Artifacts to help you imagine more.
About the year 375 GC, Jerome’s friend Heliodorus decided to leave solitary life as a desert monk. Jerome knowingly warned him about perils of worldly life:
These dangers I forewarn not as a learned sailor, with ship and cargo intact, speaking to those ignorant of the sea, but rather like some newly shipwrecked sailor cast upon the shore. I address my faltering voice to those about to sail. On one side, the Charybdis strait of self-indulgence engulfs salvation. On the other side is the Scylla of lust. With beaming, virginal face, she prompts us to the shipwreck of chastity.