Saint Paula - Relationship With Jerome

Relationship With Jerome

Jerome's enemies found that his denunciations of clerical indulgence and advocacy of self-denial were odd when they considered his close relationship with Paula. An amorous relationship between Jerome and Paula was suggested as having occurred.

Paula helped Jerome in his translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. The work was done at her suggestion, and she provided the reference works necessary for the undertaking. Being versed in Hebrew, she edited Jerome's manuscripts. She and her daughter Eustochium copied the work for circulation.

An anecdote told of Jerome, of twelfth century origin, tells that Roman clergy hostile to Jerome planned to have him expelled from the city by planting a woman's robe next to his bed. When Jerome awoke in the middle of the night to attend the service of matins, he absentmindedly put on the female robes. He was thus accused of having had a woman in his bed. This story acknowledges, while at the same time discrediting as a malicious slander, Jerome's relationship with women, such the kind he is presumed to have had with Paula.

Chaucer played upon the relationship between Jerome and Paula when he writes the Wife of Bath's Prologue. Chaucer has the Wife visit the same pilgrimage sites as did Paula, and has her constantly cite, not classical authors, but Jerome. Many of her comments are counter-arguments to those put forth by St. Jerome, mainly in his work Against Jovinianus.

Palladius, a contemporary of Jerome, believed that Paula was hindered by Jerome: "For though she was able to surpass all, having great abilities, he hindered her by his jealousy, having induced her to serve his own plan."

When Jerome died in late 419 or early 420, he was buried beneath the north aisle of the Church of the Nativity, near the graves of Paula and Eustochium.