A member of one of the richest senatorial families which claimed descent from Agamemnon,[6] Paula was the daughter of Blesilla and Rogatus, from the great clan of the Furii Camilli.

While on pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Egypt, with Jerome and her daughter, Eustochium, she visited monks and other ascetics including Paulinus of Nola, Melania the Elder, Rufinus of Aquileia and Isidore the Confessor.

[7] A year after the death of her husband, Paula pursued a pilgrimage to tour all of the holy sites, traveling with large entourages of both men and women[13] including her daughter Eustochium and Jerome himself.

[12] Paula could undertake this voyage due to her widow status which left her a significant fortune, and the important fact that she had given birth to a healthy male heir and that two of her daughters had married aristocrats, allowing her exemption from remarriage and giving her what a researcher called "ascetic freedom".

Paula added a roadside hostel, which apparently only served to accommodate aristocratic pilgrims, who also stayed at Jerome's strictly male monastery.

[13] The new monastic establishment took three years to complete[failed verification] and was primarily sourced by Paula who,[12] during this time of construction, stayed at the hostel of another monastery in Bethlehem.

[12] During its functioning, Jerome and Paula's retreat attracted large crowds of visitors both from Christian backgrounds and general travelers from a variety of regions including Ethiopia, Persia, and India.

The result of this inclusion, alongside their growing admittance of monks and nuns, left Paula and Jerome's retreat to face financial hardship, having their resources strained.

In order to recover costs, which were also depleted by Paula's considerable donations to the needy, Jerome sold his family's property in Italy and Dalmatia.

[12] While practicing this life of isolation, Paula still continued to interact with local clergy and bishops and maintained devout attention to teaching the nuns under her sovereignty.

[13] Jerome's letter from 404 moreover indicates Paula's first-hand connection with relics from Christ's passion, "she was shown the pillar of the church which supports the colonnade and is stained with the Lord's blood.

Feminist authors writing in the late 19th and early 20th century, such as Ellen Battelle Dietrick and John Augustine Zahm, attribute to Paula (and, to a degree, to her daughter Eustochium) a much more comprehensive role in Jerome's work, crediting Paula with first suggesting to him the translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, resulting in his major oeuvre, the Vulgate, as well as in helping him along with the translation, editing Jerome's manuscripts, providing him the money needed for purchasing the necessary works, and eventually copying the text and putting it into wider circulation.

[23] Nancy Hardesty, a leading figure in the US evangelical feminist movement[25] whose publishing and public activity career started in the 1960s and peaked in the 1970s, wrote in 1988 about Paula in a popular Christian history magazine, speaking of how she paid Jerome's living expenses, and agreeing with several points from Dietrick and Zahm.

"[28] The paleographer Sarah Powell interprets this as predicting the long-lasting influence of the entire literary oeuvre left behind by Jerome and his contemporaries of the Augustan age.

[26] The official Vatican News presents as Paula's main merit the fact that she had "suggested the need" for the Bible's translation into Latin, and together with her daughter "copied the work so it could be shared far and wide.