indeed enjoins obedience, but he who loves them more than Christ loses
his soul."

Jerome vividly portrays his own spiritual conflicts. The deserts were
crowded with saintly soldiers battling against similar temptations, the
nature of which is suggested by the following excerpt from Jerome's
writings: "How often," he says, "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!
I used to sit alone because I was filled with bitterness. Sack-cloth
disfigured my unshapely limbs and my skin from long neglect had become
black as an Ethiopian's. Tears and groans were every day my portion; and
if drowsiness chanced to overcome my struggles against it, my bare
bones, which hardly held together, clashed against the ground. 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. Helpless, I cast myself at the feet of Jesus, I
watered them with my tears, and I subdued my rebellious body with weeks
of abstinence. I remember how I often cried aloud all night till the
break of day. I used to dread my cell as if it knew my thoughts, and
stern and angry with myself, I used to make my way alone into the
desert. Wherever I saw hollow valleys, craggy mountains, steep cliffs,
there I made my oratory; there the house of correction for my unhappy
flesh. There, also, when I had shed copious tears and had strained my
eyes to heaven, I sometimes felt myself among angelic hosts and sang for
joy and gladness."

No doubt these men were warring against nature. Their yielding to the
temptation to obtain spiritual dominance by self-flagellation and
fasting may be criticized in the light of modern Christianity.