On Elijah and Fasting

Great is the virtue of fasting. Indeed its warfare is so splendid, that it delighted even Christ to fast: so mighty, that it raises men up to heaven. And that we may use human examples rather than divine, from Elijah's fasting mouth a voice was sent forth which closed heaven upon the sacrilegious people of the Jews. For when an altar had been set up to an idol by king Ahab, at the word of the prophet no dew of rain fell upon the earth for three years and six months. A fitting punishment, that it should suitably restrain intemperance; that heaven should be closed to the impious, who had polluted the earth. Fitting also, that for the condemnation of the sacrilegious king the prophet should be sent to a widow in Sarepta of Sidon, who, because she preferred devotion to food, deserved that she alone should not feel the hardship of the public drought. And so the jar of meal did not fail, when the streams of the torrent failed.

Why should I recount the rest of his deeds? Fasting, he raised the widow's son from the dead: fasting, he brought down rains by his word: fasting, he brought fire down from heaven: fasting, he was caught up in a chariot to heaven: and by a fast of forty days he obtained the divine presence. Then indeed he merited more, when he fasted more. With fasting mouth he made the streams of the Jordan stand still, and passed with dusty footstep over the riverbed suddenly dried, though the flood of the river was overflowing. Rightly the divine sentence judged him worthy of heaven, that he should be caught up with his very body; since he lived a heavenly life in the body, and displayed on earth the manner of a supernal conversation.

1. The Nature of Fasting and John the Forerunner

For what is fasting, but the substance and image of the heavenly? Fasting is the refreshment of the soul, fasting is the food of the mind, fasting is the life of angels, the death of guilt, the ruin of sins, the remedy of salvation, the root of grace, the foundation of chastity. By this step one comes more swiftly to God: by this step Elijah ascended, before he ascended by chariot. This inheritance of sobriety and abstinence, going up to heaven, he left to his disciple. In this virtue and spirit of Elijah came John. Indeed, in the desert he too was given to fasts. And his food was locusts and wild honey. And therefore, because by his continence he had surpassed the possibility of human life, he was reckoned not a man, but an angel. Of him we read: yea, more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written: Behold, I send my angel before your face, who shall prepare your way before you.

Who by human strength could have mounted fiery horses, fiery chariots, could have guided chariots of the air, save one who had changed the nature of the human body by the power of incorruptible fasting?

2. The True Food of the Soul

But concerning the deeds of Elijah we have already set forth very much in the frequent discourse of various books; and I think it must be avoided that we return to the same things, especially since he is praised in his own work. Let us therefore imitate him, and seek that food by whose power we may be able to advance by day and by night to the knowledge of things above. For not every material food, nor every bodily meal, is the food of the mind, as we have said, whereby souls feast, of which the Lord says: My food is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven. This is the food of angels, that they may serve the divine command. For them no care of tables, no use of banquets, no store of feasts laid up, no drinking of wine or strong drink, no distension of body, no offense of the belly.

1. Fasting Since the Six Days of Creation

Therefore, lest anyone think fasting to be earthly or a novel thing, the very first use of the world began with fasting, when the clear light shone forth. The second day was in fasting, when the firmament of heaven was made. On the third day the earth brought forth food for pasture, nature offered its service; yet fasting was still kept by the heavenly discipline. On the fourth day the lights were made, of sun and moon, and still fasting. On the fifth day the waters brought forth the creeping things of living souls, and flying things flying above the earth according to the firmament of heaven: and God saw that they were good, and blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the waters that are in the sea; and let the flying things be multiplied upon the earth. And still fasting. Indeed he blessed them, as it is written, and said: Increase, and he did not say: Eat and consume.

On the sixth day the beasts were created, and with the beasts arose the power of eating, and the use of food. Where food began, there the end of the world's making occurred. Where it began not to know its own increase, there the divine works concerning it began to rest. By which sign it was declared that the world was to be diminished through foods, through which it had ceased to be increased. No one knew sin, no one feared punishment, no one knew death.

2. The First Law of Fasting in Paradise

The Lord planted paradise for the grace of the blessed, and placed man there to work it and to keep it. And that we may know fasting to be no novel thing, there he established the first law, concerning fasting. For he knew that guilt was to enter through food. The first punishment had entered through the transgression of fasting, God's command saying: Of the tree which is of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat: for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die the death. But up to that time no one had known how to transgress, since the ordinance of abstinence had not yet arisen to be transgressed. The law was from the Lord God, the transgression of the law was from the devil: guilt through food, hiding after food. The knowledge of weakness in food, the strength of firmness in fasting.

