PAULA

In the city of Rome when its imperial strength had faded, to seek

pleasure and to give one's self to display had taken the place of

honest work and sober duty. The time of which we speak was the fourth

century. Affairs of government had been moved to Constantinople, and

the effects of the conduct of great matters in their midst was thus

denied the Romans.

The populace, fed for ages on public doles and the terrible gaiety of

gladiatorial shows had become thoroughly debased, and unable to work

out their own bettering. The persons having riches were likewise

degraded by a life of luxury and senseless extravagance. Men of that

type aired themselves in lofty chariots, lazily reclining and showing

to advantage their carefully curled hair, robes of silk embroidery and

tissue of gold, to excite the admiration and envy of plainer livers.

Their horses' harness would be covered with ornaments of gold, their

coachmen armed with a golden wand instead of whip, and troups of

slaves, parasites and other servitors would dance attendance about

them. With such display the poor rich creatures would pass through the

streets, pushing out of the way or trampling and crushing to the dust

whomsoever they might chance to meet--very much as some automobilists

act to-day. Brutality and senseless show always are hand in glove with

each other.

The rich women of Rome well matched such men. Their very shoes

crackled under their feet from excess of gold and silver ornament.

Their dresses of cloth-of-gold or other expensive stuff were so heavy

that the wearers could hardly walk, even with the aid of attendants.

Their faces were often painted and their hair dyed and mounted high on

the head in monstrous shapes and designs.

Creeping into such a life as we have just been describing came the

pure and simple precepts of Jesus--and they doubtless found many a

soul athirst and sick with folly and coarse regard for riches. For

years the Christians had been persecuted and many of their number

gaining the strength that poverty and persecution bring. In opposition

to the luxury-loving spirit, also, had risen among a number an austere

denial of all pleasure, and such persons sought a solitary life in a

cave or other retired spot. The deserts were mined with caverns and

holes in the sand in which hermits dwelt, picking up food as best they

might, their bones rattling in a skin blackened by exposure--they were

starving, praying and agonising for the salvation of their own souls

and for a world sunk in luxury and wickedness.

Now and then one of these hermits would leave his country solitariness

and go to some city with a mission of converting vice to virtue. Among

these was a man whom we know as Jerome, or Saint Jerome. He was a

native of a village on the slope of the Illyrian Alps, and his full

name was Eusebius Hieronymus. Inflamed with a zeal for doing great

works, loving controversy and harsh and strong in conflict, Jerome

sought Rome after years of study and prayer in the desert. In Rome he

came to be a frequenter of a palace on the Aventine in which a number

of rich and influential women held meetings for Christian teaching and

sought a truer and purer life.

Of all these women we best know Paula. No fine lady of that day was

more exquisite, more fastidious, more splendid than she. She could not

walk abroad without the support of servants, nor cross the marble

floor from one silken couch to another, so heavily was gold interwoven

in the tissue of her dresses. Her eldest daughter, Blaesilla, a widow

at twenty, was a Roman exquisite, loving everything soft and

luxurious. It was said of her that she spent entire days before her

mirror giving herself to personal decoration--to the tower of curls on

her head and the touch of rouge on her cheeks. Paula's second

daughter, Paulina, had married a young patrician who was Christian.

The third member of the family, a girl of sixteen, was Eustochium, a

character strongly contrasting with her beautiful mother and sister.

Even in early years she had fixed her choice upon a secluded life and

shown herself untouched by the gaudy luxury about her. And to this the

following pretty story will bear witness. An aunt of hers was

Praetextata, wife of a high official of the Emperor Julian, and like

the Emperor a follower of the old faith in the gods rather than the

new faith in the teachings of Jesus. The family of Paula were,

however, as we said, Christian.

This aunt Praetextata saw with some impatience and anger what she

considered the artificial gravity of her youthful niece, and when she

heard that the maid had said she intended never to marry, and purposed

to withdraw from the world, she invited Eustochium to her house on a

visit. The young vestal donned her brown gown, the habit of humility,

and all unsuspicious sought her aunt. She had scarcely found herself

within the house, however, before she was seized by favourite maids,

who were interested in the plot. They loosed Eustochium's long hair

and elaborated it in curls and plaits; they took away her little brown

gown and covered her with silk and cloth-of-gold; they hung upon her

precious ornaments, and finally led her to the mirror to dazzle her

eyes with the reflection she would find in the polished surface.

The little maid with the Greek name and pure heart, let them turn her

round and round and praise her fresh and youthful beauty. But she was

a girl who knew her mind, and was blessed with a natural seriousness.

Her aunt's household she permitted to have their pleasure that day.

Then again she donned her little brown gown; and wore the habit all

her life.

