either to hear or to speak out, and to see so great a throng of men even against one's will — are alien to the purpose and the quiet of monks. For either we see those who come to us, and lose our silence: or we do not see them, and are charged with pride. And sometimes, to return the visit of those who visit us, we go to proud doors, and enter gilded doorposts amid the tongues of carping servants. But in the little village of Christ (Bethlehem), as we said above, all is rusticity, and outside the psalms there is silence. Wheresoever thou turnest thee, the ploughman holding the plough-handle sings Alleluia. The sweating reaper diverts himself with psalms, and the vine-dresser, pruning the vine with his curved knife, sings something of David's. These are the songs in this province: these, as the common saying is, are the love-songs: this is the shepherds' whistling: these are the weapons of husbandry.

[33] Their burning eagerness to see Marcella there they then declare thus: and ardently inviting Marcella to it. O when shall that time come, when a panting traveller shall bring the news that our Marcella has landed on the shore of Palestine; and all the choirs of monks, all the companies of virgins, shall ring with it? We are already eager to run to meet her; and, not waiting for a carriage, to bear our body swiftly on foot. We shall hold her hands, we shall behold her face, and shall scarcely be torn from the longed-for embrace. Shall that day then be, when it shall be permitted us to enter the cave of the Saviour, to weep at the sepulchre of the Lord with our sister, to weep with our mother (with Marcella, who was both mother and sister in the Lord)? Then to kiss the wood of the cross, and on the Mount of Olives to be lifted up in desire and mind with the ascending Lord? Then the places to be visited are enumerated, and at the end they conclude thus: And then, with Christ accompanying us, when through Shiloh and Bethel and the other places, in which churches are raised as it were the standards of the Lord's victories, we shall have returned to our cave, we shall sing continually, we shall often weep, we shall pray unceasingly, and, wounded by the dart of the Saviour, we shall say together: "I have found him whom my soul sought: I will hold him, and will not let him go." These things I have brought forward, that from them the prudent reader may gather how devout were the pursuits of those holy women. But St. Marcella never set out for Palestine; rather she went on giving at Rome the best examples of the religious life. Of the year in which this Letter was written we have nothing certain. This one thing is certain, that it was written in the earlier years of their dwelling in Palestine, and before the founding of the monasteries which were built there at St. Paula's cost, after they had dwelt, as Jerome has it, three years in a narrow little lodging. For by the words to our cave they sufficiently intimate that even then, when they were writing, they were living in that narrow little lodging.

[34] But about the first dwelling and the monasteries built, Jerome speaks thus in the Epitaph of Paula, num. 14, Monasteries built at Bethlehem by St. Paula: and the order in them, after relating all the journeys: And not long after, being to abide for ever in holy Bethlehem (Paula with Eustochium and the others), she remained three years in a narrow little lodging, until she should build cells and monasteries, and found lodgings for various pilgrims beside the way. If that three years was full, after the journeys, the building of the monasteries falls, by our chronology, in the year 389; if perhaps the journeys are included in the three years, and it was not complete, the monasteries will have been built already in the year 388. About which of the two years I determine nothing. Of the number of the monasteries there may be seen what was observed in the Commentary on the Life of St. Paula on the XXVI day of January. One was certainly of men, which she had handed over to men to govern, says Jerome at num. 19; the other of women, of whom he subjoins: The many virgins whom she had gathered from various provinces, as well noble as of middling and lowest family, she divided into three companies and monasteries; yet so that, though separated in work and in food, they should be joined in psalmody and prayers. Since one of the virgins living there was St. Eustochium, I subjoin the order kept there from the following words of Jerome: After the Alleluia was sung, he says (by which signal they were called to the assembly), it was lawful for none to remain sitting. And presently: In the morning, at the third hour, the sixth, the ninth, in the evening, at midnight, they sang the Psalter in order. Nor was it lawful for any of the Sisters to be ignorant of the Psalms, and not to learn something daily out of the holy Scriptures. On the Lord's day only did they go forth to the church, at whose side they dwelt. And each company followed its own mother: and returning thence together, they set to their appointed work, and made garments either for themselves or for the others. If any was noble, she was not permitted to have a companion out of her own house, lest, being mindful of her old doings, she should rub up again the ancient error of her wanton childhood, and renew it by frequent talk. The dress of all was one. Linen they used only for wiping the hands. So great was their separation from men that it kept them apart even from eunuchs. Then much is subjoined about the prudence of St. Paula in ruling them all. But on the words alleged it is well to observe some things.

[35] on which certain things are observed. The times of the canonical Office, now distinguished into seven Hours, are all expressed, except Compline. But the Office was not yet distinguished by that diversity of Psalms, Canticles, lessons and other lesser parts by which we have it composed today: nor did they sing divided into two choirs, but each in turn, the rest listening. On the Lord's day only did they go forth to the church, common to all the people, since on other days they were gathered in the oratory of the monastery. But what is subjoined, returning thence together they set to their work, etc., is not to be understood of the Lord's day, although the words seem to suggest it, but of the return from the daily assemblies. And it is not to be doubted that St. Eustochium showed herself most diligent in all things, as Jerome expressly asserts of her mother, whom alone he was there proclaiming. From the mother's austerity in food too a most likely conjecture will be made about St. Eustochium's continence. Of Paula Jerome says at num. 17: Who was of such continence that she almost exceeded measure, and brought on weakness of body by excessive fastings and labour. Who, save on feast days, scarcely took oil in her food, so that from this one thing it may be judged what she thought about wine and

sauce, and fish, and milk, and honey, and eggs, and the rest of the things that are sweet to the taste. From this abstinence of Paula's, I say, a conjecture may be made about her daughter Eustochium.

[36] The virtues of St. Eustochium But there is no need of conjectures, since Jerome himself in other places by no means passes over the virtue of Eustochium. For in his 66th Letter (elsewhere the 26th) to Pammachius, who had had Paulina, Eustochium's sister, as his wife, when he exhorts him to humble services, he produces the examples of Eustochium and Paula in these words: And when thou shalt have done all that I have said, thou art surpassed by thy Eustochium and Paula, if not in work, at least in sex. I indeed was not at Rome … when, while thy father-in-law Toxotius lived (Eustochium's father), they were serving the world. But yet I hear that they who could not bear the filth of the streets, who were carried in the hands of eunuchs, and crossed uneven ground with much trouble, to whom a silken garment was a burden and the sun's heat a burning, now, meanly clad and mourning, and, by comparison with their former selves, quite hardy, either trim the lamps or kindle the fire, sweep the floors, cleanse the pulse, throw bundles of herbs into the boiling pot, lay the tables, hand the cups, pour out the food, run hither and thither. And certainly a great choir of virgins dwells with them. Could they not command services of this kind to others? But they will not be surpassed in bodily labour by those whom they themselves surpass in virtue of soul.

