Paula obtained from Pope Damasus the honor of having St. Epiphanius as her guest, and it was in her daily interviews with him, as well as with Paulinus, that the desire to see the east, which she was one day to realize, first sprung up in her mind.
History has preserved few details of this council of the year 382. The great work to be brought about by these eastern bishops at Rome was the new impetus which their presence was to give to religion among the Christians of Rome already in the way of life and truth. There came from the east, in company with the holy bishops, a man destined to exercise great influence over the future life of Paula and her friends. This man was St. Jerome. We must pause a moment and not pass by one who is perhaps the most striking, the most original, and the grandest figure of the fourth century. He stands alone in his strength—different from St. Hilarius of Poitiers, the profound theologian; from Ambrose, the sweet orator; from Augustine, the great philosopher, or Paulinus, the Christian poet. His features are marked and stern, his character is austere and ardent; the burning reflection from an eastern sky rests upon him; he is laden with the learning of the Christian and the pagan world; the indefatigable athlete of the church, he whose powerful voice moved the old world when they listened to his pathetic lament over the fall of Rome, and which moves us still when we read it now after the lapse of centuries!
Such was Jerome; yet is this picture incomplete, for we have not mentioned his special gift for the direction of souls. He was their guide, their father. He it was who began this divine guidance, entrusted afterward to St. Bernard, and by him to St. Francis de Sales, from St. Francis de Sales to Bossuet and Fénélon, and so on down to our own times. It is this special gift which gives him so prominent a part in the history of Paula.
Pope Damasus wished to detain him in Rome after the departure of the bishops for the east, in order that Jerome should expound the holy Scriptures and give answers to those who came to Rome from all parts of the globe for explanations of the dogmas and discipline of the church. A great friendship had sprung up between the sovereign pontiff and St. Jerome. The study of the holy Scriptures bound their affections together. "I know of nothing better," wrote the holy father to him in one of his letters, "than our conversations about Scripture; that is to say, when I ask questions, and you answer; and I say like the prophet, that your voice is sweeter to my heart than honey to my lips."
After the departure of Epiphanius and Paulinus, Marcella and Paula sought for Jerome and entreated him to explain the Scriptures to them at Mount Aventine. The austere monk resisted them long, but at last yielded, and crowds came to hear him. He would read the text, and then make his comments. The listeners were captivated by his eloquence, and his language was peculiarly strong, clear, and forcible. His monk's attire, his cheeks, sunken by penance and browned by the eastern sun, and his deep voice, all combined to throw a strange spell over his hearers.
He, too, soon discovered that he spoke to noble souls, and thus was his abiding interest awakened by his own delight in opening such treasures to those so capable of appreciating them.
Such was the ardor of Paula and her friends in studying the Scriptures, that Jerome was in admiration at their labor and perseverance; and it excited him to further efforts, and made him feel the necessity of undertaking a complete translation of the entire Bible, which, indeed, was the work of his life from that time afterward, without remission; being begun on Mount Aventine, among his favorite disciples, and only ending many years later, with his life. Jerome now undertook the spiritual direction of Paula, Marcella, Asella, and their friends. Many of his letters to them have been preserved, a monument of this wonderful direction. He wrote to them unceasingly, and what remains to us of this vast correspondence suffices to show the noble light in which he viewed Christian duty. Their moral elevation is marvellous, and when from theory he came to practice, he seemed to trample under foot all human weakness and to expect from these high-born and gently nurtured patricians the abstinence and fasting of the Anchorites of the Theban deserts.
This direction of St. Jerome wrought wonders in the soul of Paula. She daily grew in grace, and became a still more noble example of austerity, of prayer, of abundant charities, and good works, and of the fruitful study of the Scriptures.
"What shall I say of the worldly goods of this noble lady, almost entirely spent on the poor?" exclaims St. Jerome. "What shall I say of her universal charity, which made her love and succor beings she had never even seen? What sick person was not nursed by her? She sought the afflicted throughout the great city, and ever thought she had met with a loss if the sick or the hungry had already found assistance before hers."