Indeed, so long as they abstained from the forbidden thing, they did not know themselves to be naked: after they had eaten of the forbidden tree, they knew themselves to have been made naked. Rightly, then, the woman, when she recognized the author of her guilt, being questioned, answered: The serpent persuaded me, and I did eat. The serpent urges gluttony, the Lord decrees fasting. Indeed he himself says: Fast and pray, that you enter not into temptation. Thus gluttony expelled the reigning man from paradise, abstinence called back the wanderer to paradise.

3. Adam's Nakedness Revealed After His Sin

And God said: Behold, Adam is become as one of us. God says this mocking, surely, not approving: that is: You thought you would be like us: but because you wished to be what you were not, you ceased to be what you were: within yourself you were, and while you aspired to be above yourself, you began to be beneath yourself. Then he clothed him first with a tunic of skins, and thus said: Behold Adam—as if he should say: Behold your covering, behold your fitting garment, this clothing befits you. Those who aspire to divine things are held worthy of such adornment. Behold to what your guilt has brought you; behold now in this tunic of skins, as one of us, you have opened your eyes. Look closely: you see yourself naked, whom you thought clothed.

4. Fasting as a Covering for Sin

Gluttony, then, makes men naked; fasts cover even those stripped bare. Whence David says: I covered my soul in fasting. A good covering, which shields the soul, lest it be caught by the tempter, lest it be stripped bare by the tempter. A good veil, which covers guilt—abstinence covers it, grace covers it. For blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Grace covers, while it remits, and abolishes all error: abstinence covers, while it overshadows the fault, and hides it with a sorrowful disposition, and diminishes it by penitence. For indeed fasting and almsgiving free from sin. Adam was covered with a veil of virtues before he transgressed, but as though stripped by transgression, he saw himself to be naked; because the garment he had, he had lost. For in the days of your fasts, he says, your morning light shall arise, and your health shall spring forth speedily, and justice shall go before you, and the majesty of the Lord shall surround you. A good garment is light.

For it is written: Covered with light as with a garment. A good garment, when the Lord surrounds and covers those who fast.

1. Noah's Drunkenness and His Sons' Piety

Noah was stripped bare when he was made drunk; the piety of his sons covered him. But he was stripped through ignorance, not through intemperance; for wine was not yet known. In the beginning of the human race drunkenness was unknown. He himself first planted a vineyard: he gave it its nature, but was ignorant of its power. And so wine did not even spare its own discoverer. What wonder, if, when the Lord himself had praised his own creatures, this man too marveled at one of them? And so, when he was delighted by the grace of the found gift, the more potent creature assailed the old man's unaccustomed limbs, the new drink disturbed him. They that mounted the horses, he says, have slumbered. The just man mounted the pleasures of the body, and fell asleep. But his drunkenness urges upon us sobriety. For Noah was drunk but once. But when he recognized the evil of drunkenness, he tempered his discovery to a remedy, he did not pour it out into vice.

Whence the Apostle also says: Use a little wine for your frequent infirmities.

2. Drunkenness as the Origin of Servitude

Before wine was discovered, an unshaken liberty remained for all; no one knew how to exact the duties of servitude from a partner of his own nature. There would be no servitude today, if there had been no drunkenness. Indeed the envy of a brother's preference had already crept in, yet still the reverence for a father's love remained. Piety was wounded, when drunkenness was laughed at. Wine, then, does harm not only to those whom it assails, but even more to those in whose eyes the drunken members of the intoxicated are laid bare. Hence irreverent laughter is born, hence lust is inflamed; so that wine disturbs with a much greater intoxication those whose eyes and minds it has made drunk, than those whose limbs it has laid low.

3. Lot Made Drunk by His Daughters

We read also that Lot's daughters made their father drunk on that mountain, to which, fearing the fires of Sodom, they had fled, and were dwelling in a cave. Drunkenness had age, sex, solitude, and place conspiring and concurring together—a place more fitted for the lairs of wild beasts than for human dwellings. And so drunkenness was the origin of incest, a birth worse than its already most evil parent.

4. Abraham's Wineless Banquet for the Angels

But Abraham did not serve wine at his banquet: rather he sacrificed a calf, and offered butter and milk even to his angelic guests. He acknowledged the Lord of heaven, the maker of the world; yet he could not offer wine. But rightly the material of sin was absent there, where there was the remission of sins.

5. John's Abstinence Contrasted with Noah and Lot

Indeed John announced him, neither eating bread nor drinking wine. For he who announces Christ ought to show himself a stranger to every incitement of vice. Drunkenness, then, conquered holy Noah, and also Lot, Abraham's nephew—of whom the one, while he fasted, survived the flood, the other the fire.

6. Moses and the Water from the Rock

We know also that Moses tempered the bitterness of the waters for the thirsting people, not wine. He for whom the rock poured forth water could have brought about no lack of abundance of wine either. Indeed God said: You shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people shall drink. He did not say: Wine shall come out for the people. For it was dangerous to serve wine to the people, which even the stronger could scarcely bear.

