Many times I thought of the complaint of St. Jerome in his letter
to Asella regarding those women whom he was falsely accused of
loving, when he said (Epist. xcix): "I am charged with nothing save
the fact of my sex, and this charge is made only because Paula is
setting forth to Jerusalem." And again: "Before I became intimate
in the household of the saintly Paula, the whole city was loud in
my praise, and nearly every one deemed me deserving of the highest
honours of priesthood. But I know that my way to the kingdom of
Heaven lies through good and evil report alike."
When I pondered over the injury which slander had done to so great
a man as this, I was not a little consoled thereby. If my rivals, I
told myself, could but find an equal cause for suspicion against
me, with what accusations would they persecute me! But how is it
possible for such suspicion to continue in my case, seeing that
divine mercy has freed me therefrom by depriving me of all power to
enact such baseness? How shameless is this latest accusation! In
truth that which had happened to me so completely removes all
suspicion of this iniquity among all men that those who wish to
have their women kept under close guard employ eunuchs for that
purpose, even as sacred history tells regarding Esther and the
other damsels of King Ahasuerus (Esther ii, 5).
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