Rabbi Matia ben Heresh, a second-century Tanna who founded a Torah academy in Rome during the age of the later Roman emperors, was known among his peers for an almost iron constancy in Torah study. He sat in his house, it was said, and the hours of daylight passed over his head without him noticing.
This was exactly the virtue the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, could not stand. In the rabbinic imagination, Ha-Satan, the Accuser, is not a devil in revolt against God but a heavenly prosecutor whose job is to test human beings. He went to the Holy One and asked permission to test Matia. Permission was granted. The Accuser took the shape of a beautiful woman, a vision crafted to stop any human heart, and presented herself in the Rabbi's doorway.
Matia saw her. He understood in an instant what was happening. And then he did something most students of Torah would never do. He reached for two hot coals from the brazier, or in another version a pair of iron nails, and pressed them to his own eyes. He blinded himself on the spot rather than risk looking at her long enough to fall. When the vision departed, the Rabbi sat in the dark, faithful but sightless.
The Holy One then sent the angel Raphael, whose name means God heals, to restore Matia's sight. Raphael came with his instructions: Fear not, Matia. I have been sent to heal you. The Rabbi asked if he would be able to see again. The angel answered yes, and his eyes were opened. This exemplum, preserved as number 136 in Moses Gaster's 1924 Exempla of the Rabbis and also found in Midrash Tanhuma on Parashat Chukat, teaches that holiness will go very far to protect itself, and that heaven sends healing to those who have wounded themselves for its sake.