De jejunio

Concerning Fasting. This is the season of propitiations, and let us not overlook the opportune moment; it is the season for the recall of sins, and let us not reject the grace, but let us fast from foods, and first from sins; for the first good is the removal of evils. Vice is that which is opposed to virtue: envy and theft, and murder and war, and all that are called and are evils. He who is in evils has vice as a punishment; for even before Gehenna, the presence of vice is a punishment. For not even the cutting of a physician is evil; but the punishment is brought on because of the preceding evil. The first evil is to be examined in vice. The impious man is alienated from God; even if he is not cast into Gehenna, he is deprived of good things. The one who is not temperate corrupts his desires, the envious man wastes away from his passion, the thief is ashamed and afraid, the murderer does not trust his own life. The first evil is to be evil. Even if the physician does not cut, the sick man is ill; even if God does not punish—for He is patient—the one who sins is in a state of sickness; for he who commits sin, it is said, is a slave of sin. Therefore, before the sin, the one who sins is already enslaved, and already has the punishment. The bridle of fasting is good for those who love the benefit from fasting. Do not attend only to the laborious aspect, but also to the fruit. For if one did not attend to the need, the sower would not sow, so as not to seem to scatter what was stored; looking to hope, he sows what he had, so that he might reap what he did not have. The flesh suffers in fasts, but the soul rejoices in the hope of good things. Which is better in us, soul or body?

which, even if it received the property of not feeling pain, is nourished by the beauty of the virtues with greater abundance. We must be in a state of fasting, which is not a destruction of the body, but a healing and a remedy. Those who fast are also freed from bodily ailments; those who practice asceticism melt away the excess of flesh and nourish the deficiency of the soul. The soul always cares for the body; it nourishes itself and takes thought for itself. The soul prepares a way for the body and prepares a word for itself. For if it takes care of the body, much more ought it to care for itself. The order from God is that the soul should rule the body; those who place the body before the soul overturn the right order. The soul does not serve the body, but rather it was upright from the beginning, and the body was always subordinate to the soul. But if this does not persuade you, at least let the feasts which the soul celebrates against the body convince you that it also thinks against the body. The body is saved when the body rules the soul, and the soul is lost. Let us not think that fasting is a small gain. If Adam had abstained from one tree and fasted from one, death would have died; or rather, death would not have died, since it did not exist. Do you see that if Adam had used this remedy, our race would not have become mortal? Of how much grace was there need, in order to undo what Adam devised through intemperance? When you see that the opposite—that is, Adam’s not abstaining from one tree—wrought evil, recognize how great a good fasting and abstinence from what is permitted are. For Adam, who touched what was not permitted, destroyed the race.

Fasting, even when it has removed one from what is permitted, recalls the transgression. And if Esau fasted, he did not sell his birthright; but, having become inferior to food, he sold the natural advantage for lentils. I leave these matters to those educated in the Scriptures. What did Moses bring down from the mountain for the Jews? Law and a fast that occurred for forty days. But before it was brought down, the law was seen, the people having committed impiety. The first commandment is, "The Lord God is one"; and those who were about to receive such a commandment say, "These are your gods." Great weakness; for before the living God, the imitation of a calf was preferred. What then is the remedy for such a great evil? Again, Moses, who did not sin, fasts, and the root of the old law is granted to those who sinned. The proclamation of the New Testament began from fasting, it took its beginning from fasting. For the Savior, having been baptized for our sake and having gone into the desert, first fasted, and thus began the signs, not because he himself needed fasting, but teaching us that the turning point lies in the power of fasting. If, then, the Old Testament begins from fasting, and the New Testament lays its foundation from this, let us not think that fasting is an evil.

