Jesus is a man who enjoys being by himself, who finds comfort in solitude. Whenever he has had a period of significant public activity, he goes away to some quiet place to pray, to meditate, to rest, and to replenish his energy. Among those synonyms are solitude , retirement , seclusion , isolation , and loneliness . Retirement is a voluntary withdrawal from general society, implying that a person has been engaged in its activities. Seclusion , that he is shut out from others,usually by his own choice.
Isolation emphasizes total separation or detachment from others, and is usually involuntary.
Clearly, Jesus was able to do so, even when his solitude was interrupted by the assaults of the Tempter. I want to contrast two of these terms in particular, solitude and loneliness , and I want to do so first by using a little linguistic history. Let's take a brief walk down the path of English word study because in the origins of these two words, loneliness and solitude , I find a significant spiritual truth. In other words, solitude , as a describer of alone- ness, is rooted in a spiritual concept, the concept of self or soul . It has nothing to do with self-hood or the soul.