To return to Jerome: he had hardly arrived in Rome when he was made

secretary of a council held in that city by ecclesiastics in the year

382. During his stay he dwelt in the house upon the Aventine in which

such women as Paula had been meeting. The little community were now

giving up their excessive luxuries and were devoting their time and

income to good works, to visiting the poor, tending the sick and

founding the first hospitals. To the man of the desert the gentle life

must have been more agreeable. In this retreat he accomplished the

first portion of his great work, the first authoritative translation

of the entire Canon of Scripture--the Vulgate--so named when the Latin

of Jerome was the language of the crowd.

But he did not work alone. Paula and other women of the community

helped in the translation. They studied with enthusiasm the

Scriptures in Hebrew and in Greek; they discussed phrases difficult of

understanding, and often held their own opinions against the learned

Jerome whose scribes they were willing to be.

Thus began the friendship between Paula and Jerome, which was deepened

by the death of Blaesilla. This eldest daughter of Paula had a serious

illness. One night, in a dream or vision, Jesus seemed to appear to

her and take her by the hand and say, "Arise, come forth." Waking, she

seemed to sit at the table like Mary of Bethany. From that night her

whole life was changed. She gathered together her embroidered robes

and her jewels and sold them for the poor. Instead of torturing her

head with a mitre of curls, she wore a simple veil. A woollen cord,

dark linen gown and common shoes replaced the gold embroidered girdle,

the glistening silks and the golden-heeled shoes. She slept upon a

hard couch. Like others of her family she was finely intelligent, and

she became one of the "apprentices" of Jerome, who wrote for her a

commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes, "Vanity of Vanities."

Her conversion was enduring, but her health failed. In a few months

another attack of fever laid her low. Her funeral was magnificent.

Paula, according to Roman custom, accompanied her child's body to the

tomb of her ancestors, wild with grief, lamenting, and, at last,

fainting, so that she was borne away as one dead.

The people were enraged. They accused Jerome, and other "detestable

monks" of killing the young widow with austerities. "Let them," they

said; "be stoned and thrown into the Tiber."

For days Paula wept and refused to see her friends. Jerome, because he

had understood, loved and reverenced her child, she consented to

admit. Paula listened to his telling her that she "refused nourishment

not from love of fasting, but from love of sorrow"; that "the spirit

of God descends only upon the humble," and she arose and went forth.

Nothing ever interrupted the friendship which from that time made the

joy of her life and of Jerome's.

It was in the summer of 385, nearly three years after his coming to

Rome, and not a year after the death of Blaesilla, that Jerome left

"Babylon," as he called the tumultuous city. An affectionate company

followed him to the seaport. Soon after Paula prepared for her

departure, dividing her patrimony among her children. Her daughter,

Paulina, was now married to a good and faithful husband, and these two

undertook the charge and rearing of their youngest sister and the

little Toxotius, a boy of ten. The grave young Eustochium, her head

now covered by the veil of the devotee, clung to her mother's side, a

serene figure in the midst of all the misunderstanding and agitation

of the parting.

Friends poured forth from the city to accompany them to the port, and

all the way along the winding banks of the Tiber they plied Paula with

entreaties and reproaches and tears. She made no answer. She was at

all times slow to speak, the chronicle tells us. She freighted a ship

at the port, Ostia, and retained her self-command until the vessel

began to move from the shore where stood her son Toxotius stretching

out his hands to her in last appeal, and by his side his sister

Rufina, with wistful eyes. Paula's heart was like to burst. She turned

her eyes away, unable to bear the sight, and would have fallen but

for the support of the firm Eustochium standing by her mother's side.

The rich Roman lady, luxury-loving, had become a pilgrim. She had,

however, according to the interpretation of the Christian spirit of

that day, in renouncing her former life and all its belongings, set

aside natural ties. Now she was going forth to make herself a home in

the solitude of Bethlehem.

Her ship was occupied by her own party alone, and carried much baggage

for this emigration for life. It came, hindered by no storms, to

Cyprus, where old friends received Paula with honour, and conducted

her to visit monks and nuns in their new establishments. She afterward

proceeded to Antioch, where Jerome joined the party, and then along

the coast of Tyre and Sidon, by Herod's splendid city of Caesarea and

by Joppa rich with memories of the early apostles of their faith.

Paula, the pilgrim, was no longer a tottering fine lady, but a strong,

animated, interested traveller.

The little company continued on their tour for a year. They first

paused, at Jerusalem, and here the tender, enthusiasm of Paula found

its fullest expression. She went in a rapture of tears and exaltation

from one to another of the sacred sites. She kissed the broken stone

which was supposed to have been that rolled against the door of the

Holy Sepulchre, and trod with pious awe the path to the cave where the

True Cross was found. The legend of Helena's finding the cross was

still fresh in those days, and doubts there were none.

The ecstasies and joy of Paula, which found their expression in

rapturous prayers and tears, moved all Jerusalem. The city was

thronged with pilgrims, and the great Roman lady became their wonder.