1. Moses' Forty-Day Fast and the Broken Tables

Indeed Moses gave the law concerning fasting, he did not give one concerning wine. And he himself, while fasting, was terrified neither by great voices, nor by lightnings and stormy clouds, nor by smoking Sinai. Nor indeed would he have entered into the cloud, and heard without peril to his safety the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, had he not been fortified with the arms of fasting. For he fasted forty days on the mountain, while he received the Law from the Lord our God. And on the upper parts of the mountain the Law was being given to the fasting Moses, while on the lower parts, among the feasting people, sacrilegious transgression was being kindled by the luxury of those banqueting. Moved by this sight, Moses broke the tables, judging it unworthy that the Law should be given to a drunken people. And so drunkenness caused the tables of the Law, which abstinence had received, to be broken.

2. The Fasting Mothers of Samson and Samuel

But why should I say other things? Did not abstinence from wine make fruitful the barrenness of Samson's mother, and cause her, though barren, to bear a child? Since, according to the Lord's command, she drank no wine. Did not the Lord hear Anna as she ate not, and did not fastings loosen her infertility? From whom two were begotten, one most valiant, the other most observant, who showed themselves worthy of it, having long been nourished in the bosom of fasting, and, as it were, poured forth from a womb of abstinence. So this same Samson, who was begotten by his mother's sobriety, was avenged upon the drunkenness of the insulting Philistines.

3. Elisha and the Bitter Pottage

The prophet Elisha, who had learned frugality from his master, when he was feeding the sons of the prophets, loaded the tables with clusters of wild vine-vegetables, and fulfilled the office of hospitality with unfit wild herbs. When they, offended by the bitterness, were unable to eat, he tempered all that bitterness by a sprinkling of a little flour, emptying the strength of the poison by the gift of prophetic abstinence.

1. The Three Hebrew Youths in the Furnace

There is a certain nature of a created thing, which they call amiantus, not easily consumed by any fire: which, placed upon the hearth, catches fire, and, immediately taken from the flame, shines clean as though washed with water. Such were the bodies of the Hebrew boys, which, transformed by fasting into the nature of amiantus, borrowed the heat of the fire not to their own loss, but to their grace. So then, when the furnace's fires raged, so that the flame poured round about beyond forty cubits, consuming very many of the Chaldeans whom it found, who were supplying fuel to the fires with naphtha, pitch, tow, and brushwood; when they entered with fasting, the burning of the flames having been scattered, they began at once, in the middle of the furnace, to grow moist with the breath of a cooling dew; so that not a single hair of their heads was burned, because fasting had nourished even that hair.

2. Daniel's Fast and the Sealed Lions' Mouths

Daniel, a man of desires, by three weeks' fasting taught even lions to fast; cast into the den, his limbs hardened by the solidity of abstinence into the rigor of adamant, he lay open to no wound. So had fasting bound him fast, that in his body there could be no place for the bites of wild beasts. The lions kept their mouths shut, which the holiness of prophetic abstinence held closed; so that the beasts could not open them, bound as it were by certain chains of his merits.

3. The Wonders Wrought by Fasting

Fasting therefore extinguished the power of fire, fasting shut the mouths of lions, fasting solidified the flowing waters of the sea, fasting loosed the rock into fountains of water; by the power of fasting, contrary to its own nature, the wave stiffened and the rock overflowed.

1. The Many Virtues and Benefits of Fasting

But why should I use ancient examples, when fasting abounds even in the gifts of present graces? Who has made his house worse by fasting? Who has diminished his resources by it? To whom is not luxury suspect? To whom is not abstinence venerable? Whose bed has frugality coveted? Whose modesty has not drunkenness injured? Fasting is the mastery of continence, the discipline of chastity, humility of mind, chastisement of the flesh, the form of sobriety, the norm of virtue, the purification of the soul, the outlay of mercy, the schooling of gentleness, the enticement of charity, the grace of old age, the guardian of youth. Fasting is the relief of infirmity, the nourishment of health. No one has fallen into indigestion by fasting, no one has felt a stroke of blood through continence—nay, rather everyone has restrained and repelled it by it. It is a good provision for the journey, a good for the whole of life: a good on the sea, it calms shipwrecks, it preserves food.

2. Fasting Answers the Charge of Being Burdensome

Let those who say that fasting is burdensome answer who has failed from fasting. Many at a banquet, and very many while vomiting up a feast, have poured out their life. What animal, in the end, has groaned that fasting was the cause of its death? Through food a snare is not avoided; in food a hook lies hidden, food leads down into a pit, and food draws into nets, food even entangles birds with birdlime, food brings flying creatures down to death. What perils are there that are not for the sake of the belly? Dumb animals know no crime, and in this alone they are punished as if for a crime. Fasting is soberness of mind; by it the senses are vigorous, in it judgments are handled, in a banquet, cups. Fasting guards discipline; want follows luxury. Luxury is the mother of hunger, according to the prophetic saying. Fasting loves quiet, luxury loves unrest. Fasting sows leisure, luxury business.