Some are displeased, seeing the burdensome law, and they do not see the profit that accrues from this law. Do you not see that even lions in a den were persuaded to fast, and they did not touch Daniel? If lions obey the command, and put off the nature of their wildness, and are as acquaintances, and do not attack as strangers, let us hasten to fasting when commanded. Again it is written, when Jeroboam the king of Judea had acted impiously, worshipping a calf according to paternal inheritance, a prophet came forward, and said nothing to the king and the people, knowing that both the ruler and the ruled were disobedient; but leaving aside the men who would not listen, he speaks to the altar, that is, to the shrine, in order to show that stones hear better than men; he says, Let Josiah be born, and he will burn the bones of those who sacrifice upon the altar. The one reproached did not bear the dishonor, and was indignant; he stretched out his hand with force, to turn back the benefactor the prophet; he stretched it out, but he was not able to bend it; for sin had dried up his hand. The one who stretched out his hand speaks, to seize the prophet, and at the same time as he cries out, the prophet heals his hand; and the king says to him: Come up with me into the house, taste bread and drink water, and then you will go. The prophet answers: I have a command of God in these places, where impiety is practiced, not to taste water and bread. The prophet departs. Pay attention to the end of the account.

Another prophet, having heard that a prophet who had arrived spoke such things, pursues and overtakes him, and entreats the prophet to enter and taste with him, and persuades him. He persuaded him by saying, "The Lord also told me to do this." He entered and ate. While they were eating, the Holy Spirit came upon the prophet who had invited him, and from then on he prophesies, not from his heart, but from the Spirit, and says to the one who had entered and eaten: "Since you did not listen to the Lord your God, and you ate where you were commanded not to eat, you will depart from here, and a lion will devour you." Do you see how great an evil disregard of a command concerning fasting brings about? The prophet departs, and the dignity of his prophecy did not protect him because of his disobedience. A lion came out, not to eat, but to show that it itself obeys a command, and it goes after the one who did not obey, and it touched the body of the disobedient one only to the extent of killing him; and it killed him in order to punish the disobedient one. Having killed him, the lion used fasting instead of the indulgence of the disobedient one; for the prophet lay dead, while his donkey stood alive, not because it was easier to kill a donkey than a man, but the irrational lion made a distinction by command, and did not kill the donkey that had not sinned, nor did it touch it, but it killed the disobedient one, who was no longer a prophet as far as disobedience was concerned. And one could see threefold wonders concerning him: the prophet lay there, revealing his disobedience; the

A lion, indicating its obedience; and the donkey stood by, neither fearing the lion's nature, nor withdrawing, nor suffering anything from the lion, so that it might be shown that the lion did not approach because of the thought of its belly, as it approached, but because the one commanded not to taste did not practice fasts. Again, Elijah was taken up as if to heaven. What then is the sign of the assumption, if not the fast of the forty days? If Moses fasts, and Elijah fasts in addition, and the Lord seals it, the imitation is good. Yet we do not recall the rests in between; for we do not fast forty days, but leaving intervals in the middle, we join the number but do not distinguish the fast. Great are the things before us, small are our own; but if we also fail in the small things, we have manifestly become strangers to those who fasted. None of us fasts forty days; for we rest at forty intervals, like travelers, lodging each evening and beginning again. But if they fasted the entire forty, and we do not even with rest travel the same road as they, let us not even dare to mention those whose imitation we do not possess. Fasting is, as far as possible, an imitation of angels, a contempt for present things, leisure for prayer, luxury of the soul, a bridle for the body, and gentleness of desire. And those who fast know that it calms pleasures, and those who have experienced it are not ignorant.

It softens wrath, curbs anger, and calms the natural waves; it rouses the reason and renders the soul radiant; it lightens the flesh, drives away shameful nocturnal intemperances, delivers from drunkenness, and frees from headache; it brings brightness both to complexion and to glance. In fasts, the movements are orderly, the tongue is easy, not distorted by wine, the reason is upright; for the desires are not poured out. It dances in temperance, it holds calm; for the outer man is at leisure, and of the things we suffer in drunkenness we have no memory, but of the things from which we are delivered in fasts we have recollection. For fasting knows both itself and its opposites; but drunkenness, being ignorant of itself, is also ignorant of the good things that come from fasting. For what reason, tell me, were the sons of Aaron the priests put to death? Was it not because, while serving, they tasted wine? What was the law of the Nazirites? Was it not to abstain from wine and from everything made from wine? Those around Daniel ate seeds, despising the tyrannical table of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel, the man of desires, fasted for three weeks of days; when he abstained from desires, he received this final appellation. He fasted not one Jewish day, not a poor one, but three weeks of days, himself prefiguring the ecclesiastical way. "Bread of desires," he said, "I did not eat"; but they hunger for desires at the time. Wine and meat did not enter my mouth, from which the Church fasts. See in the Old Testament a Christian way of life. For in the weak are the types, but in the prophets are already the traces of the truth.

