Jerome of Stridon (c. 347–419/20) was a prolific letter-writer who knew and understood the conventions of the form. Living in Bethlehem, at the margins of Latin cultural life, Jerome used his correspondence to articulate his own understanding of asceticism and scholarship to those living in Spain, Italy and North Africa. Jerome's letters therefore illuminate key moments in the development of fourth- and early fifth-century Christianity. In his fifty-second letter Jerome argues that the ideal Christian priest should be an ascetic. As Jerome conceptualises it in this letter the two vocations – ascetic and priest – are complementary. As Cain rightly points out, this is a relatively positive view of the priesthood and marks a shift in Jerome's attitudes. In his twenty-second letter to Eustochium, for example, he had mocked the practices of priests and he was always circumspect about his own priestly status. The letter therefore offers a key glimpse into the development of Jerome's thought. It also sketches out a particular model of the role of the clergy and can be read alongside Ambrose's near-contemporary De officiis, as Cain suspects Jerome intended. This book contains a new translation of Jerome's fifty-second letter as well as an extensive commentary. It also offers eighteen textual revisions to Isidor Hilberg's critical edition. The introduction ably fixes the letter within its wider context. The chronology of Jerome's life is treated briefly (but is well covered by other literature). Cain spends more space establishing this letter's genre (paraenetic, he argues), its relationship to other letters in Jerome's corpus (especially letter 14, to Nepotian's uncle, Heliodorus), and wider fourth-century Christianity. Throughout the commentary Jerome is carefully situated within the wider world of late antiquity. Christian and rabbinic sources are drawn into enlightening dialogue with Jerome's own text. The intricacies of Jerome's prose are investigated and contextualised within the history of ancient and late ancient Latin writing. As well as situating the letter within its literary context, Cain is adept at linking the letter to wider shifts in the social and political sphere. The work is a strong contribution to scholarship on Jerome and on late antique Christianity in general. Jerome was an excellent stylist and the textual analysis in the commentary makes this a useful book for those working on any aspect of late Latin. It is also of importance to those tracing the development and institutionalisation of Christianity.