EUSTOCHIO, saint. — The third-born daughter of the illustrious Roman matron Paola and the senator Tossozio, she consecrated herself to God while still very young. The earliest information concerning her is directly connected with St. Girolamo’s second stay in Rome (382–385). It was precisely in Marcella’s house on the Aventine, by then the spiritual centre of the City, that the girl first met the holy Doctor, who had recently arrived from the East with St. Epifanio and St. Paolino d’Antiochia. E. soon became the focus of Girolamo’s care; at her mother’s invitation, he wrote for her the admirable Letter 22, De custodia virginitatis, rightly defined as the canon of virginity.
In the spring of 386, she left Rome together with her mother for the East: they reached Girolamo at Antioch and, after visiting the most famous monasteries of Egypt and the Holy Places of Palestine, settled permanently in Bethlehem, where they led a rigorously ascetic life. E., who knew Greek and Latin perfectly, soon succeeded in mastering Hebrew as well, so that Girolamo was able to find in her a valuable assistant in the transcription of codices. Later, the master dedicated to her his commentaries on Isaiah and Ezekiel. After the death of Paola (104), for whom Girolamo wrote an affectionate epitaph, she herself assumed the direction of the women’s monastery founded by her mother, which she governed for fifteen years. Finally, in 479, just one year before the death of her master, she too passed away peacefully in the land that had witnessed the birth of the Redeemer.