3. The Caterer's Frantic Pursuit of Delicacies

Let the cooks' knife of pursuit at last be stopped. Let the caterer rest, who before it is light, knocks on other people's doors, and, as though some war were imminent, rouses the sleeping. You see him disturbed, you notice him panting: you ask what is the cause of the disturbance. My master, he says, demands to know where the better wine is sold; he seeks where a firmer sow's womb is prepared, where a softer liver, where a fatter pheasant, where a fresher fish. He runs about through different places; and when he has found it, he hastens at top speed. He disturbs his sleepy master, he haggles over prices. If the price of the fish is at issue, he insists that a better one is nowhere to be found—indeed, that there is none at all. Yesterday, he says, there was a storm, today a gale; I could scarcely catch this one hiding. Many gather in the market: if you give it up, another will pay more; and what will you serve at the banquet?

This wine's is of that year's vintage, these oysters were gathered from that particular lake: such is the bidding over each item. A kind of auction is carried on between the caterer and the shepherd. Disturbed, he sells off his patrimony, and still asks by whom else the rights of his goods may be diminished.

4. The Chaos and Cruelty of the Banquet Kitchen

There is a rush to the kitchen, a huge din arises, a tumult arises. The whole household is set in motion, all curse, because no rest is given them. Grant the cook some rest at last. The cupbearer, like a statue, stiffens with extreme cold in his right hand. That one exercises his hands in cold water, others wash the marble. They clean pavements soaked with wine and strewn with fish bones; and how many, as they walk, are wounded? At the very banquet there is the shouting of the diners, the groans of those being beaten. If something has by chance displeased the guests, they laugh, you grow indignant. Let the house at last fall silent from the many disturbances of people running to and fro, let it be free from smoke and the reek of half-burnt things. You would think it not a kitchen but a slaughterhouse: that a battle is being fought, not a dinner prepared; so much does everything swim in blood.

5. The Insatiable Demands of the Belly

Service is rendered to the evil mistress, the belly, which always demands and is never satisfied. For what is more insatiable than the belly? Today it receives, and tomorrow it demands. When it has been filled, continence is discussed; when it has digested, farewell is bidden to the virtues, it seeks luxury. Amid the cups philosophy is proclaimed, among philosophers wines are praised. Watching, he says, and bile, and torture for the insatiable man: he eats and shortly after repents: his intemperance did not delight him any longer.

6. The Rich Man and Lazarus at the Banquet

Consider the rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and feasted splendidly every day, at whose gate that beggar Lazarus lay, full of sores, desiring to be filled with what fell from the rich man's table. Shortly after, when he had died, he began, placed in hell, to beg that that poor man might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, which was burning in the flame. Where now are those abundances? Where those drunken bouts? He who used to be drunk is thirsty: he abounds who used to beg. At the very banquet, while they drink, they thirst; and when they have become drunk, they drink still more. As if from an opened gulf, wine is no longer drunk, but poured in: the cup is not sipped, but drained dry.

1. Thorns in the Hand of the Drunkard

Thorns, it says, grow in the hand of the drunkard, because he wounds himself with his own hands, and casts sores down onto his own breast. With these thorns he tears the garment of faith which he received, and he will not be able to preserve his treasure. For every drunkard and fornicator shall be in want, and shall be clothed with the torn garments of folly. And for this reason the mighty are forbidden to drink wine; lest, when they have drunk, they forget wisdom.

2. Judith's Fasting Overcomes Holofernes

Finally, the mighty men who were eager to surrender themselves to Holofernes, the general of the Assyrian king's army, drank wine in drunkenness: but the woman Judith did not drink, fasting all the days of her widowhood, except on the solemnities of feast days. Fortified with these arms she went forth, and surrounded the whole army of the Assyrians. By the vigor of a sober counsel she took off the head of Holofernes, preserved her chastity, and carried off the victory. For she, girded with fasting, was making her way in the camp of strangers: he lay buried in wine, so that he could not feel the blow of the wound. Thus the fasting of one woman laid low countless armies of drunken men.

3. Esther's Fasting Saves Her People

Esther, too, was made more beautiful by fasting; for the Lord increased the grace of her sober mind. She freed her whole race, that is, the whole people of the Jews, from the bitterness of persecution; so that she made the king subject to herself, not inflamed by the heat of lust, but converted by heavenly mercy; so that the penalty was turned back upon the impious man, and honor was restored to the sacred altars. Thus she, who fasted continuously for three days, and washed her body with water, pleased more, and won her revenge. But Haman, while boasting of a royal banquet, paid amid the very wines the penalty of his drunkenness.

