The bishop of Rome Damasus was notoriously styled matronarum auriscalpius (Collectio Avellana 1.9), ‘ear-tickler of matrons’, or better, ‘ear-prober’ (cf. Scribonius Largus 41 and 230). The same might have been said of Damasus' scholarly, sometime client Jerome, whose devotion to the ascetic matrons of Rome was the topic of criticism; his particular attention, from Rome to Bethlehem, to Iulia Paula and her daughters occasioned gossip early and late (Jer., Ep. 45.1–4, 65.1; contra Rufinum 1.9.12; Palladius, Historia Lausiaca 36.6 and 41).

Blesilla, Paula's eldest daughter, died of fever in her mid-twenties (at most), in late November a.d. 384 (Ep. 38 and 39). To what extent her spiritual director's ascetic urgings contributed, we shall never know. Jerome's letter of consolation to Paula concludes in maudlin register: Blesilla will always be alive in Jerome's scholarship (Ep. 39.8). Earlier in that year, Paula's third daughter, Eustochium, received Jerome's Epistula 22, a virginitatis libellus (Jerome's label: Ep. 52.17; one manuscript appropriately entitles it de virginitate servanda). Eustochium, in her mid-teens at the time, had, along with her mother, been introduced to the ascetic life not by Jerome, but by the Aventine grande dame Marcella (Jer., Ep. 127.5; cf. 46.1). No doubt she was complimented by being addressed as the recipient of Ep. 22, but she surely did not require instruction to pursue angelic purity. As J. N. D. Kelly (Jerome (1975), 101–2) observed, 22 is a handbook preaching female asceticism, denouncing the worldly interests of Christians at Rome and elsewhere. Jerome's letter also exhibits an assertive, belligerent tone typical of exhortations to asceticism: compare V. Burrus and M. Conti, The Life of Saint Helia (2013), 15–35. F. Cavallera, Saint Jérôme I (1922), 105, remarked on Jerome's recital of ‘les peines de la vie conjugale’: earthly marriage, that is. In the middle of this exhortation to asceticism, Jerome expatiated on Eustochium as bride of Christ (and her mother therefore as socrus Dei, ‘mother-in-law of God’). The imagery and language, prompted by the Song of Solomon, are, if not all but pornographic, certainly erotic. Eustochium replied with gifts and a cheery note. Jerome's acknowledgement, in turn, was rather pompous and pretentious (Ep. 31: introduction and translation in S. Rebenich, Jerome (2002), 79–81).

Ep. 22 has not lacked attention in the scholarly world. Many readers will know this letter from Jérôme Labourt's fine Budé edition (Jérôme Lettres Tome 1 (1949), largely based on Isidore Hilberg's CSEL critical text) and from one or more of the several standard English translations: for example, F. A. Wright's archaic rendition in the Loeb, Select Letters of St Jerome (1933); C. C. Mierow's adequate, but rather vanilla translation in The Letters of St Jerome (1963); more recently, Carolinne White's version in Lives of Roman Christian Women (2010) captures well the various levels of discourse Jerome employs in this letter. Letter 22 received a full treatment in N. Adkin's Jerome on Virginity: A Commentary on … Letter 22 (2003). Others of Jerome's ‘open’ letters have received scholarly editions: J. H. D. Scourfield's now classic Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome Letter 60 (1993), as well as A. Cain's recent Jerome and the Monastic Clergy: A Commentary on Letter 52 to Nepotian (2013). Certain additional epistolatory libelli may profit from detailed exegesis (for example, Ep. 107: ad Laetam de institutione filiae, which reminds one of Chrysostom's De inani gloria et de educandis liberis), but for now we may appreciate and savour Cain's new, near-exhaustive edition of Jerome's attempt at a laudatio funebris. For all of its length and what it tells us of Jerome's Christianization of another classical genre and of Jerome's relationship with his patroness, 108 has not received a surfeit of attention. W. H. Freemantle's translation in Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers II, vol. 6 (1896) is barely serviceable; Labourt's French rendering is fluid (Tome V, 159–201); otherwise, recourse has had to be made to J. W. Smits (critical text — after Hilberg's CSEL — and notes) and L. Canali (translation), In Memoria di Paola in Vite dei Santi IV.4 (1983), 147–237, 319–66.

C. presents Hilberg's text (with some two dozen variants fully discussed in his commentary) with a facing translation. The latter is precise, fluid and captures well Jerome's style. C.'s introduction and notes bring to life the personality and activities of Paula, thus fleshing out the skeletal entry in PLRE I, 674–75 (Paula 1). His treatment of Paula in relationship to her family and to Jerome is far more critical (and plausible) than the rather uncritical narratives in Cavellera (I, 88–91; II, 22–6) and the balanced, but genteel sketches in Kelly (Jerome, 91–103, 129–40, 273–82). C. thus complements Rebenich's prosopographical-social history in Hieronymus und sein Kreis (1992), especially 154–80, 193–208, and M. R. Salzman's study of (largely Roman) contemporary Christian élites: The Making of a Christian Aristocracy (2002), 138–77. C.'s commentary is exhaustive: ancient references and bibliographies are full. He provides full evidence for what in classical literature Jerome adapted and adopted; he also lists select examples in later (Latin) authors of the quotation of, and obvious allusion to, Jerome's turns of phrase in this letter. An admirably full (and therefore useful) set of indices concludes this volume.

C.'s studies on Jerome's letters, including several edited volumes on Jerome and his age, certainly address Kelly's (Jerome, vii) declaration of an urgent need for annotated editions of Jerome's opera. This edition confirms C.'s status as a leading exegete and analyst of Jerome.