[37] proclaimed by Jerome. In his 54th Letter (elsewhere the 10th) to Furia, a young and noble widow, who was joined to Eustochium either by affinity or even by blood, he says at num. 2: I say nothing of Paula and Eustochium, the flowers of your stock, lest under occasion of exhorting thee I should seem to praise them. Yet afterwards, at num. 13, he commends the virtues of Eustochium, as it seems, though he does not express the name, in these words: O if thou couldst see thy Sister, and it were thy lot to hear that eloquence of her holy mouth in thy presence, thou wouldst behold in a small poor body a mighty spirit. Thou wouldst hear all the furniture of the Old and New Testament glowing forth from her heart. She counts fastings for sport, prayer for delights. She takes the timbrel after the example of Miriam, and, Pharaoh being drowned, leads the song before the choir of virgins: "Let us sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously magnified: the horse and the rider he hath cast into the sea." These she teaches to be psalm-singers to Christ, these she trains to be harpers to the Saviour. So the day, so the night is passed, and, with oil prepared for the lamps, the coming of the Spouse is awaited. Imitate therefore thou too thy Kinswoman. Let Rome have what Bethlehem, more august than the city of Rome, possesses. St. Eustochium seems to be called the sister of Furia, because Blesilla her sister had been joined in marriage with Furia's brother, as the same Letter at num. 2 intimates. St. Eustochium did not yet count thirty years when St. Jerome wrote this, in the year 394, as they will have it, which will be examined in St. Jerome. Yet in the ten years in which she had been devoted to the study of holy Scripture under Jerome as master, St. Eustochium could have profited much.

[38] With wonderful praises too does St. Jerome adorn St. Paula and St. Eustochium in his 107th Letter (elsewhere the 7th) to Laeta, the wife of Toxotius, St. Eustochium's brother, to whom he writes about the upbringing of her only daughter, who was called Paula, like her grandmother, and who was hoped to increase the number of the sacred Virgins. And after many admonitions about her training, he exhorts Laeta to send her daughter to her grandmother Paula and her aunt Eustochium, to be trained by them in the monastery. Undertake not, he says at num. 13, a burden which thou canst not bear: but after thou hast weaned her with Isaac, and clothed her with Samuel, send her to her grandmother and her Aunt … Let her be nurtured in a monastery, let her be among the choirs of Virgins, let her not learn to swear, let her count lying a sacrilege, let her not know the world, let her live like an angel, let her be in the flesh without the flesh, etc. And presently: Deliver the little one to Eustochium … Deliver her as a companion of sanctity, a future heir. Let her look on her, love her, admire her from her earliest years, whose speech and gait and dress are a teaching of the virtues. Let her be in her grandmother's lap, etc. And after other things about Paula, he again subjoins this: Happy virgin, happy Paula the daughter of Toxotius, who through the virtues of her grandmother and aunt is nobler in sanctity than in family. O if it were thy lot to see thy mother-in-law and thy Kinswoman, and to behold in small poor bodies a mighty spirit; I should not doubt, for the modesty implanted in thee, that thou wouldst go before thy daughter — yet in desire only, because her husband was living, as Jerome himself afterwards observes. For the rest, Paula was afterwards sent to her aunt Eustochium and prudently trained by her, since St. Jerome makes honourable mention of her in some later Letters.

[39] The utmost zeal for the sacred Scriptures, with which St. Eustochium glowed no less than her mother Paula, She learned the Hebrew tongue, most observant of her mother, impelled them both to learn the Hebrew tongue also. A most abundant witness is St. Jerome in the Epitaph of Paula, num. 26, where he says that St. Paula so learned the Hebrew tongue that she sang the Psalms in Hebrew, and sounded forth the speech without any property of the Latin tongue. Which indeed, he says, we see even to this day in her holy daughter Eustochium: who so always clave to her mother, and obeyed her commands, that she never lay down without her, never went forth, never took food, nor had even one coin in her own power, but rejoiced that both her father's and her mother's small substance was distributed to the poor by her mother, and believed devotion to a parent to be the greatest inheritance and riches. Great indeed was this observance of St. Eustochium's. But the words alleged are not to be explained in the sense in which Tillemont explained them in St. Jerome, art. 107, as though St. Eustochium had never lain down without her mother, never gone forth without her mother, never eaten save with her mother, never had a coin of which she might dispose.

[40] and perfectly subject to her will. The facts themselves refuse such an exposition. For how is St. Eustochium said to have been nurtured in the chamber of St. Marcella, if she was never without her mother? How did Praetextata change the Virgin's dress and adornment, if she never departed from her mother's side? And so those words without her signify that the Saint did nothing against her mother's will or without her consent, and did not arrogate to herself the free disposal of goods, but disposed of them only as her mother willed: nay, above all Jerome intimates that Eustochium did not stand in the way of her mother's spending everything and keeping not even one coin for herself, as will be said at num. 54. Certainly I shall hardly believe that St. Paula laid out with her own hands everything that she gave to the poor or spent on the monasteries, or that she preferred to be helped by others rather than by her holy Daughter, who was afterwards to do the same. Tillemont wished inconsiderately to infer from the same passage that the Letter about the Little Gifts sent by Eustochium to Jerome, as was said at num. 26, was written after St. Paula's death, as though Eustochium could have received no little gifts from her mother to send in her own name to Jerome. For the Letter itself so plainly cries out that it was written at Rome to Eustochium while she was in her girlish years, that I can scarcely grasp how Tillemont did not see it.

[41] She read holy Scripture with St. Jerome expounding it, Let us return to the study of the Scriptures, which Eustochium shared with Paula under Jerome as master, at least in Palestine, so that whatever Jerome says in these matters about Paula we may believe to be said likewise about Eustochium. She held the holy Scriptures by memory, he says; and while she loved the history (that is, the literal sense, as they now speak) and called this the foundation of truth, yet she rather followed the spiritual understanding, and with this summit protected the building of her soul. In fine, she compelled me to go through the Old and the New Instrument with her Daughter, myself discoursing upon it. Which, refusing out of modesty, I nevertheless performed because of her assiduity and frequent requests, so as to teach what I had learned, not from myself, that is, from presumption, the worst of teachers, but from illustrious men of the Church. If ever I hesitated, and frankly confessed that I did not know, she would in no way suffer me to rest; but by continual questioning compelled me to indicate which out of many and various opinions seemed to me the more probable. Thus far Jerome, by whose testimony we understand that the Old and the New Instrument, that is, the whole of holy Scripture, was expounded by living voice to SS. Paula and Eustochium. And this seems to have been done in such a way that Paula or Eustochium read holy Scripture in order, perhaps by turns, and after some reading Jerome subjoined an interpretation, Paula asking and pressing further when a full solution of the difficulties that occurred was not given.

