In 1252, the Dominican Master-General, John of Wildeshausen, anxious to strengthen the role of the friars at Paris, was prevailed upon to return Thomas, whose outstanding gifts had already been noted, to the Ile-de-France. Accordingly, at an age below the normal, and after relatively abbreviated preparation, he graduated that year as a bachelor in theology, a sort of junior lecturer whose task it was to comment on the Liber Sententiarum of Peter Lombard, a systematically thematic presentation of