4. Fasting as a Sacrifice of Reconciliation

Fasting, therefore, is a sacrifice of reconciliation, an increase of virtue, which has made even women stronger by an increase of grace. Fasting knows no money-lender, it knows not the principal of usury, the table of those who fast smells not of interest: paternal centesimal interest does not strangle the son of a continent man: the pledged rights of a deceased sober man do not vex the widow: the degenerate hall of the fasting man does not exclude the heir.

5. Fasting Sweetens the Banquet

Fasting gives grace even to the banquets themselves. Feasts become sweeter after hunger, which through constancy become tiresome, and grow cheap through long continuation. Fasting is the seasoning of food. The keener the appetite, the more pleasant the food. Thirst commends the cup, it does not know how to seek out the vintages of wine. Whatever the fasting man drinks, he sends it on to satiety, he does not hold it suspended to his nose for judgment. By use even precious things grow cheap: but things whose possession is difficult, their enjoyment is pleasing. The sun itself is more pleasing after night, light itself more splendid after darkness, and sleep sweeter after wakefulness, health itself more delightful after the trials of sickness. From the very Founder of the world we have learned that grace is often heaped up by diversities. Hunger, then, is a patron even of the banquet, so that the table becomes more pleasing through fastings.

1. The Mystical Table Prepared Through Fasting

The mystical table too is compared to fasting: that table of which David says: Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that afflict me. That table is acquired at the price of hunger: and that cup, inebriating with sobriety, is sought by the thirst for the heavenly sacraments. For the Lord said: You who thirst, go to the water, and whoever have no silver, go and buy, and drink and eat. And elsewhere he says: Behold, they that serve me shall eat: but you shall hunger. Behold, they that serve me shall drink: but you shall thirst. Who are "you," if not those who drank beforehand? Of whom he said above: You have prepared a table for demons, and filled the cup of fortune. If, then, holy fastings lead us to that venerable table: if by this hunger we purchase the things that are eternal; why do we doubt about those things which are in human use, that fasting can make even these sweeter for us?

2. True Fasting According to the Prophet Isaiah

But not every hunger makes an acceptable fast, but the hunger that is undertaken with the fear of God. Consider: throughout Lent, on all days except Saturday and the Lord's Day, fasting is kept. This fast the Lord's Passover concludes. Now the day of the resurrection comes, the Elect are baptized, they come to the altar, they receive the sacrament, thirsting, they drink it in with all their veins. Rightly do those refreshed with spiritual food and spiritual drink each say: Thou hast prepared a table before me [lacuna] and thy cup which inebriates, how excellent it is! But hunger alone is not sought, but the full discipline of fasting. Finally, to others it is said: In the days of your fastings you find your own pleasures, and you drive all your subjects with goads. Do you fast for judgments and quarrels, and strike with your fists? Why should such a fast be to me, so that your voice is heard in a cry?

This is not the fast which I have chosen, nor a day for a man to humble his soul: nor if you bend your neck like a hoop, and even strew ashes and sackcloth beneath you, will you thus call it an acceptable fast. Not such a fast have I chosen, says the Lord. We have heard what fast is disapproved: now let us hear what is approved. But loose every bond of your injustice: dissolve the obligations of violent exchanges, let go the oppressed into release, and tear apart every unjust bond. Break your bread for the hungry: and bring the needy who have no roof into your house: and if you see one naked, cover him: and do not despise the members of your own household. You see what is the appearance and form of fasting, what disposition of mind; that you may be free for prayer, and meditate in the law of God day and night.

3. Bearing and Countenance of the Fasting Christian

Let the very figure of the body be full of gravity, no blush of drunkenness spread over the cheeks to offend the gaze of onlookers, but let the countenance shine, reverend with a chaste pallor, the speech more grave, the eye more modest, the step more steady and moderate—for very often the movement of the soul is betrayed by disturbance in one's gait. Let the face be more intent, and a certain arbiter of one's own thought, and the silent interpreter of the heart; so that it neither veils sadness nor is dissolved in unrestrained laughter. Do not think this superfluous in our admonition; since Wisdom says in the Gospel: But when you fast, do not become like the hypocrites, sad. He said "hypocrites" for this reason, because by pretense they put on another's character; just as those who sing tragedies on the stage, in accordance with the words of those whose characters they bear, stir up their own emotions, so that they either grow angry, or grieve, or exult.

For these men affect to seem to be fasting, desiring to be approved by men rather than by God, which was what the Jews used to do.

