ipia, and
Feliciana also belonged to her circle,--all of noble birth and great
possessions. Her own daughter, Blessella, was married to a descendant of
Camillus; and even the illustrious Fabiola, whose life is so charmingly
portrayed by Cardinal Wiseman, was also a member of this chosen circle.

It was when Rome was the field of her charities and the scene of her
virtues, when she equally blazed as a queen of society and a saint of
the most self-sacrificing duties, that Paula fell under the influence of
Saint Jerome, at that time secretary of Pope Damasus,--the most austere
and the most learned man of Christian antiquity, the great oracle of the
Latin Church, sharing with Augustine the reverence bestowed by
succeeding ages, whose translation of the Scriptures into Latin has made
him an immortal benefactor. Nor was Jerome a plebeian; he was a man of
rank and fortune,--like the more famous of the Fathers,--but gave away
his possessions to the poor, as did so many others of his day. Nothing
had been spared on his education by his wealthy Illyrian parents. At
eighteen he was sent to Rome to complete his studies. He became deeply
imbued with classic literature, and was more interested in the great
authors of Greece and Rome than in the material glories of the empire.
He lived in their ideas so completely, that in after times his
acquaintance with even the writings of Cicero was a matter of
self-reproach. Disgusted, however, with the pomps and vanities around
him, he sought peace in the consolations of Christianity. His ardent
nature impelled him to embrace the ascetic doctrines which were so
highly esteemed and venerated; he buried himself in the catacombs, and
lived like a monk. Then his inquiring nature compelled him to travel for
knowledge, and he visited whatever was interesting in Italy, Greece, and
Asia Minor, and especially Palestine, finally fixing upon Chalcis, on
the confines of Syria, as his abode. There he gave himself up to
contemplation and study, and to the writing of letters to all parts of
Christendom. These letters and his learned treatises, and especially the
fame of his sanctity, excited so much interest that Pope Damasus
summoned him back to Rome to become his counsellor and secretary. More
austere than Bossuet or Fenelon at the court of Louis XIV., he was as
accomplished, and even more learned than they. They were courtiers; he
was a spiritual dictator, ruling, not like Dunstan, by an appeal to
supersti