Fasting recalled a decree of God. For God said, Nineveh is to be destroyed, and it was not destroyed; for they offered fasting, and escaped. Jonah, fearing the help from fasting, fled. And indeed a whale swallowed him; but it swallowed him while he was fasting. For the swallower did not use the prey for food, but set it aside and kept the deposit for the Master, and led the one who did not wish to go of his own accord to where he was commanded. Nineveh, the great city, heard one naked prophet, who had come out of a whale, preserving not even the color of a man because of fear; one prophet set foot there, and the sign which he made, the occasion demonstrated. But he also said that the city is to be destroyed; he ought to have led them away from faith beforehand. But they heard one prophet, and proclaimed fasting as a preventive remedy against destruction. Jonah was contentious, not that Nineveh be destroyed, but that Israel be convicted by comparison, that the nations readily obey even one prophet, while Israel disobeyed so many.

Fasting was offered so that God's decree might be annulled. And the fasting was not simple, but rather abstinence from foods, and also abstinence from sins; for he who fasts because of sins, and yet wallows in sins, what is he still doing? It is as if someone, after washing himself from mud, again rolls in the mud. One must first abstain from sin itself. For what benefit was there in sin committed on other days, that we might again conceive of it after the earlier examples? Does the soul not grow weak from the preceding blows? Do we not, when praying, ask that we have sinned? If we repent of the former things, why do we gather the second? It is written again, that they abstained from foods, they abstained also from sins. God listened; the fasting was sufficient to persuade the Master. Jonah was distressed, because he was about to hear as a prophet; but God, having changed the decree, did not hesitate to save. For it was not possible for God to lie, but he who said this speaks truth: If I suddenly declare against a nation and kingdoms to overthrow and uproot, and it repents of its wickedness, I too will repent of what I pronounced. God did not lie in recalling the decree; for he did not send the prophet so that Nineveh might be destroyed; why was it necessary to foretell? But since he did not wish to destroy, he threatened, "I destroy," so that, repenting, they might not be destroyed. Adam did not eat from the tree, and then God punished him, but he foretold, "If you eat, you will die," so that he might not eat. He did not listen to the one who spoke, he ate, he was consumed. Is there no accusation where there is choice? But someone says, Did he not know that he was about to eat?

Perhaps the one speaking and slandering the Old Testament is a heretic. To him it will be said: If the Savior knew that Judas was going to betray him, how did he choose him? But perhaps we will defend ourselves against the heretic by setting the case of Judas against that of Adam. Is this then a solution, or a double bind? We must therefore defend ourselves, both as to why he chose Judas, being such a man, and why, knowing that Adam would sin, he placed him in paradise. It is necessary to raise great questions during fasts, when the soul is sober. The Savior knew from the start—for this is where we must begin—that Judas would betray him. What then, do you say? He was displaying an excess of philanthropy, that as far as it concerns me, you are both an apostle and I count you among the disciples; but if you show yourself unworthy, my excess of philanthropy is evident, and your excess of wickedness is evident. For he entrusted him with the collection box of modest sums, not ignorant that he was stealing, but wishing through giving him authority to stop the passion. He foreknew, then, and foretold; and not only did he foreknow, but he often said beforehand, "One of you will betray me." What then will you charge? That the wicked man might fulfill the good economy through his wickedness; and the one who chose him did not compel him. For if Jesus had compelled him, he did not compel him to become a traitor, but an apostle; but he does not compel even an apostle. For what happens under compulsion is not truly what it is called; a man chaste under compulsion is not chaste, because compulsion occurred. Virtues are not produced by bonds, but the way of life is by choice. Why then did he also leave Adam in paradise?

