1. 1. To say something about the usefulness of fasting is both what God urges and what the season prompts. For this observance, this virtue of the soul, this defrauding of the flesh and gain of the mind, is not offered to God by the angels. For there everything is in abundance and there is everlasting fullness; and therefore there is no want, because there is a full affection toward God. There is the bread of the angels, and that man might eat the bread of the angels, God became man. Here all souls that carry earthly flesh fill their bellies from the earth; there the rational spirits that preside over heavenly bodies fill their minds from God. Here too there is food, and there is food there; but this food of ours, when it restores, is itself diminished, and so fills another in such a way that it is itself spent; that other food both fills and remains whole. This is the food Christ enjoined us to hunger for, saying: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied (Matt 5:6). It belongs, then, to human beings who lead this mortal life to hunger and thirst for righteousness; but to be filled with righteousness belongs to another life. With this bread, this food, the angels are filled; but human beings, while they hunger, stretch themselves out; while they stretch themselves, they are enlarged; while they are enlarged, they become capacious; and once made capacious, in due time they will be filled. What then? Do those who hunger and thirst for righteousness receive nothing here? They do indeed receive, but it is one thing when we speak of the refreshment of those on the way, and another when we speak of the perfection of the blessed. Listen to the Apostle hungering and thirsting—and for righteousness, of course—for as much righteousness as can be received in this life, as much as can be carried out. For who among us would dare even to compare himself to him, let alone prefer himself? Yet what does he say? Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect (Phil 3:12). See who is speaking: the chosen vessel, and in a way the very hem of the Lord's garment—yet the hem that heals the one who touches it because he believes; for he is the last of the apostles and the least, as he himself says: I am the last of the apostles; and: I am the least of the apostles; and again: I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God; but by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain, but I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me (1 Cor 15:9–10). Hearing these things, you think you are hearing one who is full and perfect. You have heard what he gives forth in fullness; now hear what he hungers for. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, he says. Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on according to my purpose toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:13–14). He says that he is not yet perfect, that he has not yet obtained, has not yet made it his own; he says that he is straining forward, that he is pressing on toward the prize of the upward call. He is on the way; he hungers, he longs to be filled, he is intent, he desires to arrive, he burns; nothing is so great a delay to him as to be set free and to be with Christ (Phil 1:23).

2. 2. Therefore, dearly beloved, since there is an earthly food by which the weakness of the flesh is fed, and there is also a heavenly food by which the godliness of the mind is filled, and this earthly food has its own life and that food has its own—this is the food of human beings, that is the food of the angels—faithful people, already set apart in heart from the throng of unbelievers, lifted up toward God, those to whom it is said, Lift up your hearts, who bear another hope and know that they are sojourners in this world, hold a kind of middle place. They are not to be compared with those who think nothing good except to enjoy earthly delights, nor yet with those dwellers on high in heaven whose only delight is the very bread by whom they were created. Those people, bent toward the earth, seeking their food and joy from the flesh alone, are compared to cattle; they are far removed from the angels both in condition and in conduct—in condition, because they are mortal; in conduct, because they are given over to indulgence. Between that people of heaven and that people of earth the Apostle hung in a kind of middle position; he was going toward the one, returning from the other, stretching himself toward the one, lifting himself up from the other. Yet he was not yet with them, for then he would have said, I am already perfect; nor was he with these others—the lazy, the torpid, the slack, the drowsy, who think there is nothing other than what they see, and what passes away, and the fact that they were born and that they are going to die; for if he were with them, he would not say, I press on toward the prize of the upward call. And so we ought to govern our fasts. This is not, as I said, an angelic office; nor yet is it the office of those people who serve their belly; it is a matter belonging to our middle condition, in which we live set apart from unbelievers and longing to be joined to the angels. We have not yet arrived, but already we are on our way; we do not yet rejoice there, but already we sigh here. What good, then, does it do us to abstain somewhat from food and fleshly joy? The flesh forces us down to the earth, the mind tends upward; it is caught up by love but slowed by weight. Of this matter Scripture speaks thus: For a perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthly dwelling burdens the mind as it ponders many things (Wis 9:15). If, then, the flesh leaning toward the earth is a burden to the soul, a load weighing down one who would fly back up, then to the degree that each one delights in his higher life, to that degree he lays aside his earthly load. See what we are doing when we fast.

