Agnes’, were all of noble patrician families. Those
families whom Christianity had conquered, and who had
shed their blood so generously in the hour of persecution,
had become in the fourth century the examples of every
virtue. St. Jerome, in his letters, gives us a glimpse of
some of them. Such was the illustrious family of the
Anicia, who gave as many consuls to Rome as saints and
martyrs; from whom, in later days, sprang St. Benedict
and St. Gregory the Great ; and who, at the time of
which we are speaking, possessed women of the noble
stamp of the mother and grandmother of the Virgin
Denietria Christians who cried with joy when their
daughters or grand-daughters, on the very eve of con
tracting a wealthy marriage, came and threw themselves
at their feet, declaring that they wished to devote their
future lives not to an earthly but to a heavenly spouse.[1]
The family of St. Paula was one of those senatorial
patricians which had embraced the true faith. It is,
however, certain that there were still some Pagans
among them ; as, for example, one Gracchus, a near
relation of Paula s, w r ho was Prefect of Borne under
Gratian. This mixture in Roman families was not to be
wondered at ; for it was in the heart of the nobility that
the greatest resistance was made to Christianity ; and
it was not uncommon in the fourth century to meet
with the painful contrast which we find in our own
troubled times, though from different causes, that is,
to see under the same roof the worshippers of Jupiter
and the adorers of Jesus Christ; the father and the son
being Pagans, and the mother and daughters Christians.
Rome, in fact, in those days presented an extra ordinary contrast, which must have greatly struck the young Paula when she was old enough to look about her.
- ↑ S. Hier. Epist. 97, Ad Deinetriadem,
