embrace the monastic life, and of whom Jerome
gives this account: "Her father's death left her an orphan, and she had
been married less than seven months when her husband was taken from her.
Then, as she was young and highborn, as well as distinguished for her
beauty and her self-control, an illustrious consular named Cerealis paid
court to her with great assiduity. Being an old man, he offered to make
over to her his fortune so that she might consider herself less his wife
than his daughter. Her mother Albina went out of her way to secure for
the young widow so exalted a protector. But Marcella answered: 'Had I a
wish to marry and not rather to dedicate myself to perpetual chastity, I
should look for a husband and not an inheritance; and when her suitor
argued that sometimes old men live long while young men die early, she
cleverly retorted: 'a young man may die early, but an old man cannot
live long.' This decided rejection of Cerealis convinced others that
they had no hope of winning her hand."

Marcella may indeed be termed the prioress of the community of ascetics
which gathered in her house and in that of Paula on the Aventine hill.
She studied Hebrew with Jerome, and became so proficient in Scriptural
exposition that, after the latter's departure for the Holy Land, even
the clergy would bring to her for solution such questions as were too
difficult for them. When Alaric and his Goths sacked the city of Rome,
the prayers and the evident holiness of Marcella induced the barbarians
to spare her life and the honor of the virgin Principia, who dwelt with
her, and they even left her house unmolested.

Another shining light in that Aventine circle was Asella, who had been
dedicated to the Church from her tenth year. Her fastings may be said to
have been almost unintermittent, so that Jerome thought it was only by
the grace of God that she survived until her fiftieth year without
weakening her digestion. "Lying on the dry ground did not affect her
limbs, and the rough sackcloth that she wore failed to make her skin
either foul or rough. With a sound body and a still sounder soul she
sought all her delight in solitude, and found for herself a monkish
hermitage in the centre of busy Rome."

Among the good women of that day were also Albina and Marcellina, who
were the sisters of Saint Ambrose. Marcellina made a public profession
of virginity before a great congregation which gathered on Christmas day
in the Church of Sai