A layman, Helvidius, wrote a book against it^ a book of
some popularity, which Jerome answered with his usual
controversial fury and contemptuousness. Marcella was
a widow of one of the oldest patrician houses, connected
with all the consular families and with the prefect of the
city. She was extremely rich. She became the most
ardent of Jerome's hearers ; her example spread with
irresistible contagion. The sister of Marcella, Paula,
with her two daughters, Blesilla and Eustochium,*"



^ Quem in tantum xnatronn dili-
gebaot, at matronaram aariscalpius
diceretur. — So Bays the preface to the
hostile petition, the Libellus Piecam.
Apad Sirmond. i. p. 136. The
charge of adultery is in Anastasiuc
Vit. Damasi.
"> Among the other namea of Je-
rome's female admirers, one soonds
Hebrew, — Lea; some Greek, — Eus-
tochiom, Melaniam ; besides these are
Principia, Felidtas, Feliciana, Kar-
oellina, AseUa, On Asella and the
whole subject, see Hist, of Christi*



94



LATIN CHKISTIANITY.
Book i.
threw themselves passionately into the same devotion.
Paula, like her sister, was very wealthy ; she possessed
great part of Nicopolis, the city founded by Augustus
to commemorate the battle of Actium. Blesilla, her
younger daughter, was a widow at the age of twenty.
