Saint Eustochium

Eustochium (c. 368 – September 28, 419 or 420), born Eustochium Julia at Rome, was a high-ranking member of the community, specifically the Julian clan. Eustochium was a fourth-century noblewoman and consecrated virgin, venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Guided by the teachings of Jerome, Eustochium practiced asceticism and committed her life to perpetual celibacy. Eustochium was the daughter of Paula of Rome and the third of four daughters of the Roman Senator Toxotius, for whom Saint Jerome made a number of disputable claims of ancestry. Jerome was a church father in early Christian history who is well known for translating the Holy Bible into Latin and encouraging the practice of asceticism. After the death of her husband around 380, Paula and her daughter Eustochium lived in Rome as austere a life as the fathers of the desert. Eustochium had three sisters, Blaesilla, Paulina, and Rufina, and a brother, Toxotius. When Jerome came to Rome from Palestine in 382, they put themselves under his spiritual and educational guidance. Hymettius, an uncle of Eustochium, and his wife Praetextata tried to persuade the youthful Eustochium to give up her austere life and enjoy the pleasures of the world, but all their attempts were futile. About the year 384 she made a vow of perpetual virginity, on which occasion Jerome addressed to her his celebrated letter De custodia virginitatis (Ep. xxii in P.L., XXII, 394–425). A year later Jerome returned to Palestine and soon after was followed by Paula and Eustochium. Eustochium and Paula knew Jerome ever since his arrival in Rome in 382. In 386 they accompanied Jerome on his journey to Egypt, where they visited the hermits of the Nitrian Desert in order to study and afterward imitate their mode of life. In the fall of the same year they returned to Palestine and settled permanently at Bethlehem.