A member of a wealthy Roman family, Fabiola became a Christian ascetic, selling all her belongings and founding the first hospital in the Western world. Despite her aristocratic background, she was known for treating patients herself, even those whose wounds and injuries were so repulsive that they would have been rejected by others.

Before she turned to asceticism (the practice of self-denial and spiritual discipline), Fabiola caused considerable scandal in Rome by divorcing her first husband and marrying another while he was still alive. Later writing the primary information about Fabiola, St. Jerome suggested that Fabiola's first marriage was marked by spousal abuse: "So terrible were the faults imputed to her former husband that not even a prostitute or a common slave could have put up with them." Her remarriage, however, violated the ordinances of the Church and she was forced to remove herself from communion. After her...