[42] and she is instructed by him by letter. This reading and exposition of holy Scripture will have been begun, I suppose, from the first years of their sojourn in Palestine, and will certainly have been finished before St. Jerome translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew tongue into Latin, and perhaps also before St. Jerome began there his Commentaries on holy Scripture. Of an exposition of this kind St. Jerome speaks in his Letter on Titus, at chap. 2, vv. 9 and 10: And sometimes the thief himself is cut off, sometimes sold for the theft, of which I remember that I lately expounded to you in Leviticus. I scarcely doubt, moreover, that St. Jerome expounded many things to Paula and Eustochium by letter, since in his book on Writers, chap. 135, enumerating his own lesser Works, he says: But of the Letters to Paula and Eustochium, because they are written daily, the number is uncertain. And we cannot doubt that most of them at least were written to expound the more difficult places of holy Scripture. Wherefore I conjecture that, after the reading and exposition of holy Scripture made by living voice was finished, there succeeded the explanation of the more difficult places by letter, the holy women asking about their doubts; but that most of these letters have perished, because Jerome did not wish them to be communicated to others. For in the preface to the Commentaries on the Epistle to the Ephesians he asks Paula, Eustochium and Marcella that his lesser Works be not easily handed over to the evil-tongued and the envious. But if he did not wish Commentaries written with greater care to become known at once to all, it is assuredly most likely that he much less wished any brief epistolary answers, given solely for the instruction of devout women, to come into the public light.

[43] Not yet content with instructions of that kind, the Saints Jerome inscribes Commentaries to Paula and Eustochium impelled St. Jerome by their exhortations also to write Commentaries on entire books of holy Scripture, and by name on some Letters of St. Paul. This St. Jerome declares at the beginning of his Commentary on the Letter to Philemon, where he addresses them thus: In a preposterous and perverse order it has pleased you that I should dictate on a Letter of Paul. For when you, O Paula and Eustochium, often asked that I should do it, and I stoutly refused to do it, at least the small one, and one which to you, as in the number of its verses, so also in sense and order

seemed the last, you compelled me to discourse upon. This Letter being expounded, Jerome presently passed to the Letter to the Galatians, where in the preface he addresses the Saints thus: It is very few days since, having interpreted Paul's Letter to Philemon, I had passed over to the Galatians, many being left out backwards in the middle; and behold, letters were suddenly brought me from the City, announcing both that Albina (Marcella's mother), that venerable old woman, had been rendered to the presence of the Lord, and that holy Marcella, bereft of her mother's fellowship, now the more demands your consolation, O Paula and Eustochium. And because this cannot be done meanwhile, on account of the great spaces of sea and land between, I would at least heal the wound suddenly inflicted with the medicine of the Scriptures … And so what I judge will be both very welcome to her who is absent and useful to you who are present, I shall undertake, etc. From these things we have that the Commentaries which Jerome wrote to Paula and Eustochium were communicated to Marcella as well.

[44] There followed the Exposition of the Letter to the Ephesians, as is clear from Jerome's words in the preface. on some Letters of St. Paul and on Ecclesiastes. And because we have already, at your prayers, a few days ago set out on the Galatians what seemed good to us: now we must pass over to the Ephesians. The Commentary was again directed to Paula and Eustochium, whose meditation and knowledge of the Scriptures he praises at the beginning; yet to be communicated again to Marcella, as is clear from these words: Wherefore I beseech both you who are present, and holy Marcella, that singular pattern of widowhood, that you do not easily hand over my lesser Works to the evil-tongued and the envious, and that you give not that which is holy to dogs. Nay, he even exhorts the Saints to some defence of him against envious detractors. To whom I beseech you to answer, he says, that they should themselves fix their pen; that they should join three words together, as the saying is: let them sweat a little, let them try themselves; and from their own labour let them learn to pardon those who labour. For you know yourselves that you compelled me to this work of explanations against my will and while I drew back. To Paula and Eustochium the Exposition of the Letter to Titus was again directed. And in the preface he seems to intimate that the city of Nicopolis belonged to them, since he has it thus: The Apostle therefore writes, O Paula and Eustochium, from Nicopolis, which, situated on the Actian shore, is now the greatest part of your possession. I doubt, however, whether Jerome attributes to Paula and Eustochium the very lordship of the city, as some understand the passage: for he could use the words alleged even if the Saints had only their chief possessions in that city of Epirus. For the rest, in what years St. Jerome wrote these things will be examined at the XXX of September. This only I here observe, that not long afterwards Jerome wrote to them on Ecclesiastes also, as he had wished to do at Rome for the sake of Blesilla, who died shortly after, as he says in the preface.

[45] To them he dedicates many translations of books from the Hebrew, Not a few other of his Works St. Jerome afterwards inscribed to SS. Paula and Eustochium, generally begging their prayers in the prefaces, and sometimes their defence against detractors. Thus, of the versions of holy Scripture from the Hebrew tongue into Latin, I find dedicated to Paula and Eustochium together the four books of Kings, two of which he called by the Hebrew name Samuel and the other two Malachim. In the preface he addresses them thus, though suppressing their names: But you also, handmaids of Christ, I ask — you who anoint the head of the reclining Lord with the most precious ointment of faith, who in no wise seek the Saviour in the tomb, for whom Christ has already ascended to the Father — that against the barking dogs who rage against me with rabid mouth … you would set the shields of your prayers. To them too was dedicated the version of the prophet Isaiah, in whose preface he names them and likewise begs their prayers. The version of Jeremiah, in whose preface, complaining of detractors, he says, And these things I suffer because you compel me, I judge to be again dedicated to our Saints; nay, and the version of Ezekiel too, in whose prologue he says, Read therefore this also according to our translation. For although Jerome omitted the names, yet by the words alleged Paula and Eustochium are in some sort intimated, because no one invited Jerome more to labours of that kind, no one read his Works more, than Paula and Eustochium, to whom he dedicated the version both of Daniel and of the twelve Minor prophets, as their names expressed in the prefaces make certain.

[46] as to women skilled in that tongue. That so many translations from the Hebrew into the Latin tongue were dedicated by Jerome to Paula and Eustochium, the studious reader will wonder at less if he attentively considers how much they availed in the understanding of the Hebrew tongue and of holy Scripture. In the preface to the translation of the book of Esther, again inscribed to them, Jerome briefly intimates this in these words: But you, O Paula and Eustochium, since you have studied to enter the libraries of the Hebrews, and have approved the contests of the interpreters, holding the Hebrew book of Esther, look at our translation word by word, that you may be able to recognize that I have not increased anything by addition, but with faithful testimony have simply delivered the Hebrew history to the Latin tongue, as it is had in the Hebrew. The versions thus far reported are printed in tom. 9 of the Works of St. Jerome of the Verona edition. I pass on to the tenth volume, in which are contained several versions or corrections from the Greek and other tongues.