The crowd followed her from point to point, marvelling at her frank

emotion and the warmth of her natural feeling.

From Jerusalem the party set out to journey through the storied

deserts of Syria. This was in the year 387. They stopped everywhere to

visit those monasteries built in awful passes of the rocks and upon

stony wastes that the penance of the indwellers might be the greater.

They found shelter with tanned and weather-beaten hermits in their

holes and caverns. They poured upon them enthusiastic admiration, and

shared with them their Arab bread and clotted milk, and also gave many

an alm. Paula fascinated by the desert, would stay there and found a

convent. But Jerome prevailed upon her to turn toward Jerusalem.

Thus they came to green Bethlehem, and the calm sweetness of the place

and its pleasant fields smote their hearts. Here they determined to

settle and build two convents--Jerome's upon the hill near the western

gate and Paula's upon the smiling level below. He is said to have sold

all that he had, and all that his brother, his faithful and constant

companion, had, to gain money for the expense of his building. Paula,

doubtless, had ample means from her former great wealth. Indeed, after

her own was builded she had two other convents put up near by, and

these were soon filled with devotees.

Also, she built a hospice for the reception of travellers, so that, as

she said with tender smile and tears in eyes, "If Joseph and Mary

should return to Jerusalem, they might be sure of finding room for

them in the inn." This gentle speech shines like a gleam of light upon

the little holy city, and shows us the noble, natural kindness of

Paula, and how profoundly she had been moved by associations to her

most sacred and holy. Every poor pilgrim passing her door must to her

sympathetic heart have had some semblance to that simple pair who

carried the Light of the World to David's little town among the hills.

Paula now laying aside wholly the luxurious habits of her life, set

the example of simple and industrious living by washing floors and

cleaning lamps and other household work. But she was far from ceasing

her studies.

Jerome every day laboured at his great translation, and Paula and

Eustochium copied, compared and criticised his daily labours. A great

part of the Vulgate he had completed in Rome. His two friends had,

doubtless, shared his studies during their long journey. They now read

with him every day a portion of the Scriptures in the original; and it

was at their entreaty and with their help that he began the

translation of the Psalms. The following is a sympathetic description

of the method of this work as it was carried out in the rocky chamber

at Bethlehem, or in the convent close by:

His two friends charged themselves with the task of collecting

all the materials, and this edition, prepared by their care, is

that which remains in the Church under Jerome's name.... It is

pleasant to think of the two noble Roman ladies seated before

the vast desk upon which were spread the numerous manuscripts,

Greek, Hebrew and Latin... whilst they examined and compared,

reducing to order under their hands, with piety and joy, that

Psalter of St. Jerome which is still sung to-day.

So on a whole their days passed in fruitful labour. Jerome held a

school for boys and young men, in which he taught the classics. But

his great work, and the great work of Paula and Eustochium, was the

translation of the Bible into what was then the speech of the people.

For this they spared no pains nor costs. They must have found a quiet

happiness above all they had calculated in this work. Their minds and

thoughts must have been held by the charm of the noble poetry, by the

puzzle of words to be cleared and read aright, by the constant

interest of accomplishment that every sunrise brought to them, and

brings ever to steadfast workers in these days.

And so they dwelt, the gentle Paula, a woman of courtesy, high spirit,

steadfastness and gracious, sprightly humour; Eustochium, the grave

young daughter who never left her mother's side, whose gentle shadow

is one with her mother's; and Jerome, the greatest writer of his time,

the mighty controversialist, a man evidently a well of force and

sympathy, the kind friend and fellow-worker. Every day the three had

conferences as to the most accurate renderings possible, and at all

times the greatest respect for the scholarship and acuteness of one

another. Amid them was the pleasant stir of independent opinion.

In the books that went forth from that seclusion in Bethlehem we find

such an inscription as this:

You, Paula, and Eustochium, who have studied so deeply the books

of the Hebrews, take it, this book of Esther, and test it word

by word; you can tell whether anything is added, anything

withdrawn: and can bear faithful witness whether I have rendered

aright in Latin this Hebrew history.

Between these zealous workers in Bethlehem and the old Christian

friends in Rome letters were constantly passing. And as the years of

her absence grew, Paula, in time, heard of the marriage of Toxotius,

who, a little boy of ten, had held out begging hands to her as her

ship set sail from the port of Rome. Anon came the joyful news that a

daughter had been born and named after her grandmother, Paula. The

baby's mother, Leta, looking forward with early longings for the

child's future, at once wrote to Jerome about the education of the

little one.

The great writer's first thought, amidst his joyous congratulations,

is the probable conversion of the baby's maternal grandfather,

Albinus, a follower of the old gods.

"Albinus is already a candidate for the faith," he writes, "a crowd of

sons and grandsons besiege him. I believe, on my part, that if Jupiter

himself had such a family he would be converted to Jesus Christ."

