On Saturday September 30, 2006, newly professed Father Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P., (above) preached a homily at the conventual Mass of the Dominican House of Studies for the Feast of St. Jerome. Fr. Guilbeau’s homily is presented here in its entirety.

Devotion to Saints Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory as the four Latin Doctors of the Church first arose in the eighth century. The original number of four was chosen, it is said, to match the number of the evangelists. Pope Boniface VIII gave official recognition to this devotion in the late thirteenth century, and later in the sixteenth, after the liturgical feasts of the four doctors were mandated by Pope St. Pius V, it took little time for their images to become a standard feature in the artwork decorating, among other things, seminary chapels. Our own mural behind me is evidence enough of the popularity and endurance of this tradition.

Inspiring seminarians and those pursuing priestly ordination to rigorous study was no doubt one reason why early seminary formators first held up the four doctors for veneration and imitation. Having their images in the chapel also served the useful function of connecting the activities of the classroom with those of the sanctuary. I would like to propose this morning that there is still another lesson to be learned from the traditional depiction of the four doctors in seminary chapels, a lesson perhaps unintended by the tradition’s originators, but one crucial, I believe, for those preparing to undertake the office of preaching. These four men, priests, and saints, individually and collectively, teach the lesson of the power of the cloister, and how the monastic cell, removed as it is from the world, serves the Church as a powerful source of fruitful contemplation and effective preaching.

Each of the lives of the four doctors is marked by three things, three things inspired by their devotion to Christ: a turning away from involvement in secular affairs, an embrace of the ascetical life, and fruitful pastoral activity flowing from the graces of their asceticism. One need only look at their early lives. Ambrose was born into a political family and served as a provincial governor. Augustine served the empire by teaching and giving civic speeches. Jerome served for many years as a civil servant in the imperial city of Trier, and Gregory was the prefect of Rome itself. Each was a rising star in the eyes of the world, and nonetheless each of these men, at a given moment, extracted himself from the affairs of state to devote himself to a life of simplicity, austerity, prayer, scholarship, and pastoral care. Ambrose, as Bishop of Milan, governed a small monastic community in his see city. Augustine, before becoming a priest and bishop, formed his own monastery, and later made it to serve his priestly and episcopal ministry. Jerome lived the ascetical life in many places before settling into his monastery in Bethlehem, and Gregory turned his own estate into a monastic cloister, from which he was chosen first as papal envoy to Constantinople and then as Bishop of Rome. While fulfilling his duties in both offices, Gregory surrounded himself with his brother monks.

By their turning away from secular affairs, embracing the ascetical life, and committing themselves to prayer, scholarship, and pastoral care, the four doctors teach the Church of the great bond linking the cell, the altar, and the pulpit. This is a lesson recapitulated and developed by our own doctor and father, St. Dominic. According to the designs of Providence, we, as members of the Order of Preachers, participate in the same mystery discovered and lived Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome of Bethlehem, and Gregory of Rome.

St. Jerome, whom we remember today, exhibits to us this mystery and lesson in a particular way, for it was not until after he abandoned his life in the world and put on the yoke of the imitation of Christ that he performed all of the wonderful deeds for which we remember him. Divino afflante spiritu, promulgated sixty-three years ago today by Pope Pius XII, ends by calling Jerome “the greatest doctor in the exposition of the Holy Scriptures.” It is doubtful whether Jerome would have earned this title and the esteem of the Church had he not first left behind his service to the imperial court to serve the Lord more faithfully as an ascetic. For, truth to be told, he did not undertake even the remote preparation necessary to produce the scholarship he is known for until after discovering the ascetical ideal and giving himself to it. And give himself to it he did, and in a heroic and extraordinary way.

Jerome was born into a wealthy Christian family in 331, and he lived a childhood typical of his privileged status. He attended expensive schools in his hometown and in Rome, and studied such things as the Latin classics, Roman law, rhetoric, and some philosophy. Throughout his life Jerome’s great love remained the classics, and at this time he began to develop a tremendous personal library. Having reached his late teens, and at the end of his formal education in Rome, Jerome asked for Baptism. At this time, however, he showed little desire for greater conversion. That would come later.

Little to nothing is known of Jerome’s activity during his 20’s and 30’s. The historical evidence picks up only when he was approaching middle age and living in Trier, the de facto capital of the Western Empire. Here, while working for the state, he was producing a few translations of Christian works and casually studying the Scriptures. But more importantly, it was in Trier, as he was approaching his fortieth birthday, that Jerome first encountered a group of ascetics and discovered the beauty of the Christian ascetical ideal. We might thank St. Athanasius for this, for certainly he brought the traditions of Egypt with him to Trier, his temporary home during one of his exiles. Athanasius’ stay in Trier occurred was when Jerome was just a boy. Trier was also under the influence of St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Martin of Tours, important figures in the history of Western monasticism. And so at the age of 40, in Trier, Jerome took his first steps in asceticism, leaving behind worldly pursuits, living a life of detachment, and giving himself over to contemplation and the pursuit of higher things.

