St. Jerome gives us little or no details as to Paula s
family, except that once he accidentally mentions that
she had a brother ; neither does he speak of the immense
possessions of her family. He only says, in one place,
that besides her domains in Italy, she had a very large
property in Greece, near Actium.[1] But we know the
enormous spoils which fell into the hands of these con
querors of the world; and we can judge of what must
have been the riches of the Scipios and the Gracchi by
what we know of other great fortunes in those days;
such as that of Melania, for instance, who had whole
provinces in Spain, Gaul, and Sicily; and, again, St.
Paulinus of Nola, whose estates were equally vast.
’If I dwell’ (writes St. Jerome) ’on her high birth and her wealth, it is not because I attach any undue importance to these temporal advantages, but because she learnt to live above them all, and to sacrifice all in a way which wins my intense admiration. The glory of Paula, in my eyes, is not to have possessed all these things, but to have laid them all at the feet of Jesus Christ.’[2]
She had one undoubted advantage, however, independently of her noble birth, and that was that her family were Christians. Her mother undoubtedly was one, and there is no reason to believe that her father was otherwise. The Eoman patriciate had not readily embraced the new faith, but where it had taken root it wrought wonders. One of the first martyrs the illustrious Flavia Domitilla had been seized in the Emperor’s palace. The Pudenzianas, the Agathas, the Cecilias, the