3. 3. Let this not seem to you a slight or superfluous matter, lest perhaps someone doing it by the custom of the Church should consider within himself and say to himself, or hear the tempter suggesting within him: What are you doing in fasting? You are defrauding your soul, you are not giving it what delights it; you are heaping punishment upon yourself, you have become your own torturer and tormentor. Does it then please God that you torment yourself? Then he is cruel, who takes delight in your punishments. Answer a tempter of this kind: I torment myself precisely so that he may spare me; I exact punishment from myself so that he may help me, so that I may please his eyes, so that I may delight his sweetness. For the victim too is slaughtered in order to be placed upon the altar. My flesh will press less heavily upon my mind. And to such an evil dissuader, the slave of the belly, answer with this comparison and say: If you happened to be sitting on a beast of burden, if you were using a horse that by its frisking could throw you headlong, would you not, in order to travel safely, withhold fodder from the wild creature and tame by hunger the one you could not tame by the bridle? My flesh is my beast of burden; I am journeying to Jerusalem; it often carries me off and tries to drive me from the road—but my road is Christ—so shall I not check it with fasting when it grows so wanton? If anyone has a taste for this, he proves even by his own experience how usefully one fasts. For will this flesh, which is now being tamed, always be tamed? While it ebbs and flows in time, while it is weighed down by the condition of mortality, it has its exultations, manifest and dangerous to our mind. For the flesh is still corruptible, it has not yet risen; it will not always be thus, it does not yet have the proper state of a heavenly disposition; for we have not yet been made equal to the angels of God.

4. 4. Let not your Charity, then, suppose that the flesh is an enemy to the spirit, as though one were the author of the flesh and another the author of the spirit. For many, thinking this, have truly been carried away by the flesh itself and have gone astray, and have set down one author for the flesh and another for the spirit. They use, as it were, an apostolic testimony which they do not understand: The flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh (Gal 5:17). This is true—but why do you not also attend to this other text: For no one ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church (Eph 5:29)? In that first statement which I mentioned, there seems to be a kind of struggle of two enemies, the flesh and the spirit, because the flesh desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. But in this one there is as it were a conjugal union: For no one ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church. What then do we make of these two statements? If they are contrary, which shall we reject, which shall we hold? But they are not contrary. Let your Charity attend; for the time being I accept both, and I will show both to be in agreement, as far as I can. But you, whoever you are, who set up one author for the flesh and another for the spirit—what do you do with this text? For no one ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church. Does the comparison not frighten you, since he says, nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church? You think the flesh a fetter. Who loves his own fetter? You think the flesh a prison. Who loves his own prison? For no one ever hates his own flesh. Who would not hate his own chain? Who would not hate his own punishment? And yet: No one ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church. You, then, who set up one author for the flesh and another for the spirit, will go on to set up one for the Church and another for Christ; and whoever has a taste for this is a fool. Each one, therefore, loves his own flesh. The Apostle says so, and apart from the Apostle's saying each one proves it in himself. For however much you may be a tamer of the flesh, with whatever severity you may be fired against it, I do not know whether you would not close your eye if some blow were about to fall.

