St. Jerome:
Against Vigilantius.
Vigilantius anticipated many Protestant ideas:
he opposed the veneration of relics, the use
of candles in churches, prayer for the dead,
belief in saintly intercession, etc.
Fremantle translation, 1893.
Both widowed mother and single daughter
are trying to live as nuns, but through some disagreement
live apart. Moreover, both have invited male monastics
to live with them as "chaste protectors". Jerome
addresses some of the problems of "double
monasticism" and "monasticism in the world".
He also paints an extremely vivid portrait of an upper-class
Roman dinner-party -- not particularly decadent, but
still an inappropriate place for nuns.