The one who formed him was good; he made him free, and as to a free being he gave the commandment itself. But he knew that he was going to eat. Yet he did not prevent him by necessity, nor did he compel his choice. Adam sinned. And because of the tree, the place where the precious thing was is honored. For he was not created evil, but the one who gave the command was evilly disobeyed. If tasting destroyed even the commandment, fasting with the commandment recalls and saves. Test yourself, O man. For what need is there of readings? Examine yourself: who you were before fasting, and who you are while fasting. For among actions, some bear fruit later, while others produce the fruit in the deed itself. The one who goes down into the sea for fishing does not have the catch in the act of diving; but the one who fasts immediately has the fruit. Do you not have calm? Have you not been freed from the waves of wine? Have you not been freed from storm and tempest? Do you not desire to hear that the flesh is bridled, not leaping, not blushing? Were you not able to raise a discussion about temperance now? Do you not hear that so-and-so fasted, and do you rejoice? Those who fast, do not consider fasting an evil; for the one who considers fasting an evil, even if he fasts, is in evil. The angels are not in evils, having no need of the luxury among us. We do not eat according to worth, but we fill ourselves according to need. As many evils as are done by us are extinguished in fasts. By fasting I mean not only abstinence from foods, but that which Isaiah knows: fast so that you may be heard. And if you say to God according to the Jewish saying, "We fasted and you did not see; we humbled our souls and you did not know," beware lest you hear.

For in your fasts you find your wills. If you fulfill the will of the Lord, you have performed the fast. For the fast is not a business transaction, that we might gain by not eating, but that what you are about to eat may be eaten by a poor person instead of you; and the good becomes double for you, both because you fast and because another does not hunger. We labor while fasting; we have not yet been crucified while fasting. Why the fast? In place of the cross; we have received greater things, we give back small things. He was crucified for you, and he thirsts, and drinks vinegar with gall. The food is unpleasant, the fast is great. Not yet as much as the gall, and you stand there laboring? You have not yet been hung on a cross. Do not be ungrateful toward Jesus, do not lament that you fast, but lament that you do not always fast. Of what have you been deprived while fasting? Of wine? Not of wine, but of inflammation, headache, wretched asthma. Consider then in what state you are: in tranquility, in gentleness, in calm. A good complexion arises on the face during fasts, a gentle, calm one; for the complexion of wine is a burning fire. He who does not suffer with Jesus does not know Jesus; he who rejects the fast does not know the cross. Let us not approach the fast as an evil, so that what is suspected may not become evil for you; nor should you be found serving God as a shameful slave. No one is distressed during festivals, except he who is ignorant of the power of the festivals. When there are festivals, then be more cheerful. But you do rather the opposite: when you are an angel, then you are harsh. Do you not know the middle ground? When nature demands marriage, you do not marry beyond nature. Be reverent in marriage; if you honor the fasts, on the days of the fasts become an angel.

I do not disparage marriage, but I prefer fasting. What we ate before the fast does not remain with us. Why then do we busy ourselves with things that are not present? The entire pleasure of food lasts only until swallowing; once it passes the region of taste, it becomes as if it were not. Fasting, however, does not wither, does not go into the belly, nor is it transformed through the belly into excrement; for it is a provider of immortality, it has its abode with angels, because it is, as far as possible, an imitation of angels. Are you distressed because you are sober? Because you are not weighed down by others' prosperity? Because your reason is upright? Because your flesh is pure? Because your mind flourishes? Because you hear Scripture with joy? Because you keep silent about secrets, and you are not a man, but almost an angel? It is a feast of the Lord who has called us to a spiritual marriage, who has entered to see those reclining at table; lest someone enter wearing borrowed garments. One must bring to a marriage garments that are clean, undefiled, and holy for holy and undefiled marriages, bright on the outside and radiant within. Let the marriage also be quiet, and let each one heed the apostle's instruction according to his admonition, that from