[47] Although I find nothing clearly asserted in Jerome about the Greek tongue being known to St. Eustochium, Paula knew Greek too, and most likely Eustochium: yet I can scarcely doubt that St. Eustochium was skilled in the Greek tongue as well as her mother Paula. Of the latter Jerome intimates this while treating of another matter, in the Epitaph at num. 28, when he says that Paula, when near death, answered him in Greek as he asked her something. Paula therefore knew the Greek tongue, nor do I doubt that Eustochium learned it in her girlish years, imitating her mother in all things save marriage; especially since Jerome in his 107th Letter to Laeta, num. 9, among the precepts for bringing up the younger Paula, mentions this: Let her learn (daily, namely, as is added before) a number of Greek verses. Wherefore it is by no means to be believed that the Greek tongue, as being sufficiently in use among noble Romans at that time, was unknown to the virgin Eustochium. This I wished to observe before I produce the translations or corrections from the Greek tongue dedicated to her and to her mother together, which I shall recount in the order in which they are had in tom. 10, intending to investigate in Jerome the time at which each was published.

[48] First there occurs the book of Job, as it was made Latin from the Greek by Jerome (for he afterwards translated the same from the Hebrew and Arabic) and collated with the Hebrew. [to whom Jerome dedicates the book of Job translated from the Greek and other things.] And dedicating this to our Saints, Jerome addresses them in the Prologue in this manner: Wherefore, O Paula and Eustochium, singular pattern of nobility and of humility, instead of a fan, baskets and little hampers, the small gift of monks, receive these spiritual and abiding gifts: and rejoice that blessed Job, who among the Latins still lay in the dunghill and swarmed with the worms of errors, is whole and unspotted. The Psalter, corrected in like manner according to the Greek text of the Seventy interpreters, and likewise collated with the Hebrew, Jerome offered to the same Saints, whose Preface begins thus: The Psalter I had corrected long ago while placed at Rome, and had, though cursorily, amended it in great part according to the Seventy interpreters. And because you see, O Paula and Eustochium, that it is again corrupted by the fault of the copyists, and that the old error prevails more than the new correction, you compel me to work over, as with a fresh breaking-up, the field already cleft, and with slanting furrows to root out the springing thorns, saying that it is right that what often sprouts up ill should the oftener be cut down, etc. In the same form St. Jerome corrected, according to the Greek text, the three books of Solomon, that is, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs; and he dedicated them to Paula and Eustochium, as may be seen in his Preface, tom. 10, col. 435. These things, to be treated more at length in the Life of St. Jerome, I have wished to recount briefly, that the studious reader may perceive how much the Church owes to SS. Paula and Eustochium, who beyond all others chiefly impelled St. Jerome to his learned labours in correcting the sacred codices, and helped him with their wealth.

[49] Just as we have seen that St. Jerome was stirred by Paula and Eustochium to write Commentaries on some Letters of St. Paul, To them he writes his first Commentaries on the Prophets, so they doubtless impelled him to the interpretation of the Prophets. And of these Commentaries part was dedicated to both together, part to Eustochium alone after Paula's death, part to divers others. Which of them the holy doctor dedicated to Paula and Eustochium together, he himself sets out in the Preface to book 3 on Amos in these words: In a preposterous and confused order we have both begun the Work on the twelve Prophets, and, with Christ's help, shall complete it. For we have not discoursed upon them from the first to the last according to the order in which they are read, but as we could and as we were asked. Nahum, Micah, Zephaniah and Haggai I first φιλοπονοτάταις to Paula and her daughter Eustochium προσεφώνησα, that is, expounded. That the Expositions of these four Prophets were dedicated to them, the very prefaces prefixed to each confirm, from which I shall presently bring forward a few things. And from the words alleged I observe that the said Saints, who are named by a Greek word most loving of labour or most diligent, first asked Jerome to expound the Prophets, since he says that he expounded them as he had been asked, and inscribed his first Commentaries to them, nay, and promised them more, as we shall see hereafter.

[50] and some Works of the ancients Some carped at St. Jerome because he inscribed his Works chiefly to women, as he himself declares in the Preface to Zephaniah, refuting them. Before I approach Zephaniah, he says, it seems that answer must be made to those who think me to be laughed at, because, passing over men, I write chiefly to you, O Paula and Eustochium. Who, if they knew that Huldah prophesied while the men were silent, … would never behind my back curve the hand into a stork. He adduces a company of women more excellent than men, and among them the most blessed Mary, the Mother of the Lord, and many heathen women too, to prove that brave women, such as Paula and Eustochium were, are by no means to be despised, but are even to be far preferred to those men who are of a womanish mind. I pass over other things, and briefly note that various Works of the Greek doctors also were rendered into Latin at the request of Paula and Eustochium, as will be more fully set out in Jerome.

[51] he makes Latin out of the Greek, And among these are the thirty-nine Homilies of Origen on Luke, printed in tom. 7 from col. 245, where he thus begins his preface to the Saints: A few days ago you said that you had read certain men's Commentaries on Matthew and on Luke: of which the one was both dull in sense and in words; the other played with words and slumbered in its judgments. Wherefore you asked that, such trifles being despised, I should interpret at least the thirty-nine Homilies of our Adamantius on Luke, as they are had in the Greek; a troublesome thing and like a torment, to write, as Tully says, for another's stomach and not one's own: which nevertheless I now for this reason

shall do, because you ask nothing more sublime … For you perceive how much both your authority and your will avail with me. I have laid aside for a little the books of Hebrew Questions, that at your judgment I might dictate in gainful works these things, such as they are, not mine but another's. At the end he adds this: Besides, I have arranged within a few days to send you the Commentaries of that most eloquent man Hilary, and of the blessed martyr Victorinus, which they published on Matthew in differing speech but with one grace of the Spirit, that you may not be ignorant how great a zeal for the holy Scriptures there once was among our own men also (that is, the Latins).

Minervam*.

elsewhere pateris*.

i.e. Testamentum*.

elsewhere volebat*.

§ IV. The services rendered by Eustochium to her mother in her last sickness: she undertakes the charge of the monastery: Works dedicated to her by Jerome.

[ ] Services rendered to her sick mother: the Saint grieves for her death St. Paula died in the year 404, on the XXVI day of January, after a sickness perhaps long enough. In which languor, says Jerome in the Epitaph at num. 28, the devotion of her daughter Eustochium towards her mother, always approved, was the more approved by all. She herself sat by the little bed, held the fan, supported the head, put the cushion under her, rubbed her feet, cherished her stomach with her hand, arranged the soft coverings, tempered the warm water, laid the napkin, forestalled the services of all the handmaids, and whatever another had done, counted as taken from her own reward. With what prayers, with what laments and groaning did she run between her mother lying there and the cave of the Lord, that she might not be deprived of so great a companionship, that she might not live in her absence, that she might be borne on the same bier? So much about her services in the sickness. And having related her death and the solemnity of the funeral, he subjoins this about St. Eustochium: Her venerable virgin daughter Eustochium, like a weaned child upon its mother, could not be torn from her parent: kissing her eyes, clinging to her face, embracing her whole body, and wishing to be buried with her mother. These things indicate Eustochium's grief and her vehement love towards her holy mother. But Jerome utters no word by which it is suggested that the Saint indulged womanishly in excessive weeping or laments.

