The Blazing Body: Ascetic Desire in Jerome's Letter to Eustochium

This essay explores the theory of sexuality that Jerome sets forth in his Ep. 22. Focusing on the manner in which sexuality is discussed in terms of erotic metaphors of the female virginal body, the essay argues that Jerome's view of asceticism was founded on a paradox wherein erotic sensibilities are both denied and intensified. Perspectives drawn from contemporary literary-critical theory are used to uncover a figural movement in Jerome's text in which an attempt is made to "erase" the literal body and its dangerous sexual passions by "rewriting" it with Scriptural tropes. The essay proposes that Jerome's ascetic theory foundered on an interpretive problematic, namely, his figuration of asceticism in terms of linguistic metaphors of desire.