Dates

• Existence: 347 May 5 - 406 January 26

Biographical note

A Roman lady of noble birth, she married a patrician, to whom she bore five children, among them Saint Eustochium and Saint Blaesilla. Left a widow when she was thirty-four, Paula embraced the religious life, and for twenty years presided over the sisterhood founded by her near Saint Jerome's monastery at Bethlehem, where she also established a hospital. Jerome became her spiritual director, and after her death her biographer.

(paraphrased from The Book of Saints : A Dictionary of Persons Canonized or Beatified by the Catholic Church. 5th edition. New York: Crowell, 1966.)

Alternate names

Paula of Rome