[53] The contrary rather he intimates, when immediately after relating the death he subjoins: with piety rather than womanishly; Thenceforth there were no howlings, no beatings of the breast, as is wont to be done among the men of the world, but swarms of Psalms rang out in divers tongues. Of this singing of Psalms, after relating the concourse of an innumerable multitude, he again says: In the Greek, Latin and Syriac tongue the Psalms sounded in order, not only for three days, until she was laid beneath the church and near the cave of the Lord, but through the whole week. Therefore, as her grief was just and great, so was it also worthy of a holy Virgin, since it neither hindered the offices of Christian piety nor poured itself out into unseemly laments. The grief too of Jerome himself was no less than that of Eustochium. For in the Epitaph, which he composed not long after, he says to Eustochium at num. 32: This book I have dictated for thee in two nights' brief labour, with the same grief that thou sustainest. In his 99th Letter (elsewhere the 31st) to Theophilus of Alexandria he says that he had written nothing, so worn out was he by the falling asleep of the holy and venerable Paula. And of Eustochium he says: Thy holy and venerable daughter Eustochium, who receives no consolation for her mother's absence, … humbly greets thee. The cause of grief common to them both he declares in these words: For we have suddenly lost, as thou thyself knowest, that solace which (as the Lord is witness of our conscience) we count not for our own necessities, but for the refreshment of the saints, whom she solicitously served.

[54] From these things let the studious reader gather how great a care fell upon Eustochium alone, although she received nothing of riches by inheritance, and how great a fortitude she needed lest she should sink under grief and the mass of cares. Her mother Paula, mighty with immense riches, had erected two monasteries, one of men, the other of women; and she supported both with her own wealth, and fed also vast flocks of the poor; but in all things she had her daughter Eustochium as helper. All this care devolved upon Eustochium, destitute of her mother's wealth, and helped by the present solace of none of her kindred. Let us hear Jerome speaking in various places in the Epitaph about the inheritance of St. Eustochium. She left all her own poor — she herself (Paula) poorer than they, he says at num. 2. Nor is it wonderful to bring forth these things about kinsfolk and her little household, whom, of either sex, out of men-servants and maid-servants she had changed into Brethren and Sisters, when she left Eustochium, a virgin and devoted daughter of Christ, in whose consolation this little book is forged, far from her noble family, rich only in faith and grace. Then at num. 15 he says that Paula had this as her vow, … that she might not leave one coin to her Daughter. And presently: In fine she obtained what she desired, and left her Daughter in great debt: which, still owing it, she trusts to repay, not by her own strength, but by the mercy of Christ. Again at num. 30: Jesus is witness that not even one coin was left by her to her Daughter, but, as I have already said before, a great debt was left: and, what is harder than this, an immense multitude of Brethren and Sisters, whom it is arduous to support and impious to cast off.

[55] but was burdened with debt. That that lavish liberality of her mother towards the poor and towards pious works did not displease St. Eustochium, Jerome testifies at num. 26, when he says that she so obeyed her mother that she had not even one coin in her own power, but rejoiced that both her father's and her mother's small substance was distributed to the poor by her mother, and believed devotion to a parent to be the greatest inheritance and riches. For what is chiefly intimated by these words, which I have already warned were not rightly understood by some, is this: that Eustochium did not wish even one coin to be kept for her inheritance, but saw with joy all the wealth poured out upon the poor. Nor does the Saint seem to have borne that poverty of hers with a less brave mind than she had seen her wealth poured out by her mother's kindly and devout affection towards the poor. For neither would Jerome, when he was writing for the consolation of Eustochium, have so often repeated that not even one coin was left her, unless he had known that she bore it bravely. For this cause he addresses her thus at num. 31: Be secure, Eustochium; thou art enriched with a great inheritance. The Lord is thy portion: and, that thou mayest rejoice the more, thy mother has been crowned with a long martyrdom. And so Jerome deservedly proclaimed the excellent fortitude of Eustochium in the words given at num. 13: deservedly does he say of her in the Epitaph, num. 4: Eustochium, who is now in the holy places a precious jewel of virginity and of the church.

[56] The Saint undertakes the charge of the virgins, The care of the monastery of virgins St. Eustochium took up after her mother's death, and bore it easily for the fifteen or sixteen years by which she survived. Palladius in the Lausiac History, where he had treated of St. Paula, subjoins this about St. Eustochium at chap. 126: Whose daughter is even now exercised at Bethlehem, by name Eustochium, whom I did not meet. But she is said to be most chaste, having a community of fifty virgins. Palladius wrote this towards the end of St. Eustochium's life, so that we cannot be certain from him about the number of virgins whom she received to rule and support at the beginning after her mother's death. But whether the number was a little greater or less, I judge that not only was the government of them undertaken by Eustochium, which is certain, but that the discipline of the monastery was by her, with St. Jerome's help, better fitted to the monastic laws of others. For St. Jerome, among the first things which he wrote after Paula's death, rendered the Rule of St. Pachomius into Latin, as it is now had in print in tom. 2 from col. 53.

[57] And in the Preface he says that he does this in order to break the long silence kept out of grief for St. Paula's death, and the Rule of St. Pachomius for her sake restoring myself, he says, to my former studies, and refreshing the soul of that holy woman (Paula), who always burned with love of monasteries, and meditated here on earth what she was to see in heaven: and that her venerable virgin daughter Eustochium might have something to give the Sisters to do: and that our Brethren might follow the examples of the Egyptians, that is, of the Tabennesiot monks, etc. From these things I gather three points: first, that St. Paula meditated something in her life which she did not complete, but which after her death was completed by Eustochium, or at least under her government, since Paula was to see it in heaven: secondly, that either the Rule of St. Pachomius was prescribed by Eustochium to the Sisters of the monastery, so far as laws given to men suited women also, or at least that laws were composed out of that Rule which the nuns should observe: for Jerome translated the Rule that Eustochium might have — namely out of that Rule — something to give the Sisters to do, that is, by a certain and fixed law. There is no reason to doubt that this is the very thing which Paula had meditated.

[58] Thirdly, St. Jerome clearly intimates that the Rule was made Latin by him St. Jerome renders it into Latin. that the monks over whom he presided might follow it. Most excellent indeed is the Rule of St. Pachomius, and it will have pleased SS. Jerome and Eustochium on this head too, that the study of the sacred Scriptures is prescribed in it at chapters 139 and 140, where these words are read: And altogether there shall be no one in the monastery who does not learn letters, and hold something of the Scriptures: at the least as far as the New Testament and the Psalter. These things, I say, doubtless pleased wonderfully Jerome and Eustochium, most loving of sacred Letters; but neither will the rest have displeased them, since all the precepts of that Rule were so prudently prescribed for the circumstances of places and times and for the condition of those monks, that they can easily be believed to have been ordained according to the precept of God and of the angel, who came, sent to them for this very institution, as Jerome has it in the same place.

