PAULA OF ROME, Saint. - Born in Rome on 5 May 347 into a Christian patrician family. Around the age of 15 she married Toxotius, a pagan but tolerant, by whom she had 5 children: Blesilla, Paulina, Eustochium, Rufina, Toxotius. Although of a pious and merciful spirit, P. indulged in the luxury of a lordly life. At 31 years of age, left a widow, she felt moved to adhere to the ascetic ideal of Marcella (v.). Eustochium followed her mother and became a devoted disciple of Marcella.
The house of P. thus gathered a family of women, friends, servants and clients of hers, bound by the holy purpose which, an embryo of monastic vows, was then considered the sublimation of the baptismal ones. St. Jerome, having returned to Rome in 382 and remained there until the death of Pope Damasus, becomes as it were the spiritual father and teacher of Sacred Scripture of the cenobium of Marcella. P. too took part in his admirable lessons, and at that school, after Hebrew, she distinguished herself by her progress in biblical science. The daughter of P., Blesilla, widowed after barely 7 months of marriage, after much wavering was converted to her mother's ideal, and the intensity of her penitent life hastened her death (Nov. 384), followed shortly afterwards by that of Pope Damasus. Jerome sees the wave of popular discontent and of the Roman clergy growing against him, which he had criticized especially in the letter XXI ad Eustochium, and in Aug. 385 he departs for the East.
At that departure P. felt grow within her the aspiration to spend the remainder of her life in the Holy Land and to found a cenobium there. With great sorrow she left her own (Paulina was married to Pammachius, Rufina was close to marriage, Toxotius, still small, was entrusted to Paulina) and with Eustochium she sailed (autumn 385) for Salamis, where she was the guest of Epiphanius. From there she passed to Antioch, as the guest of Paulinus. From Antioch, though it was winter, she set out with Jerome for Jerusalem, and visited Palestine. In the following spring they went to Egypt, where, at Alexandria, they took part in the lectures of Didymus the Blind. The journey continued through the desert of Nitria and of Arsenoe in order to have contacts and experiences with the great monasticism. Having returned to the Holy Land, P. in the summer established her permanent dwelling at Bethlehem. There three buildings arose at her expense: one as a hospice for pilgrims, the other the cenobium for St. Jerome and his companions, the third for P. herself and her religious. This last was dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, protected by a surrounding wall and a tower.
The religious, according to the Pachomian system, were divided into three groups according to social class — noblewomen, slaves, the middle condition — with their own houses and superior; they came together in the common chapel. Their occupations were the making of garments for themselves and for the poor, liturgical prayer (matins, terce, sext, none, vespers) and the study of Sacred Scripture.
Life in the cenobium of P. was severe: never meat nor wine, except for the sick; for all the same woolen habit; of linen only the towels. P., knowing how to temper severity and gentleness in the Roman manner, attracted to herself religious from every part of the Empire. Preceded by the death of all her children, except Eustochium, her own death occurred: on 26 Jan. 404. She was then 56 years old. She was buried beside the Holy Grotto of the Nativity. Eustochium succeeded her in the administration of the monastery, and then her granddaughter Paula, daughter of Toxotius and Laeta. Her feast is on 26 Jan.