FABIOLA. - Her biographer is St. Jerome in his letter to Oceanus, written on the occasion of F.'s death. Of the most noble family of the Fabii, she went as a young girl to be married to a dissolute man, from whom she divorced in order to enter into a new marriage. Upon the death of her second husband, she recognized her faults, abandoned her luxuries, dressed in sackcloth, and on Holy Saturday presented herself among the penitents in the atrium of the basilica of the Lateran in the presence of the pope, the clergy, and all the people. She sold her possessions and her jewels to dedicate herself entirely to works of charity.
She founded the first hospital in Rome, devoting herself to the most humble services there, supported monasteries, and clothed the poor not only in Rome but also in the Volsci and on all the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea. She contended with Pammachius for the privilege of opening a hospice for pilgrims in Porto. Having gone to Palestine, she took advantage of the teaching of St. Jerome for the study of the prophets, the Gospels, and the Psalms (St. Jerome, Ep. 64; PL 2, 608), but upon hearing news of barbarian incursions, she returned to Rome, where she died in 399. St. Jerome concludes his letter by repeating the sentence of St. Paul: *Ubi enim abundavit delictum, superabundavit gratia* (Rom 5:20).