[59] St. Jerome had not yet completed the translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew into the Latin tongue [At her request he translates other books of the Old Testament from the Hebrew into Latin,] when he gave the said Rule to the Latins to read. Not long after, however, Eustochium asked him to render the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth from the Hebrew into Latin, as Jerome intimates in the Preface to the book of Joshua, where he says of all three: But after the falling asleep of holy Paula, whose life is a pattern of virtue, and these books (Joshua, Judges and Ruth, named before), which I could not refuse to Eustochium the virgin of Christ, we have determined, while the spirit rules these limbs, to apply ourselves to the explanation of the Prophets, etc. And so he gave these three books to the prayers of St. Eustochium before he resumed the interrupted explanation of the Prophets. But he names the book of Esther too with the three already named in the said Preface, so that it also seems to have been translated after Paula's death at Eustochium's prayers, although in the Preface prefixed to it it is offered to Paula and Eustochium together, as was said

at num. 46. And so an ambiguous doubt arises about the time of the translation of the book of Esther, which will be treated at greater length in St. Jerome, to whom it more nearly belongs.

[60] The Explanations of the Prophets St. Jerome dedicated to divers persons. He expounds the Prophet Isaiah in prolix Commentaries The earlier ones, inscribed to Paula and Eustochium, we have already seen; then others followed, after which he proceeded to Isaiah, dedicated to Eustochium. The holy doctor begins the Prologue thus: The twenty books of Explanations on the twelve Prophets being scarcely completed in a long time, and the Commentaries on Daniel, thou compellest me, Eustochium, virgin of Christ, to pass over to Isaiah: and to render to thee what I promised to thy holy mother Paula while she lived. Which indeed I remember that I promised also to that most learned man, thy brother (by his marriage with her dead sister Paulina) Pammachius: and since thou art equal to him in affection, thou overcomest him by thy presence. And so both to thee, and to him through thee, I render what I owe … Whence, supported by the help of thy prayers, who day and night dost meditate in the Law of God, and art a temple of the Holy Spirit, I shall imitate the Father of the family, who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old. Jerome wrote eighteen books on Isaiah, and prefixed to each a Preface to Eustochium, of which some things pertain to our purpose. Her prayers, as in almost all of them, he asks in the Preface to the second book in these words: Whence I beseech thee, Eustochium, virgin of Christ, that, while we contend in the explanation of the Scriptures, thou wouldst with Moses lift up thy hands to the Lord.

[61] and dedicates it to her, In the fifth Prologue he offers her the book written before, and says: Now I am compelled, most laborious Eustochium, to write Commentaries on the whole Prophet; and he begs her prayers after his custom. In the eighth he excuses his prolixity, as arising from the obscurities of Isaiah, and adds: Certainly we write for the studious, and for those desiring to know holy Scripture; not for the fastidious, and those who are nauseated at every point. But he does not bring forward such things on account of Eustochium herself, who desired the fullest explanation, but in order to answer others, and those perpetual detractors of whom he often complains. And how much he esteemed the judgment of St. Eustochium he sufficiently declares in the Preface of the tenth book, where he intimates that he sought her counsel also about the division of the books, saying that that book would be smaller than the rest, and subjoining this: And so, as thou hast wished, Eustochium, virgin of Christ, and as it has been pleasing to us in common, as I dictated the earlier ones before, so I shall dictate both this and the remaining books, if Christ grant it, so that I may couple the prophecies together, and not tear them apart and rend them into the end of one and the beginning of another. In the twelfth he says: And I judge that there will be some who contend that this very thing, that I address my discourse to thee, Eustochium, lies open to detraction, not considering that Huldah and Anna and Deborah prophesied while the men were silent, and that in the service of Christ the difference of sexes in no way avails, but of minds. These words not obscurely intimate that Jerome had a higher esteem for the learning and virtue of Eustochium than for that of most men.

[62] often intimating how much he esteemed the Saint In the Preface of the thirteenth book, which he dictated in hurried speech while sick, before the book itself was finished, Jerome clearly shows how much he esteemed the prayers of Eustochium, since he dictated that little preface itself in order to beg them, and used these words: Wherefore, Eustochium, in the whole world the singular pattern of nobility and of virginity, let not the pupil of thine eye be silent, and cry in thy heart: "Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord?" that the work enjoined on Isaiah I may, at thy prayer and by Christ's mercy, complete. Jerome completed the Work, and more after it. And in the Preface of the following book he says that he was healed with incredible swiftness. And presently: And do thou, virgin of Christ Eustochium, who didst help me by thy prayers when I was sick, implore the grace of Christ for me now that I am healed, that by the same spirit by which the Prophets sang things to come I may be able to enter into their cloud, etc. Eustochium's great learning in the Scriptures is shown by the Preface of the sixteenth book, which Jerome begins thus: It is an excellent saying of that most eloquent orator, that the arts would be happy if the craftsmen alone judged of them. To prove this he brings forward that word of holy Scripture: Blessed is he who speaks into the ears of those who hear. And he immediately subjoins: Of which happiness thou, daughter Eustochium, hast made me a partaker. For when thou wast reading the little preface of the earlier book, in which I asserted that the Apostles and Evangelists put forward from the Seventy interpreters, or in their words, only those testimonies which agreed with the Hebrew, thou didst straightway lay before me no small little question, namely that the Apostle made use of eight verses which are read in the churches and are not had in the Hebrew, of the thirteenth Psalm … Which when I had heard, as though I had been struck by a most powerful boxer, I began silently to burn, and to mark the stupor of my mind by the pallor of my face, etc. A strong objection indeed it was, but after diligent inquiry Jerome resolved it not unhappily.

[53] To the eighteenth and last book Jerome again declares in the prefaces. for whose sake he composed those excellent and prolix Commentaries on Isaiah, and to whom he dedicated them, addressing the Saint thus: The eighteenth book on Isaiah, nay the last, is dedicated, O daughter Eustochium, to thy name and to that of thy holy mother Paula, that those whom I regarded with equal honour I may now recall with equal commemoration, especially since she too, while she lived, together with thee more than once demanded this Work, and that most learned man thy brother Pammachius ceased not, both then and afterwards, to urge it by frequent writings: and since for me the religion, that is, the charity, of friends present and absent, and of men and women sleeping in Christ, is the same, being of souls, not of bodies. These things sufficiently show that Jerome did not dedicate his Works without a choice of persons, and that he conferred that honour only on those whom he greatly esteemed. And since St. Eustochium and St. Pammachius, conspicuous alike for nobility, virtue and learning, sought these Commentaries together, he preferred St. Eustochium for them, yet so that she should see to their being carried to Pammachius also. To St. Pammachius, however, he also wrote a few lesser Works, and by name some Commentaries on the Minor Prophets, which will likewise have been communicated to St. Eustochium.

