Sometime after his conversion, probably about AD 374, Jerome of Stridon took to the desert of Chalcis (known as the “Syrian Thebaid”) to practice an ascetic lifestyle.[i] He removed far from the fleshly temptations associated with the city life of Rome. His experience teaches an important lesson. Writing to Eustochium (Letter 22, AD 384), Jerome related the following problem.
“7. How often, when I was living in the desert, in the vast solitude which gives to hermits a savage dwelling-place, parched by a burning sun, how often did I fancy myself among the pleasures of Rome. ... Now, although in my fear of hell I had consigned myself to this prison, where I had no companions but scorpions and wild beasts, I often found myself amid bevies of girls. My face was pale and my frame chilled with fasting; yet my mind was burning with desire, and the fires of lust kept bubbling up before me when my flesh was as good as dead.”
In this desert wasteland, fasting and praying, he conjured up the sins of the flesh in his mind – a vision of dancing girls which caused him to “burn with desire.” If you carry yourself along on the trip, you cannot find a place to escape temptation.[ii] One cannot completely flee from his greatest enemy, himself. We must instead flee to Jesus Christ and him alone for our rescue and our safety.
Love not; from it comes strife—
Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh,
And, oh, the pride of life!
My greatest enemy
I carry in my breast;
The battle clash is sore and strong,
A constant wrestling test.
To Jesus Christ I flee
For rescue in his breast;
The only safety I could find—
The only secure rest.
[ii] Consider 1 Corinthians 6:18 with 1 Corinthians 7:2-3.
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