4. 5. There is, then, a kind of marriage of spirit and flesh. Whence, then, does the flesh desire against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh (Gal 5:17)? Whence this punishment, which has been brought down from the lineage of death? Whence was it said: All die in Adam (1 Cor 15:22)? And whence does the Apostle say: We too were once by nature children of wrath, like the rest (Eph 2:3)? For he from whom we are born received the penalty of death, and we drag along what we are to overcome; and therefore we desire against the flesh, so that we may subject the tamed flesh to ourselves and draw it to obey. Do we then hate the one whom we desire to obey us? Each one, even in his own house, generally administers discipline to his wife and subjugates her when she resists; he does not persecute her as an enemy. You tame your son so that he may obey you. Do you hate him? Do you count him an enemy? Lastly, you love your slave and chastise him, and by chastising you make him obedient. You have on this matter the Apostle's own clear and complete statement: I do not so run as if without a goal; I do not so box as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, having preached to others, I myself should be found disqualified (1 Cor 9:26–27). The flesh, then, by its mortal condition has, as it were, certain earthly appetites of its own; over these the right of the bridle has been granted you. Let the one set over you govern you, so that the one made subject to you may be governed by you. Below you is your flesh, above you is your God; when you wish your flesh to serve you, you are reminded how you ought to serve your God. You attend to what is below you; attend also to what is above you. You have no rights over what is lower except from one who is higher. You are a slave, you have a slave; but the Lord has two slaves. Your slave is more in the power of your Lord than in yours. And so you wish to be obeyed by your flesh. Can it obey in all things? In all things it obeys your Lord; not in all things does it obey you. How so? you ask. You walk, you move your feet, it follows—but will it go with you as long as you wish? It is animated by you; but for as long as you wish? Do you feel pain only when you wish? Are you healthy when you wish? For your Lord often disciplines you through your slave, so that, because you have been a despiser of the Lord, you may deserve to be amended through your slave.

5. 6. But what concerns you? Not to give the flesh's pleasure free rein into what is unlawful, and to rein it in somewhat even from what is lawful. For whoever does not rein himself in from anything lawful is close to the unlawful as well. Accordingly, brethren, marriage is lawful, adultery is unlawful; and yet temperate men, in order to be far from unlawful adultery, rein themselves in somewhat even from lawful marriage. Being satisfied is lawful, drunkenness is unlawful; yet modest men, in order to put themselves far from the disgrace of drunkenness, chastise themselves somewhat even from the liberty of being satisfied. So let us act, brethren; let us be temperate; and what we do, let us know why we do it. By ceasing from the joy of the flesh, the joy of the mind is acquired.

5. 7. Accordingly, the end of our fasts has reference to our journey; what that journey itself is, and where we are tending, this is what must be considered. For pagans too fast at times, yet they do not know the region toward which we are tending; and Jews fast at times, yet they have not laid hold of the way on which we walk. This is like someone taming a horse on which to wander astray. Heretics fast; I see of what sort they are as they go, and I ask where they are going: You fast—to please whom? God, they say. You think it a gift; does he accept it? But first see what he says: Leave your gift, and go first to be reconciled to your brother (Matt 5:24). Do you rightly tame your own members, you who tear apart the members of Christ? Your voice is heard in shouting, he says, and you goad those who are under your yoke and strike them with your fists. Such a fast I have not chosen, says the Lord (See Isa 58:4–5). Your fast, then, would be disapproved if you showed yourself too immoderately harsh toward your slave. Shall your fast be approved when you do not acknowledge your brother? I do not ask from what food you abstain, but what food you love. Tell me what food you love, so that I may approve your abstaining from this food. Do you love righteousness? Perhaps you say: I do love it. Then let your righteousness appear. For I think it just that you should serve the greater, so that the lesser may obey you. For we were speaking of the flesh, which is lesser than the spirit, and which, made subject, must be tamed and governed. You deal with it so that it may obey you, and you withhold food from it because you love it as subject to you. Acknowledge the greater, acknowledge the higher, so that the lower may rightly yield to you.

6. 7. What if your flesh obeys you, and you do not obey your God? Are you not condemned by it, when it obeys you? Does it not, by obeying you, bear witness against you?