it is fitting for each to devote oneself to fasts. And with the fasts, let prayer also be joined: fasting urges, but prayer has its moment. Fast because you have not sinned, and fast because you have sinned, and again fast so that you may not sin, and so that what you have received may remain. For such are the kinds of fasting. Has someone sinned and fasted, punishing himself, in order to escape punishment? Let us also fast, beloved, so that desires do not rise up against us. You see fasting following sin, that is, the turning back that occurs after sin in terms of punishment. But fasting preceded sins, not to remove the sin that has occurred, but to prevent the one to come. There is another kind of fasting: one who seeks to receive law from law. For the one who asks for law fasts, as Moses fasted and received law. Again, another fasts so that he may not fail in those things of which he was deemed worthy. And the Church fasts together, for grace and for the economy. It recognizes Jesus in deed, crucified together with the crucified, suffering together with the Lord, so that it may also be glorified together, not that we may mourn the Lord; for the Son of the living One lives; but that we may confess the grace of the economy. Even if we mourn that the Jews crucified him, we do not mourn for his sake, but for the audacity of those who dared. For he rose from the dead, he stood in glory, in which he pre-existed with the Father, he was with the Father from where he also was. The victory of Jesus is not worthy of mourning. But let us fast, caring for ourselves, and hastening to be sharers in his sufferings; let us do what is worthy, brothers.

Who has been deemed worthy to be a partaker of the sufferings of Christ? Great is the mystery. Let us hasten toward good things, and not turn aside to evils. Jesus was crucified, the Son of the immortal one; he hung his body upon the cross, not for himself, but for you. You ate from the tree; he fasts upon the tree. You took what was not owed to you; he placed his body in exchange for what you took. You were overcome by a grievous desire; he drinks vinegar instead of pleasure. Do not become a stranger to the kingdom. You know that he was crucified; you know that he died for you; confess that he lives. Make your confession on behalf of the living one; bear witness to the one who bore witness; die for the one who died. But if death is required in this way, do not shrink back; the death of fasting is small. Do you not have great achievements? The death of fasting is small. Do you not have great achievements? Grant him the small ones; run to him with joy for the feasts; receive fasting with gladness. Fasting is spiritual delight. But perhaps I cry out in vain; for just as time has changed the colors of those hastening to the table. This is not the mark of those who love the fast in which they stand. For it was not fitting that you should be distressed at being drawn away from the Lord’s table. But contrary to expectation, the sight has met us, as the light of the lamp met us. The hidden conscience has been exposed, that we are held by force; and so we do not stand. How long do we play with the truth? How long do we traffic in the Lord’s affairs? Or did you not hear the psalm saying, while you yourself were listening to it, “If you speak the truth, judge rightly”? If you are truthful concerning fasting, have joy concerning fasting.

But if you grieve, you wrong yourself; if you suffer, you do not rejoice; if you pursue as though deprived of good things, you do not attain good things. Jesus was crucified for you, and he did not complain, but rather even hastened to suffer; yet you cannot endure even a small fast for the sake of your own salvation? O man, I do not have such strength to cry out as I ought. Jesus was crucified; see, and strike your breast, bring down a tear from your eyes. He was crucified for you; be crucified with him, be glorified together with him, not that you may die, but that you may be delivered from death. This is the day of preparation, the day on which the cross was planted for you; and you, be crucified with him, die with him. For the word is about God, God who became man for you. Do we not feel shame at the dignity? Do we not blush at the passion? Consider both, O man, what he was, and what he suffered. The judge has been judged, and life has been handed over to death; and the one who nourishes hungers, and the one who gives drink thirsts, and the one in glory is in dishonor, and the king is before a governor, and God is condemned by men—the one who speaks truth. The Father will judge no one, but has given all judgment to the Son; he who judges all, by whom has he been judged? These things are enough for you, O man, as a reminder for fasting. For one must first know in what state we are, and then discern matters concerning ourselves. When we love fasting and are well disposed concerning it, as though dancing in a festival, and the feast during the fasts, we will set forth the mysteries of the fast, honoring the Lord’s table, to the servants of the Lord, the glory before the ages, his economy in later times.

Who he was, and what he became, whence he came, and among what people he sojourned, and for what purpose—so that, rejoicing and giving joy, we may keep this fast continually, serving the Lord of the fast, thanking him from every side, and always glorifying, always loving the one who loved us, and worshiping the one who took upon himself our sins, and dying for the one who died, and hoping to be glorified together with the one who was dishonored. And to the all-holy Father, who deemed us worthy of the present fast and did not spare his own Son for the sake of our salvation, through the one who came, let us send up glory together with the life-giving Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.