4. Anointing the Head in Secret

And therefore it is said to us: But when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your face, that you appear not unto men to fast, but unto your Father who is in secret: and your Father who seeth in secret, will repay you. What does this mean, "Anoint your head"? But the luxurious also say: Let us fill ourselves with wine and ointments. For those anoint themselves with ointment who seek the pleasure of a bodily odor. But those ointments are wont to stir up the enticement of lust. There is one ointment of sobriety, of which the Church says to her Bridegroom: Thy name is as ointment poured out: and another oil, by which the joints of the soul and certain members grow fat. Whence David also says: Thou hast anointed my head with oil. And this is the oil of gladness, with which Christ was anointed by God the Father, that he might excel above all his fellows.

This bids our head to be anointed, that every feigned sadness may be covered over with the oil of gladness; lest you seem to sell your fasting to men, lest you seem to be made sad over the salvation of your soul. For no one sad is crowned, no one mournful triumphs. Anoint therefore your head, where the senses of the wise are; for the eyes of the wise man are in his head. You are called to the mysteries, and you know it not: you learn, when you come. And remember that word: As the ointment on the head, which ran down upon the beard of Aaron, then you know what it means: "Anoint your head": how you have pleased God, so that he might reveal to you his mysteries, and give you spiritual grace.

5. Christ as the Mystical Head and the Washing of Conscience

There is also another mystical head. What is that? Hear: The head of the woman is the man; but the head of the man is Christ. Send into Christ, send also into his head the ointment. His head is God. That woman, bearing the type of the Church, who poured ointment on his head, confessed his divinity; and she who poured it on his feet confessed his passion. Both are praised. Do you too act so that you may be praised, so that you may receive remission of sins. Wash your face, cleanse your sinning soul, wash your conscience. For the face is often an indicator of the conscience, and a kind of silent speech of the mind, when we are either pricked by sin, or rejoice at integrity. Do not disfigure this face; wash it, and wash away every stain of your conscience. He disfigures his face who bears one thing in his heart, and pretends another outwardly.

Let us not cover ourselves as with some curtain: let what is within shine forth outwardly: let what is outward work inwardly. Let no one enclose guilt within fasting; let him bear innocence purely. For fasting is the slayer of guilt.

1. Bitter Medicine as a Cure for Hidden Ills

Let no one prefer sweet things to more bitter ones. Pleasure seems sweet, fasting bitter. Let that sweet thing be taken away by this bitter one. Bitter things are wont even to profit the bodies themselves more. For just as, when worms are born in the innermost bowels of children from the indigestion of food, they cannot be destroyed unless a more bitter drink is poured in, or the harsher force of medicines takes hold, by whose odor they die: so does the power of fasting, entering the depths of the soul, kill hidden guilt.

2. Esau and Jacob and the Price of Food

What did Esau do, becoming a servant to his brother? Was not the food sweet for an hour, but bitter thereafter? What did Jacob give, becoming lord to his brother? Was not the contempt of food more bitter for a time, but wholesome for the rest? Bodies themselves are often swollen with sweet things, and the liver is stretched with honey; yet the same thing is tempered by the bitterness of food. Therefore not a mediocre, but a praised question: Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. Others have: And out of the sad came forth sweetness; especially the Greek codices. But indeed it is laborious too; for sweetness comes forth from sadness or labor.

3. Fasting in Secret Like Elijah and Daniel

Do not therefore boast when you fast, do not glory, lest your fasting profit you nothing. For things that are done for the sake of display do not extend their fruit into the future; but they consume themselves in present reward. Elijah was in the desert, so that no one might see him fasting, except only the ravens who fed him. Elisha was in the desert, where no food was to be found, except bitter food. John was in the desert, where he found only locusts and wild honey. To those fasting, banquets were brought by the dutiful ministry of angels. Daniel dined among the fasting lions. He dined on another's dinner; the beasts did not touch their own. To those fasting, banquets fly to them; to those feasting, feet stagger: on those fasting, manna descends from heaven; on those feasting, the guilt of transgression ascends.

1. The People's Feast Before the Golden Calf

But what is this? While I discourse on fasting, I hear the din of feasts. Unless I am mistaken, my discourse has grown fragrant with a banquet. The sound of the letters invites, yet the examples of impatience do not deter. For indeed the people, not being able to bear waiting for him who was fasting and bearing the things of the Law, sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. We see that sacrilege was joined to drunkenness. For just as continence is the mother of faith, so drunkenness is the mother of perfidy. Into what crime does it not hurl one headlong?

2. Idle Boasting of Drunkards at the Tavern

Men sit at the doors of taverns having no tunic, nor the price of the next day. They judge concerning emperors and powers; nay, they seem to themselves to reign, and to command armies. They become rich through drunkenness, who are in truth destitute. They give gold, they distribute money to the people, they build cities—men who have not the means to pay the tavern-keeper the price of their own body's drink. For wine seethes in them, and they know not what they are saying. They are rich while they are being made drunk: soon, when they have digested the wine, they perceive themselves to be beggars. In one day they drink the labors of many days.