[64] After the death of St. Pammachius and of holy Marcella, St. Jerome undertook to expound, At Eustochium's request and urging he expounds Ezekiel and to dedicate to Eustochium, the prophecy of Ezekiel, as he declares in the Prologue, beginning thus: The eighteen volumes of Explanations on Isaiah being finished, I desired to pass over to Ezekiel, which I have often promised to thee and to thy mother Paula of holy memory, O virgin of Christ Eustochium, and to put, as they say, the last hand to the prophetic Work. Then he says that he was troubled by sad news of the death of Pammachius, of Marcella and of others, and of the taking of the city of Rome by the Goths, and that for that cause the Work was interrupted. But because, he says, thou unceasingly demandest this, … I shall approach the Prophet Ezekiel. In the Preface of the third book he says that he had laid aside the Explanations on Ezekiel because of the poor who were flocking into Palestine on occasion of the taking of the City, and adds: Whence, being again admonished by thee, O virgin of Christ Eustochium, we resume the interrupted labour, and, having begun the third volume, desire to satisfy thy longing. I pass over the words of Jerome in which he frequently asks the prayers of Eustochium, and subjoin the beginning of the Preface to the twelfth book; for from it is clear how zealously she stirred Jerome to explanation. My trepidation, he says, in explaining the temple of Ezekiel, nay my perseverance in keeping silence, thy prayers, daughter Eustochium, and the promises of the Lord have overcome, who says: "Ask, and you shall receive: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you." He adds also the arguments by which she had exhorted him to go on, and subjoins: I shall therefore comply with thy will, etc.

[65] and inscribes it to her, In the Preface of the thirteenth book, after he had said much about the excessive difficulty of explaining the temple of Ezekiel, he addresses the holy Virgin thus: Wherefore to thee, daughter Eustochium, who dost gladly receive our writings, of whatever sort they be, I wish it attested, and briefly remind thee of that saying of Victorinus the rhetorician, that thou mayest know that the obscurity of volumes arises from three things, either the greatness of the matter, or the unskilfulness of the teacher, or the dullness of the hearer: of which the first and the second I shall plainly confess in this Work; the third the keenness of thy wit and thy desire of the Scriptures easily refuses, who by thy virginal privilege and the continence of thy diet possessest God as a guest, I will not say frequent, but continual. In the Preface to the fourteenth book, and that the last, he says: Which (book), if, at thy prayer, I shall have carried through to the end, and the Lord shall grant me space of this life, I shall pass over to Jeremiah, who alone of the Prophets remains to us. The holy doctor completed his Commentaries on Ezekiel, but not so those on Jeremiah, in the midst of which he died: nor did he offer these to St. Eustochium, although here he promises her the exposition of Jeremiah.

§ V. She excellently trains Paula, her brother's daughter: she suffers much from the Pelagians: the year of her blessed death is investigated.

[ ] She receives her brother's daughter Paula in the monastery, It remains for us to gather the few things which still remain to be said about St. Eustochium. First it is established from the Letters of St. Jerome, and from elsewhere too, that the younger Paula, whom we have already mentioned at num. 38, was sent to her aunt St. Eustochium. Yet she was not yet in Palestine when in the year 404 her grandmother St. Paula died there. For this is sufficiently gathered from the words of St. Jerome in the Epitaph of St. Paula, where at num. 26 he says of St. Paula: I ought not to pass over in silence with how great joy she exulted, because she had heard that Paula her granddaughter, born of Laeta and Toxotius, nay conceived by vow and by the promise of her future virginity, sang ALLELUIA in her cradle and among her rattles with stammering tongue, and broke into half-formed words the names of her grandmother and her Aunt. In this alone had she a longing for her native land, that she might know that her son (Toxotius), her daughter-in-law (Laeta), and her granddaughter (Paula) had renounced the world and were serving Christ. Which in part also she obtained. For her granddaughter is reserved for the bridal veil of Christ, etc. Tillemont, art. 97, says that from the words alleged it cannot be gathered whether the younger Paula was then at Rome or at Bethlehem. But Jerome's very silence about Paula's coming to Bethlehem, which would have brought wonderful joy to her grandmother Paula, sufficiently intimates that she was not there before St. Paula's death. For if he says that St. Paula rejoiced at the half-formed words of a stammering infant, much less would he be silent about her gladness at her coming into the monastery. The very age of the younger Paula, who, when St. Paula died, we believe to have been about four or five years old, does not allow us to say that she was already then in the monastery, to which she perhaps came a whole ten years later. For the time at which she came to her aunt St. Eustochium is nowhere indicated.

[67] The first mention of the younger Paula as living with St. Eustochium at Bethlehem is made by Jerome in his 134th Letter (elsewhere the 94th) to St. Augustine, where he speaks of them both thus: Thy holy and venerable daughters,

Eustochium and Paula, and trains her well: both known also to SS. Augustine and Alypius. walk worthily both of their family and of thy exhortation, and specially greet thy blessedness. This Letter is fixed in the year 416; and thence it is gathered that Paula came before the year 416, since mention is not made of her as of a virgin recently brought thither. From the words alleged it is further gathered that St. Augustine had at some time sent letters of exhortation to those holy virgins, which have perished. In their name, as I judge, Jerome greets St. Augustine in his 142nd Letter (elsewhere the 81st) in these words: The holy Brethren who are with our littleness, and chiefly thy holy and venerable daughters, humbly greet thee. They were known also to St. Alypius, bishop of Tagaste, the friend of St. Augustine: for in the last Letter of St. Jerome, in which Jerome mentions the death of St. Eustochium, he has it thus about Paula: Your granddaughter Paula piteously beseeches you to be mindful of her, and greets you much. She was not a blood-relation of Alypius or Augustine, but seems to be called granddaughter on account of her tender age, since with Eustochium she had before been called daughter. From these things it is gathered that Paula was excellently trained by St. Eustochium. Moreover, from the presence of the younger Paula there arises a most likely conjecture that St. Eustochium did not lack supplies sent from her Roman kinsfolk, with which she might support her monastery, and also free herself from the debt which St. Paula had contracted while she lived.

