avoid a clergyman like the plague

"Avoid it like the plague"?

The phrase finds its origin  in Saint Jerome ( 345-420 A.D.),  who quipped,

 "Avoid, as you would the plague,
                         a clergyman who is also a man of business,
                            and  rises from poverty to wealth,and from obscurity to a high position."
                                               -The Principal Works of St. Jerome