Saints Writing about Saints

I instantly felt a different feeling when I started reading Jerome's work.  As I continued, although there are clear similarities which Katie has pointed out between the other works we have read and this one, I could sense a significant difference that I feel may be necessarily attributed to the fact that unlike Sulpicious for example, this is an example of a saint writing about another saint.  I sense a familiarity in Jerome's writing, which naturally could be attributed to the fact that Jerome was well acquainted with Marcella, clearly noted in the line "...ut melius iudicarem tacere inpraesentiarum quam nihil dignum illius laudibus dicer."  However, I wonder if the familiarity can also be attributed to the fact that Marcella belonged to the same walk of life as Jerome.  This is not simply a work being written about an illustrious person by a third party author, but instead by a person who shares the same values and teachings as the individual about whom he is writing.  In fact, Principia need demand so often the work about Marcella, since it would seem too sad an undertaking for Jerome if he were to write about her due to this familiarity.  This being said, I was struck by the thought that perhaps Jerome extolled Marcella's praises to such a degree because he was fond of her and knew her as a friend.  Is his praise unbiased?  Then I remembered that this is a letter, a different medium than we have encountered thus far in this class, which is specifically directed to a person, Principia, who personally knew the good deeds of Marcella.  I wonder if the same familiarity would be present in a work that was not so personal, i.e not a letter to a specific individual, and how much faith a reader would place in the doings (miracles?) of this individual in a work written by a saint about a saint who is likely biased towards the extolling of such an individual's good deeds.