3. Drunkenness Turns to Violence

From drunkenness men rise up to arms; weapons succeed the cups. For wine, blood is poured out, and wines themselves have poured out that very blood. How strong men seem to themselves in wine, how wise, how eloquent, how even beautiful and comely, when they cannot stand! It is necessary that the mind reel, the tongue stammer, a bloodless pallor suffuse the face, and the stench of drunkenness be horrible. Barbarians rush upon the sword, the common people into brawls. If any of them is struck with a fist, you may see his wounded face pour forth tears of wine, chanting miserable laments. Drunkenness has this one property, that it softens and dissolves the hearts of the drunk. For just as fire tests hard iron, so also by the fire of wine the heart even of proud men melts.

4. Wine Makes All Men Seem Equal

All seem equal to themselves in wine, none inferior. The poor man does not yield to the rich, since he does not know himself to be poor: the weak does not yield to the strong, for whom all strength lies in drinking: the beggar does not yield to the wealthy, nor the ignoble to the honored; since among drinkers, they hold him as king who has surpassed the rest in drinking. And rightly it is written: Wine in drunkenness makes life equal among men. But would that you also heeded what follows: Drink it in moderation, that you may be sober. You have nothing to accuse: wine was created for gladness, not for drunkenness from the beginning. It is the exultation of the soul and heart, if you drink moderately: but excess of drink stirs up anger, and works many ruinous falls.

5. A Philosopher Turned from Luxury to Sobriety

But perhaps they will say these are the drinking bouts of common and most frivolous men. Let us come, then, to the banquets of these powerful and mighty men. I will not here bring forward perfumed young men, or those crowned with roses, such as they say that one was who, anointed with unguents, wreathed with flowers, propped up by harlots, drunk with a drink before dawn, and accompanied by the daylight glow of torches, entered the lecture-hall of a philosopher disputing. Having heard this, they say he gradually pulled off his garlands, wiped off his ointments, bade farewell to the harlots: and afterward he became so great a philosopher that he was an example of sobriety, who before had been the mockery of drunkenness. I do not begrudge them one man corrected; I say this so as to teach that I have not invented their kind of luxury. Certainly, even if that man came to his senses from wine, he was nevertheless always drunk with sacrilege.

1. The Warrior's Banquet Arrayed like Battle

Away then with these slippery young men, let us come to the banquets of warriors. One must dine among arms; these attendants are the warlike who serve, girded with gold, and with their loins propped by Babylonian belts: their necks gleam with golden torques, they cover their belts with golden bosses, they sheathe their knives in golden cases, with which they fight over the dividing of the dishes. Boys stand by with gleaming hair, chosen from a barbarian nation for these uses, according to the distinct gradations of each age. You might see the ranks of different peoples, and think it an ordered battle-line: the silver vessels set out, you would think it a procession: a horn full of wine in the middle, not an instrument of war but of feasting, that trumpet's blast which kindles the reclining guests to combat.

2. The Escalating Contest of Cups

First, the battle is preluded with smaller cups, as with light-armed skirmishers. But this is not a form of sobriety, but a discipline of drinking. For just as actors of tragedies first gradually raise their voice, until they open a path for the bare voice, so that afterward they can resound with great cries: so these too, in the beginning, exercise themselves with preliminary cups, in order to provoke thirst; lest perhaps they quench it, and afterward, being sated, be unable to drink. Therefore when the matter begins to grow hot, they call for larger cups: the martial fervor blazes up, thirst boils with the food, and when it seems diminished, it is renewed by a more undiluted drink. The cups vie with the courses, and are often set down between bites. Then, as the drinking proceeds further and more intensely, there arise diverse and great contests, as to who excels in drinking. It is a grave mark against one if he excuses himself, if anyone perhaps thinks the wine should be tempered.

And this continues until they come to the second tables.

3. Renewed Drinking After the Feast

But when the feasting has been completed, you would think it now time to rise: then they renew their drinking afresh; and when they have finished, then they say they are beginning; then the bowls are brought forth, then the great mixing-vessels, like instruments of war. And lest you think this unmeasured, a measure is proposed, it is contested under a judge, it is decided under a law. Their master of the games is fury, their pay is debility, the prize of victory is guilt. The outcome of the war hangs doubtful and uncertain for a long while; for that fury is warlike. The hands of the cupbearers pouring the wines give out, and the labors of the cooks serving hot dishes give out; those who weigh out the measures themselves, brimming over, with careful scrutiny, lest they spill anything, give out: the drinkers do not give out.