6. 8. And whom, you ask, am I to obey as greater? See, Christ is speaking—you had called yourself a lover of righteousness: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another (John 13:34). Hear, then, your Lord giving the commandment that we love one another. Since out of all of us, as out of members, he makes a body for himself—a body that has one head, the Lord and Savior himself—you, on the contrary, tear yourself away from the members of Christ, you do not love unity. Would you not be horrified at this in your own members? If you had a crooked finger, would you not run to a doctor to set your finger right? Surely your body is in good condition when your members agree with one another; then you are said to be healthy, then you are well. But if anything in your body is at variance with the other parts, you look for someone to set it right. Why, then, do you not seek to be set right, so that you may be recalled to the framework of the members of Christ and fit into that body which is also your own? Surely your hairs are of less worth than the rest of your members? What is of less worth in your body than your hairs? What more contemptible? What more abject? And yet if someone cuts your hair badly, you grow angry at the barber, because he does not keep evenness in your hairs; and you do not keep unity in the members of Christ. What then are your fasts, or what are they good for? You think God unworthy to be served in unity by all who believe in him; and yet you wish unity to be kept in your own members, in your body, in your hairs. Your inmost parts speak; your members bear true witness against you, and you bear false witness against the members of Christ.

6. 9. Have you set yourself apart from the fasting of the pagans? You think so, and therefore you seem secure to yourself. For I, you say, fast to Christ, while they fast to idols and demons. I accept what you say, and truly, I do not deny it, the distinction is real. But see how, as your members were bearing witness against you a little while ago when I called it to mind, so that I might warn you what you ought to be with the members of Christ your God, so too let the very pagans, from whom you set apart your fasting, warn you of something about the unity of your Christ.

7. 9. See, those people worship many false gods, yet undivided. Have we then found the one true God only to fail to be under the one in unity? They worship many gods, and false ones; we, one and true. And they, under many false gods, have no division; we, under the one true God, do not keep unity. Do you not grieve, do you not groan, do you not blush? I add another point: the pagans worship not only many false gods, but several of them at odds with one another and enemies. For example, let us mention some of theirs, if we cannot mention all: Hercules and Juno were enemies, for they were human beings—he the stepson, she the stepmother; for both of them the pagans built temples, both to Juno and to Hercules. They adore him, they adore her; alike they go to Juno, alike to Hercules; though those two are angry with each other, the worshipers are of one accord. Vulcan and Mars are enemies, and Vulcan has a just cause; but find a judge to hear it! For the wretch hates his wife's adultery, yet does not dare to forbid his worshipers the temple of Mars. They adore both the one and the other together. If they imitated their gods, they too would quarrel. They go from the temple of Mars to the temple of Vulcan. What great shamelessness! Yet they do not fear that the husband will be angry with them because someone comes to him from the temple of the adulterer Mars. They have a heart; they know that the stone cannot feel. See, worshiping gods many, false, diverse, opposed, they nevertheless keep among them some kind of unity in worshiping them; see, the very pagans, from whom you have set apart your fasting, bear witness against you. Come, then, to unity, brother. We worship one God; we have never seen the Father and the Son quarreling. And let not the pagans be incensed at me for saying these things about their gods. For why should they be angry at my words rather than at their own writings? Let them first, if they can—rather, if they will—blot those writings out; let not the grammarians spread their sails to teach them. He is angry at me because I say these things—he who pays a fee for his own son to learn them.

