Eustochium

Who was Eustochium?

Saint Eustochium. Born Eustochium Julia at Rome, she was the daughter of Saint Paula and is also venerated as a saint and was an early Desert Mother. She was the third of four daughters of the Roman Senator Toxotius, for whom Jerome made a lot of fanciful claims of ancestry. After the death of her husband Paula and her daughter Eustochium lived in Rome as austere a life as the Fathers of the desert. Eustochium has three sisters, St. Blaesilla, Paulina, and Rufina, and a brother, Toxotius.

When Saint Jerome came to Rome from Palestine in 382, they put themselves under his spiritual 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 St. Jerome addressed to her his celebrated letter De custodia virginitatis. A year later St. Jerome returned to Palestine and soon after was followed to the Orient by Paula and Eustochium.

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. Paula and Eustochium at once began to erect four monasteries and a hospice near the spot where Christ was born. While the erection of the monasteries was in process they lived in a small building in the neighbourhood. One of the monasteries was occupied by monks and put under the direction of Saint Jerome. The three other monasteries were taken by Paula and Eustochium and the numerous virgins that flocked around them. The three convents, which were under the supervision of Paula, had only one oratory, where all the virgins met several times daily for prayer and the liturgy of the hours. Jerome testifies that Eustochium and Paula performed the most menial services. Much of their time they spent in the study of Holy Scripture under the direction of Saint Jerome.