ASELLA, santa. – Roman virgin, died at the beginning of the 5th century. St Jerome praises her greatly, making known in his letter to Marcella (384) the severity of her penitential life. A. consecrated herself to God from her earliest youth; she lived in a small room, from which she never emerged, leading there a life of continual fasting. In 386, when he was already aboard the ship on his journey to Bethlehem, St Jerome justified himself in a letter to A. against the calumnies spread about him in Rome. She was still living in 405, and nothing is known of her death; the date of her feast, 6 December, was created by the martyrologists of the late 15th century.
BIBL.: S. Girolamo, Epist. 24 formerly 15 (to Marcella), 45 formerly 90 (to Asella), 65 formerly 140 (to Principia): ed. I. Hilberg; in CSEL, 54, pp. 214–17, 323–28, 619; Martyr. Romanum, pp. 569–70.
Cesario van Hulst