8. 10. Therefore, dearly beloved, those people indeed have such gods—or rather, they had them. For because they were unwilling to forsake them, they have been forsaken by them. And many have forsaken them, and still forsake them; they cast down their temples within their own hearts. But let us rejoice over them, because they are coming to unity, not to division. Let not the pagan find an occasion for being unwilling to be a Christian. Let us be of one accord, brethren, in worshiping the one God, so that by our concord we may in some way exhort those people too to forsake their many gods, that they may come to peace and to unity in worshiping the one God. And if perhaps they are disdainful and on this score slander us—that we Christians do not have unity among ourselves—and are on that account slow and sluggish to come to salvation, I will address them too a little, and say what you are to say to them. Let them not set their concord, as it were, over against us; let them not be pleased with themselves as though for their unity. For the enemy whom we endure, they do not endure; he possesses them, who do not even do these things. He sees them as worshipers of false gods; he sees them as slaves, and slaves of demons. What profit is it to him that they quarrel, or what loss that they do not quarrel? Even when they hold to one thing, though false and empty, and agree with one another, he possesses them just the same. But when he was being forsaken, and many were running together to the one God, were forsaking his sacrilegious rites, overturning his temples, breaking his idols, forbidding sacrifices, he saw that he had lost those whom he held, he saw that they had withdrawn from his household and come to know the true God. What was he to do? How was he to lay snares? He knows that he cannot possess us when we are of one accord; he cannot divide the one God among us; he cannot substitute false gods for us. He perceives that our life is love and our death is dissension; he sent quarrels among Christians, because he could not fashion many gods for Christians; he multiplied sects, sowed errors, established heresies. But whatever he did, he did out of the Lord's chaff. See, we have our security: though he rages, though he lays snares and sows various dissensions among Christians, if we acknowledge our God, if we hold to him in concord, if we keep the faith, we are secure. Brethren, the grain either does not leave the threshing floor or returns to it; the wind of temptation carries off some of the chaff, whereby it makes for us not a way of perdition but a work of training. But however much chaff it does not carry off, that chaff too must in the end be winnowed; and all the chaff goes nowhere but into the fire. We ought, then, my brethren, to be busy while there is time, with all the strength we can, with all the intent we can, so that, if it can be done, even the chaff may return, while the grain does not perish. Here our love is tested, here the great work of our life is set before us. We would not discover how much we love the brethren if no one were in peril; the greatness of the love that seeks them out would not appear if the abyss of perdition held nothing.

9. 11. Let us labor, brethren, let us not cease, with every work, every sweat, with godly affection toward God, toward them, among ourselves—lest, while wishing to lay to rest their old quarrel, we make new brawls among ourselves; and above all let us be careful to keep among ourselves the firmest love. They have frozen in their iniquities. How will you melt in them the ice of iniquity, if you do not burn with the flame of love? Nor let us be concerned that we seem troublesome to them in compelling them: let us consider where; in that let us be secure. For is it toward death, and not rather away from death? By all means, in whatever ways we can—but with moderation—let us handle the old wounds; and let us be careful lest the one being cured fail under the doctor's hands. Why, then, should it concern us that the boy who is being led to school weeps? Should we give thought to the fact that the one who is being cut rejects the doctor's hands? The apostles were fishermen, and the Lord said to them: I will make you fishers of men (Matt 4:19). Through the prophet, moreover, it is said that God was first going to send fishermen, and afterward hunters. First he sent fishermen, afterward he sends hunters. Why fishermen, why hunters? Out of the abyss and depth of the sea of the superstition of idolatry, believers were fished up with the nets of faith. But where were the hunters sent? When those people were wandering through the mountains and hills—that is, through the prides of men, through the swellings of the lands. One mountain was Donatus, and another mountain Arius; another mountain Photinus, another mountain Novatus; through these mountains they were straying; their error had need of hunters. For that reason the offices of fishermen and hunters were distributed, lest perhaps these people say to us: Why did the apostles compel no one, force no one? Because a fisherman casts his nets into the sea and draws in what runs into them. But a hunter surrounds the woods, beats the thickets, and with terrors multiplied on every side drives the prey into the nets. He must not go this way, he must not go that way; here head it off, here strike it, here frighten it; let it not get out, let it not escape. But our nets are our life; only let love be preserved. And do not attend to how troublesome you are to him, but to how dear he is to you. What kind of devotion is it, if you spare him and he dies?