From Trier, Jerome moved to Aquileia in northern Italy, another early center of Western monasticism. St. Athanasius spent time there too, during another exile right about the time Jerome was a teenager in Rome. Here, Jerome associated with a great number of ascetics and continued his early scholarship, like translating Athanasius’ Life of Anthony into Latin.

After a few years in Aquileia, Jerome moved further eastward to Antioch. It was at this time, while in his early forties, that Jerome began to study Greek. Immersed in a Greek-speaking culture, it didn’t take him long to become proficient in the language, and he started to read the works of Aristotle and Porphory. It was also at this time that Jerome had his famous dream, in which he was condemned for his preference for the classics over the Scriptures. Whatever the nature of his dream, it had a profound effect on Jerome, and for over a decade he refused to pick up a work of any classical author. Instead, he dedicated himself exclusively to studying the Scriptures. This dream marks Jerome’s second conversion to asceticism, for from Antioch he went even further eastward to the deserts of Syria to be trained in the more radical traditions of Eastern monasticism.

Now, at the age of 44 and living in a desert cave, Jerome began his study of Hebrew and Syriac. By so doing, Jerome became the first Latin Christian of note to immerse himself in the language of ancient Israel. It is said that his proficiency in Hebrew surpassed that of Origen. After two years in the desert, and because of theological fights with the local monks, Jerome was forced to abandon his cave and return to Antioch, where he would spend the next six years of his life.

After Antioch, and some distant contact with the events of the Council of Constantinople, Jerome returned to Rome, where he soon became a translator and counselor to Pope Damasus. At this time he commenced his revisions of the Old Latin translation of the Scriptures, and he also became the mentor of a group of ascetical widows and their daughters. Some of these women would later follow him to Bethlehem to establish a kind of double monastery there. Jerome’s reputation and prestige grew steadily during his time in Rome, to the point of being considered papabile as Pope Damasus’ health began to fade. During these days, however, anti-monastic sentiment was on the rise in Rome, and Jerome was forced to depart after the death of the Pope. So at age 55, he left the city of his baptism and began a long pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he stopped in Jerusalem and Egypt before settling in Bethlehem, in a spot very near the cave of Our Lord’s birth.

It was in Bethlehem that Jerome would spend the next thirty-five years of his life, producing much of the scholarship and engaging in many of the controversies for which he is most famous. In addition to these, his time in Bethlehem was also spent governing his monastery, functioning as the priest of the town, running a hospice for pilgrims, operating a secondary school for young people, preaching often in the Church of the Nativity, teaching catechumens, and making frequent visits to the nearby library of Caesarea Maritime, which housed Origen’s collection of books, including his famous Hexapla. Jerome made direct us of it for much of his biblical translation and scholarship.

In Bethlehem, Jerome finally attained to the ascetical ideal he first fell in love with in Trier. In his cell, Jerome grew constantly in ascetical grace and wisdom, and in union with our Blessed Lord, and from this union flowed the zeal and strength to engage in both scholarship and active pastoral care. His reputation as a master of the ascetical life spread throughout the Christian world, and people from all over the Mediterranean either wrote him or traveled to Bethlehem to receive his instruction.

Jerome’s final days would perfect in him the detachment he had embraced. Near the end of his life, pro-Pelagian forces from Jerusalem raided and burned down his monastery. They destroyed even his library of books, which was perhaps the most impressive private collection of its day. Consequently, just before death at the age of 90, Jerome was left with nothing earthly to call his own. Living so close to where Jesus was born, Jerome finally knew personally the poverty Jesus lived until his death.

Much more could be said about Jerome’s life, but I think from the above the lesson becomes clear. Like Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory, his fellow doctors, Jerome’s life exemplifies for us priests and priests-to-be in the Order of Preachers the direct connection, the life-giving connection, between contemplation and action, between the cloister and the pulpit. May St. Jerome intercede for all of us, that our own vocations may be fulfilled, and that we may give the days of our youth, in the words of Ecclesiates, and indeed all of our days, to entering deeply into this mystery.

I close with the words of Jerome himself, words he wrote to a young man before his ordination. They point us to the way of perfection: “Read the divine scriptures constantly; never, indeed, let the sacred volume be out of your hand. Learn what you have to teach . . . A priest’s words ought to be seasoned by his reading of scripture. Be not a declaimer or a ranter, one who gabbles without rhyme or reason; but show yourself skilled in the deep things and versed in the mysteries of God” (Letter 52.7-8).

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