[68] But in the year 416, as it seems, she sustained a bitter storm, The Saint's monastery is burned and plundered by the Pelagians, brought on by the hatred of heretics, which seemed to threaten ruin to the whole monastery, and dispersion, or perhaps even worse, to the holy virgins. That it was the supporters of Pelagius who perpetrated those crimes, St. Augustine indicates in his book On the Doings of Pelagius, towards the end, where he has it thus: But about those things which after this judgment (given in the council of Diospolis) are said to have been perpetrated there with incredible audacity by some band or other of abandoned men, who are reported to support Pelagius in a very perverse way — so that servants and handmaids of God belonging to the care of the holy presbyter Jerome were afflicted with a most wicked slaughter, a deacon was killed, the buildings of the monasteries were burned, and a stronger tower scarcely protected him from this onset and assault of the impious, by the mercy of God — I think that we should rather be silent, and await what our brother bishops there may judge should be done about such great evils, etc. Thus St. Augustine, after he had discoursed of the synod of Diospolis, not indeed naming Eustochium and Paula, but clearly designating them by the handmaids of God belonging to St. Jerome's care. And the time becomes known through the synod of Diospolis, which was held at the end of the year 415. Yet St. Augustine does not say that that violence was brought upon the monasteries of Jerome and Eustochium immediately after the council was concluded, and therefore it is believed to have befallen in the year 416.

[69] Eustochium and Paula complained of the violence brought upon their monastery by letters given to St. Innocent, the Roman Pontiff, of which she complained very modestly to St. Innocent: because they feared still worse things, as St. Jerome also complained. We understand this from three letters of St. Innocent written on this account, from which nevertheless it is not clear that Eustochium and Paula sent letters, but it becomes more likely that St. Jerome laid the complaints before the Pontiff in his own name and theirs. The name too of the wicked men who had done the wrong was not expressed in the letters. The letters of St. Innocent were published by Baronius, and were afterwards reprinted by several, but they are not free from faults arising from age, or from the ignorance or negligence of the copyists. To John, bishop of Jerusalem, Innocent chiefly intimates how much Eustochium and Paula had suffered, at least in their own people, when he begins the Letter thus: Plunderings, slaughters, burnings, every crime of the utmost madness , the most noble holy virgins Eustochium and Paula have lamented that the devil has perpetrated in the places of thy church: for the name of the man and the cause they have kept silent. And although it is not doubtful, and by whom it was committed, yet it behoved thy brotherhood to keep watch, and more solicitously to provide for that flock, lest anything of the like should arise. The Pontiff declares his suspicion of the connivance of John of Jerusalem, as will be more fully set out in Jerome. But of what the virgins had suffered Innocent afterwards mentions this: And we have heard that such lambs, by burning, by arms and by persecutions, naked and enfeebled, after the slaughters and deaths of their own people, scarcely live. And a little after, addressing John: Where were thy provisions? Where at least, if the mishaps had befallen, were thy helps or consolations? Since they say that they still fear more than they complain of having suffered. I should judge more deeply, if they had spoken with me somewhat more openly about this matter. From the words given it is abundantly gathered that a most grievous vexation, and still graver terrors, were brought upon St. Eustochium and her monastery: but that she herself acted very moderately, in that she did not name the authors of so great a crime — although this too may have come about because the chief among them could be known only by suspicions, and had done nothing by their own hand. Instead of extremae dementiae some have published extremae clementiae, and refer those words to Eustochium and Paula, and change several other things. But the reading given pleases me best, as much more fitting, since after plunderings, slaughters, burnings it is aptly said, every crime of the utmost madness, and less rightly every crime with no adjunct: and again, the words of the utmost clemency are set forth very inelegantly of the two virgins by the following most noble holy virgins.

[70] grave were the losses of the monastery; But whatever be the case as to the variety of readings, it is established first that St. Eustochium suffered those grave things together with St. Jerome because she was opposed to the Pelagian heresy, and most likely also because she supported St. Jerome. For with how great hatred the Pelagians pursued Jerome will be more fully set out at the XXX of September. It is established secondly, both from Augustine and from Innocent, that certain buildings of the monastery were burned, and plunderings of goods made. Thirdly, St. Innocent mentions slaughters in the monastery of St. Eustochium too; nor is this to be expounded of beatings only, but also of death inflicted on some, since he says, after the slaughters and death of their own people. These will have been servants or handmaids who tried to oppose themselves to the invaders. For nowhere is it said that any of the holy virgins were killed. That a deacon was killed, likely in the monastery of St. Jerome, St. Augustine asserts; but neither says that virgins were slain. Nor do I know from what words Tillemont persuaded himself of what he asserts in St. Jerome, art. 138, that Eustochium herself and Paula scarcely escaped naked and enfeebled while arms and fire were raging. For neither does Innocent seem to say this; but he speaks, so far as the faulty words suggest, of the wretched state to which they had been reduced by burning, by arms and by persecutions, being naked, that is, deprived of temporal goods and buildings, and enfeebled, the help of their servants and handmaids being taken away, so that they scarcely had whereof to live. This sense those words altogether intimate: we have heard that they scarcely live. Of this most grievous loss Jerome also makes mention in his 139th Letter (elsewhere the 56th), written about the year 417, in these words: But our house, as regards carnal riches utterly overthrown by the persecutions of the heretics, is, Christ being favourable, full of spiritual riches. For it is better to eat bread than to lose the faith.

[71] The impious heretics likely did this in order that Eustochium might be compelled to leave the monastery, yet the Saint did not desert it, save perhaps for a short time. and Jerome to betake himself elsewhere. And indeed Jerome, in his 138th Letter (elsewhere the 55th), treating of these matters, seems to hint something about a change of place. Yet, if Jerome and Eustochium did leave their monasteries, it will have been done for a short time, as will be more fully said in Jerome, and so the impious heretics were disappointed of their hope: for after the time in which these things were done Palladius wrote, cited at num. 56, and while he was writing St. Eustochium was dwelling at Bethlehem, and had there a community of fifty virgins. It is established also that she died and was buried there a few years later, so that it is likely that the buildings which had been consumed by fire were gradually restored, and the other losses repaired by the help of the devout. But since the impious likely raged chiefly against the books and writings of St. Jerome, it perhaps came about from this plundering of the monastery that many Letters of St. Jerome given to SS. Paula and Eustochium utterly perished, because they had not been communicated to others, as having been given for their private instruction or that of the monastery.

[72] The Saint's death is more probably to be fixed in the year 419. Of the death of St. Eustochium St. Jerome makes mention in his 143rd Letter (elsewhere the 79th), which is believed to be the last of all his Letters, to Alypius and Augustine, who had asked of Jerome whether he had answered the books of Annianus the Pelagian. And he answers, among other things: Know that I received those books, sent in sheets by our holy brother Eusebius the presbyter, not long ago: and that thereafter, whether from the sicknesses that came upon me or from the falling asleep of your holy and venerable daughter Eustochium, I so grieved that I thought them almost to be despised. From the epoch of this Letter the year of St. Eustochium's death is gathered. For in St. Jerome I shall show that the Letter must be fixed in the year 419, about the month of August or September. And she had died not indeed long before the said Letter, yet long enough for St. Jerome to have abstained from writing on her account. And so the blessed death of Eustochium must be fixed in the year 419; but on an uncertain month and day, yet most likely before the XXVIII of September, on which she is honoured, and perhaps also in the earlier part of the year.

elsewhere clementiae*.

elsewhere suae*.