John Chrysostom, De ieiunio et Iona

From Codex A-95 (PG 49, 305-308; CPG 4333-5) Manuscript: P = A-95 Readings for the Holy Fasts. A discourse of our father John Chrysostom concerning fasting and Jonah. Radiant is this assembly for us today, and more radiant still is this customary discourse. Is there some cause for the turning away from fasting? I know fasting not as that which is merely present, but as a matter of further contemplation. For it has gathered us together in that paternal home; it has assembled us from the former idleness of the day into the hands of the mother. Behold, its expectation has brought you to such zeal. That which appeared, when it arrived, how much service to God was accomplished among you? Likewise, when the city sees that terrible governor, it abandons all idleness and prepares itself more diligently. But do not be terrified when you hear of that terrible governance of fasting. For it is not something terrible for you, but for that race of demons. Even if it be struck by hail, show it the face of fasting, which stands more unshakably than stone, is bound with fear, and as if by some prison it seizes it, even more so, when it beholds the daughter of fasting adorned with fasting and the spouse of prayer. For this reason also Christ said: "This race departs by nothing except prayer and fasting.

when we rout the warriors of our life and drive off the enemies of our life so utterly scattered. For this reason there is desire and love, not merely fear; fear is for those who are always drunk and who eat at untimely hours, not for fasting. For that one (the enemy) has gathered us into its hands by force, with that power of the passions, as if an evil queen had sent her slaves and captives into exile. But fasting has bound us as slaves and prisoners, and has loosed us and freed us from that power and made us free for the sake of the former. Since it is a separator from our enemies and a deliverer from slavery and a bringer to nobility, what greater thing do I seek and the revelation of the love of our kinsman? The extraordinary manifestation of love is a matter for thought for those who love and hate him. Do you wish to learn how much fasting is a guardian and a restraint for the world? Consider the race of those blessed and wondrous monks. They were born amid that rebellion and ascended upon the yoke of the mountains, and their dwellings in the desert became a refuge, so to speak, or a shelter, and they received this for the sake of the salvation and communion of the whole of life.

from this also they made angels from men; not only them, but those who are in the cities, as many as they found entering into it, they brought them to the same love of wisdom. For Moses and Elijah, those ancient prophets, and others more brilliant and greater than them, have great boldness when they wish to enter into God to speak to him, as to a mighty man, they approach him and from this also they are considered to be possessed. Likewise, when God first created man, in the beginning with power...