Appendix I
APPENDIX I troversy had estranged him for ever from the friend of his youth.
Finally, the pilgrims came to Bethlehem, where they settled, and in the monasteries built there Jerome carried on his literary work, Paula and Eustochium acting as his secretaries, and kept up a constant correspondence, not only with his disciples in Rome, but with friends all over the world.
To Marcella, especially, he wrote constantly, and when her mother died, Paula and Eustochium urged her to join them in Palestine. 1
She, however, had no wish to leave Rome and continued to live her life there, somewhat more austere and more definitely conventual after the loss of her mother, till she died after the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410, which Jerome graphically describes in a letter in praise of her life, written to the virgin Principia who had taken Eustochium's place as Marcella's constant companion. 2
Fabiola, however, came to visit her friends at Bethlehem, and under the escort of her kinsman Oceanus, Jerome's friend and correspondent, made a pilgrimage through the Holy Land and even thought of settling down there for the rest of her life, but the threatened invasion of the Huns in 394, the danger of which was so imminent that the monks and nuns of Bethlehem left their monasteries and took refuge on the sea-coast, caused her to abandon this idea and she returned to Rome. 3
Jerome's letters show how close a connection the solitaries of Bethlehem kept up with their Roman friends, and he still acted as a spiritual director to his disciples, exhorting one against a 1 Letter XLVI., 386 a.d.
2 Letter CXXVII.
Cf. Letter LXV.
Letter LXXVII.
7 and 8.
APPENDIX I second marriage,1 instructing others on the education and upbringing of their children,2 condoling with others on the loss of friends or relations. 3
Paula too kept in close touch with her children and felt deeply the successive loss of those whom she had left in Rome.
Her youngest daughter Rufina had died a year or two after her mother's departure ; 4 and in 394 her second daughter Paulina died.
Pammachius, heartbroken at the death of his young wife, gave away all her fortune to the poor and himself assumed the habit of a monk though he continued to take his seat in the senate and fulfil his public duties, he devoted his life to the care of the poor and joined with Fabiola, till her death in 399, in maintaining a hostel for pilgrims at Ostia. 5
The marriage of Toxotius brought Paula some comfort.
Soon after her departure he became a Christian, and afterwards married Laeta, a devout Christian, though her father Albinus, Marcella's cousin, was a pagan.
There was one child of this marriage, a second Paula who was dedicated to the cloister from her birth.
Her mother asked Jerome for advice on her education; 6 and it was by his counsel that she was sent to Bethlehem to be brought up in the convent there.
But before this her father and grandmother were both dead.
The peace of Paula's last years had been disturbed, not only by the death of her children, one after the other, and by her own ill-health caused
1 Letter LIY.
2 Letters CVII. and CXXVIII.
3 Letters LXVL and LXXVII.
4 Letter CVIII.
Cf. Letters LXVL and LXXVII. 10.
" Letter CVII.
APPENDIX I by the austerities which she practised, but also by the theological disputes which had alienated Jerome from his early friend Rufinus and which caused dissension throughout the Christian world.
After Paula's death in 404 Eustochium took over the government of the nunnery, and continued to work as Jerome's secretary; his correspondence was as active as ever—with Rome, Gaul, Spain and Africa.
Eustochium too died and was succeeded by her niece the younger Paula, and it was she who nursed the aged Jerome in his last illness in the following year.
Note .—In addition to the works referred to, pp. xv-xvi, an interesting account of Jerome's circle in Rome is given in Mrs.
Oliphant's "Makers of Modern Rome,"
Chs.
I. -VI., and in Lady Herbert's "Wives and Mothers in the Olden Time"
(Bentley, 1885); and especially in Copland Perry's " Sancta Paula " (London, 1902).