Christianity and Care of the Sick 47 to the church work, donned a special widow's dress, and from their own homes pursued their charitable labours. These widows were not church clergy. Their order became especially important in Rome, and Roman matrons, not necessarily widows, joined it on their conversion to Christianity. In the course of the third century the ecclesiastical widow, like the deaconess, became the object of some jealous disapproval on the part of men, and her sphere of public work in teaching and presiding was gradually curtailed. The Virgins were a con- secrated order, and for several centuries lived in their homes with no special restrictions, devoting themselves freely to the work of their choice, visiting or nursing the sick, or pursuing mission- ary labours, and going about in public without restraint. The first converts to Christianity among the high-bom women of Rome have been described in the letters of St. Jerome. Among ^j^^ them were Marcella, the leader, who Roman turned her palace on the Aventine into Matrons the first Roman monastery for women, and who was so learned that the clergy often consulted with her on Scriptural passages; Fabiola, who founded in her home the first free public hospital under Christian auspices (about 390 a.d.), and worked
