Symeon the New Theologian

When a person has abandoned the world, it seems to him that he is living in a remote desert, full of wild beasts. He is filled with unutterable fear and indescribable trembling and cries to God like Jonah from the whale, from the sea of this life, or like Daniel from the pit of the lions and the fierce passions or like the three children from the burning furnace and the flames of innate desire.… The Lord hears him and delivers him from the abyss of ignorance and the love of this world.… He delivers him, as he delivered Daniel, from the pit of desire and evil thoughts that rise up to devour the souls of people. Against the attacks of the fires of passion that consume and destroy the soul, pushing and pulling it into evil acts, he guards it from burning and sprinkles it with the dew of the Holy Spirit as he did with the three Israelites.