10. 12. Brethren, consider also this comparison and likeness; for one thing can have many likenesses. Human beings are born on this condition, that every man wishes to be succeeded by his sons; and there is no one who does not either desire or hope for this order in his house, that the begetters of sons should give way and the begotten should succeed. Nevertheless, if an aged father falls ill (I do not speak of a son who has at hand a father whom he wants as his heir, whom he desires as his successor, whom for that very reason he begot, so that, when the father is dead, the son himself may live—this I do not say); if an aged father falls ill, soon to depart, already near to death, already claiming the order of nature, already having nothing more to hope for—nevertheless, if he falls ill, and his son is dutifully at his side, and the doctor sees him oppressed by a deadly and harmful sleep, the son is concerned for the old man who is going to die, on account of those very few days in which he can yet live; the son stands and anxiously attends his father; and when he has heard the doctor say: This man is lethargic, and may die of it if he is allowed to sleep; if you want him to live, let him not sleep. That harmful sleep oppresses him, a sleep that is both harmful and sweet. But the son, warned by the doctor, stands anxious; troublesome to his father, he knocks at him, and if his knocking is overcome, he plucks at him; and if the plucking does nothing, he prods. Surely he is troublesome to his father; and he would be undutiful if he were not troublesome. But the man whom it delights to die rebuffs his troublesome son with a sad look and voice: Leave me in peace; why are you troublesome to me? But the doctor says that if you sleep, you will die. And he: Let me be; I want to die. The old man says: I want to die, and the boy is undutiful if he does not say: But I do not want it. And that life, of course, is temporal, and neither will he be everlasting in it—he to whom his son is troublesome in order to rouse him—nor will the one who succeeds his departing and dying father. Both pass through it, both fly through it for a time; and yet they are undutiful unless, even when they are troublesome to one another, they take counsel for that very temporal life of theirs. Shall I then see my brother oppressed by the sleep of a harmful habit, and not rouse him, while I am afraid of being troublesome to a sleeper who is also perishing? Far be it from me to do this, not even if our inheritance were to be straitened while he lives. But as it is, since that which we are to receive cannot be divided, since it cannot be straitened by the multiplying of those who possess it—shall I not rouse him, even troublesomely, so that he may keep watch, and, freed from the sleep of his ancient error, may rejoice with me in the inheritance of unity? I will most certainly do it. If I am awake, I will do it; if I do not do it, then I too am asleep.

11. 13. Dearly beloved, the Lord was appealed to by a certain man, while he was speaking to the crowds, and the man said to him: Lord, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. And the Lord: Man, who set me as a divider of inheritance over you (Luke 12:13–14)? He did not, of course, disdain to check the man's covetousness, but he was unwilling to become a judge for division. But we, dearly beloved, let us not seek him as a judge of such things, because our inheritance is not of such a kind; with an open countenance, with a good conscience, let us appeal to our Lord, and let each one of us say to him: Lord, tell my brother, not to divide, but to hold the inheritance with me. For what do you wish to divide, brother? For what the Lord has left us cannot be divided. Is it gold, that he should bring out the scales of division? Is it silver, is it money, are there bondservants, are there cattle, are there trees, are there fields? All these things can be divided; this cannot be divided: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you (John 14:27). Finally, even in earthly inheritances themselves, division makes the share smaller. Set up two brothers under one father; whatever the father possesses belongs to both, the whole to the one, the whole also to the other. Accordingly, if he is asked about his property, and if you say to one of them: Whose, for example, is that horse? He answers thus: It is ours. Whose is that estate, that slave? In all cases he answers: It is ours. But if they divide, then a different answer is given. Whose is that horse? Mine. Whose is this one? My brother's. See what division has done for you. You have not gained one, but you have lost one. If, then, we had even such an inheritance as could be divided, we still ought not to divide it, lest we diminish our riches. And surely nothing is so unseemly in sons as to wish to divide while the father lives. Finally, if they set about to do this, if they are eager for lawsuits and contentions, each one to claim his own portions for himself, the old man cries out: What are you doing? I am still alive. Wait a little for my death, then carve up my house. But we have God as our Father. Why do we go to division? Why do we go to lawsuits? Surely let us wait: if he can die, let us divide.