The Aventine Community
In her palace on the Aventine Hill, Marcella established a community of women devoted to a disciplined ascetic life. She practiced strict self-denial, abstaining from wine and meat and giving herself to prayer, fasting, and mortification.
Her household drew prominent Roman noblewomen, including Paula of Rome, Eustochium, Lea, and her own disciple Principia. Because she founded her community roughly forty years before Jerome came to Rome in 382, it is remembered as the first house of consecrated ascetic women in the city, and an earlier generation's preparation for the wider movement of asceticism among the Roman aristocracy.
Disciple and Correspondent of St. Jerome
When Jerome settled in Rome in 382, he became closely associated with a circle of well-born and well-educated women interested in the monastic life, centred on the Aventine, of which Marcella was the founder and senior figure. He lodged at her hospitality house and lectured her community on Scripture, and it was through her circle that Paula was drawn into the ascetic movement.
Jerome addressed to Marcella a large share of his correspondence — she received more of his letters than any other woman, among them Letters 23, 25, 26, 29, and 34. These letters treat scriptural questions, Hebrew philology, and doctrinal matters, and testify to her intellectual depth.
Marcella also took an active part in the Origenist controversy at Rome, helping to bring charges against Rufinus.
The Sack of Rome and Her Death
In 410 the Visigoths under Alaric sacked Rome. Soldiers came to Marcella's home demanding treasure, but she had long since distributed her wealth to the poor, and they scourged and beat her with cudgels.
She was escorted to the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, a place of sanctuary, where she died of her injuries either at once or shortly after. Jerome's Letter 127, written to her disciple Principia, records these events and is the primary historical source for her death.
Veneration
Marcella is commemorated on January 31 and is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, and the Anglican Communion; she is included in the Roman Martyrology.
She is to be distinguished from Markella of Chios and from Marcella the mother of St. Potamiaena.