Then Jerome gives, with tender detail, the counsels as to education

for which Leta had asked. But he adds:

"It will be difficult to bring up thy little daughter thus at

Rome. Send her to Bethlehem; she will repose in the manger of

Jesus. Eustochium wishes for her; trust the little one with her.

Let this new Paula be cradled on the bosom of her grandmother.

Send her to me; I will carry her on my shoulders, old man as I

am. I will make myself a child with her; I will lisp to fit her

speech; and, believe me, I shall be prouder of my employment

than ever Aristotle was of his" [as tutor to Alexander.]

The invitation was accepted. In a few years the little maiden was

indeed sent to Bethlehem, though not till after the death of her

grandmother Paula. And it was the child, the younger Paula, who at

last closed the eyes of Jerome.

Paula, the grandmother, did not live long after the birth of her

namesake. Her last illness was beginning. Eustochium watched her night

and day, entrusting to no one else the tender last cares--sustaining

the drooping head, warming the cold feet, feeding the weakened body,

and making the invalid's bed. If the mother fell asleep for a little

while, the daughter would go for prayers to the Manger, close at hand

and sanctified by its tender associations of motherhood.

But the precious life was slowly ebbing away. Knowing that her end was

near, Paula began to repeat with great joy the verses of the Psalms

she knew so well:

"Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place

where Thine honour dwelleth!"; "How amiable are Thy tabernacles,

O Lord God of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, fainteth, for the

courts of the house of my God."; "Better to be a doorkeeper in

the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness."

When she had finished, she began to say these songs of the threshold

over again. She did not answer when spoken to, until Jerome came and

asked gently why she did not speak and if she suffered. Then she

answered in Greek, the language of her father and of her childhood,

that she had no discomfort, but was "beholding in a vision all quiet

and tranquil things." "I feel already an infinite peace," she said.

And still she continued to murmur at intervals the words of that

ancient song of pilgrimage until her voice grew fainter and fainter,

and with the sigh of longing for God's presence on her lips she

entered it forever.

All Palestine may be said to have assisted at her funeral. A chorus of

psalms and lamentations sounded forth in all languages--Hebrew, Greek,

Latin. Hermits crept out of their caves, and monks came in throngs

from their monasteries to bewail their generous friend, this great

Roman lady, this devoted Christian. During her last days bishops from

the neighbouring dioceses had gathered round her and her coffin was

borne on their heads into the basilica of the Manger.

And there all the poor, the widowed and orphans lamented "their

foster-mother," "their mother," and showed the gifts she had given

them and the garments she had made for them. Eustochium could with

difficulty be prevailed to leave her. She stayed kissing the cold

lips, and at last, her grief breaking through the usual calm of her

life, throwing her arms about the unconscious form and praying to be

buried beside her.

Paula died at fifty-six. She had spent the last eighteen years of her

life in Palestine.

Jerome, for the first time in his laborious life, lost his appetite

for work. He could do no more. "I have been able to do nothing, not

even from the Scriptures, since the death of the holy and gracious

Paula," he wrote. "Grief overwhelms me."

Eustochium, with the instinct of true affection, drew him out of this

stupor by inducing him to write a memoir of her mother for her. In two

sleepless nights he dictated it. "He could not write himself. Each

time that he took up the tablets his fingers stiffened and the stylus

fell from his hand. He could not dwell," he said, "on her great

pedigree from the Scipios, the Gracchi, from Agamemnon, nor on her

splendid opulence and her palace at Rome. She had preferred Bethlehem

to Rome. Her praise was that she died poorer than the poorest she had

succoured. At Rome she had not been known beyond Rome. At Bethlehem

all Christendom, Roman and barbarian, revered her."

"We weep not her loss; we thank God to have had her. Nay! we have her

always, for all live by the spirit of God; and the elect who ascend to

Him remain still always in the family of those He loves."

Eustochium quietly took up the guidance of her mother's convents and

hospice and gently urged Jerome to resume his work. Writing almost

countless letters, translating and commenting on the Scriptures he

passed still many years, and at last, dying, at his own wish his body

was buried in a hollow of the rocks at Bethlehem. To this day, it is

said, his name can still be traced graven in the rock.

In the fifteen hundred years that have passed since the death of

Paula, the homes of piety and charity established by her strength and

love have been swept away. No tradition even of their site is left.

But with one storied chamber is connected a warm interest. It is the

rocky room, in one of the half caves, half excavations, close to that

of the Nativity, and communicating with it by rudely hewn stairs and

passages. In this, the legend runs, Jerome established himself while

his convent was building. He called it his paradise. Sunlit from

above, with prayer and the music of alleluias sounding there night and

day, brightened by the glow of the pure affections of Paula and

Eustochium and sanctified by their great work, from it flowed rivers

of water to refresh the earth.

V