Builders, carpenters, workers in material and wood, websters and fullers, makers of anything cannot become an expert without a teacher; physicians are trained by physicians. The art of scripture is the only art claimed by all.
St. Jerome, Ad Paulinum, Epist. 5Mark found the full reference for it at New Advent.org: St. Jerome/Letters/Letter to Paulinus #53:
6. ...Husbandmen, masons, carpenters, workers in wood and metal, wool-dressers and fullers, as well as those artisans who make furniture and cheap utensils, cannot attain the ends they seek without instruction from qualified persons. As Horace says:
Doctors alone profess the healing art
And none but joiners ever try to join.
7. The art of interpreting the scriptures is the only one of which all men everywhere claim to be masters. To quote Horace again:
Taught or untaught we all write poetry.
The chatty old woman, the doting old man, and the wordy sophist, one and all take in hand the Scriptures, rend them in pieces and teach them before they have learned them.
We would like to invite you all to join in a novena we are saying both as a preparation for Pentecost and also to support Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, the much-persecuted Archbishop of San Francisco. To read more, view the novena prayer, and to join Celine's weekly prayer list, please visit the blog here.
Recommended reading:
Harry Crocker's Triumph
Mike Aquilina's Mass of the Early Christians and Fathers of the Church
See you Tuesday at 6:30!
