[4] Jerome was a church father in early Christian history who is well known for translating the Holy Bible into Latin and encouraging the practice of asceticism.

[2] After the death of her husband around 380, Paula and her daughter Eustochium lived in Rome as austere a life as the fathers of the desert.

About the year 384 she made a vow of perpetual virginity, on which occasion Jerome addressed to her his celebrated letter De custodia virginitatis (Ep.

[3] In 386 they accompanied Jerome on his journey to Egypt, where they visited the hermits of the Nitrian Desert in order to study and afterward imitate their mode of life.

[6] The three convents, which were under the supervision of Paula, had only one oratory, where all the virgins met several times daily for prayer and the liturgy of the hours.

Eustochium spoke Latin and Classical Greek with equal ease and was able to read the scriptures in the Hebrew text.

[5] Her task was a difficult one on account of the impoverished condition of the temporal affairs which was brought about by the lavish almsgiving of Paula.

It is alleged[12] that this was instigated by John II, the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Pelagians against whom Jerome had written what were considered sharp polemics.

Both Jerome and Eustochium informed Pope Innocent I by letter of the occurrence, who severely reproved the patriarch for having permitted the outrage.