4. No Pardon in the Drinking Contest

Those contests alone are without excuse. In war, if anyone sees himself the weaker, he turns his weapons about, and earns pardon: here, if anyone turns aside his cup, he is pressed to drink. In the arena, if anyone raises his hand, he indeed forfeits the palm, but is free from injury: at banquets, even if he withdraws his hand from the wine, it is poured into his mouth. All are made drunk, victors and vanquished alike lie drunk, most of them stupefied. Nor is it permitted to carry them to burial, before he who is feeding them sees himself avenged of all, so as to avenge the expense. But he who does not feel the loss counts it the glory of his table, if all who leave it go out wounded and injured, as if from the arena.

5. The Disgraceful Aftermath of the Drunken Feast

A sad spectacle to Christian eyes, and a pitiable sight. You might see young men, terrible in appearance to their enemies, carried out from the banquet, and thence carried back to the banquet, filled up so that they may be drained, and drained so that they may drink. If anyone is more bashful, so as to blush to rise; when he can no longer hold his immoderate drinks, he pants more violently, sweats, groans, betrays by signs what he is ashamed to confess. There each one recounts his own battles, there they proclaim their own brave deeds, they narrate their trophies, drenched with wine and drowsy, not knowing in their minds what their tongue utters. Each one snores and drinks, sleeps and fights; and if ever they rise up, warrior men cannot stand, they stagger as they go out. The little slaves laugh at the disgraces of their masters, they carry the warrior-soldier in their own hands, they set him upon his horse.

And so, this way and that, they toss like ships without a helmsman; and, as if struck by a wound, they sink to the ground, unless caught by the little slaves. Others are carried back on shields, a mockery-procession is made. Those whom in the morning you had seen conspicuous in arms, threatening in countenance, the same you may see in the evening mocked with impunity even by children, wounded without a sword, slain without a battle, thrown into confusion without an enemy, trembling without old age, in the very flower of budding youth.

1. Hosts Who Invite Friends to Drunken Ruin

Who has mixed such a cup of frenzy? Who has poured so much poison into minds? Man risks being mud made from his own body; and he himself is guilty of voluntary madness, of self-inflicted corruption; and yet you too are not excused, who invite as friends, and send away as enemies. How much better it would have been for you to have poured your wines upon the ground! But even the ground grows drunk, and it renders even the fiercer wild beasts still harsher, if the scent of wine should reach them. Indeed, at vintage time, if they enter the vineyard, they are wont to be inflamed with drunkenness. Why do losses without gain delight you? You invite to gladness, you compel to death: you call to a dinner, you wish to carry out to the grave: you promise foods, you inflict torments: you offer wines, you pour in poisons. For whatever harms is poison. It takes away the senses, burns the bowels, disturbs sleep, torments the head.

2. Wine Compared to the Venom of Dragons and Asps

Moreover the force of wine is greater than that of poison. Indeed poison is expelled by wine, not wine by poison. Rightly did God through Moses compare wine not only to poison, but even to the poison of dragons, saying: The fury of dragons is their wine, and the incurable wrath of asps. And beautifully he added, incurable; for many are cured of the poison of other serpents, no one of drunkenness. Certainly by poison the flesh is wounded, but the mind remains unharmed: drunkenness adds to the death of the body the crime of the mind as well. Note also the poison of perfidy, declared under the name of wine. For he says above of the foreigners who did not know God: For their vine is of the vineyard of Sodom, and their vine-branch is of Gomorrah: their grape is a grape of gall, a cluster of bitterness is in them.

1. Isaiah's Woe to Those Who Rise Early for Strong Drink

You think me, as though flushed with wine, to have mixed this discourse too intemperately into the preaching of fasting; and yet how much have I passed over on account of these strongest men, how much less have I said than the Lord has spoken! You have heard what he said through Moses: hear what is written in the book of the sayings of Isaiah. For the Lord inveighs against men of this sort, and says: Woe to them that rise up in the morning and follow after strong drink, that are drunken in the evening: for wine shall burn them up. For with harp and psaltery and timbrels they drink wine: but they regard not the works of the Lord, nor consider the works of his hands. To whom, he says, is woe, to whom are judgments, to whom is tumult? Various things belong to different persons, but all things belong to the drunken. For woe to them that are drunken in the evening! What then of those who are soaked both before evening and often till daylight?

Therefore woe is owed to themselves. They have quarrels, they weave lawsuits, they leap into the same, and come to judgments or are summoned to them. They have therefore judgments as if they were defendants. Sometimes a graver tumult arises, because the mind of the drunkard is perverted by wine: And he does not remember the king, nor the magistrate, as it is written: and it makes all hidden things spoken openly, and they do not remember, when they were drinking, friendship, nor the bond of brotherhood: but after the tumult they take up swords; and when they have been sunk in wine, and have risen again, they themselves do not remember what they did. Therefore they have also a fitting reward of the tumult.

2. Music, Women, and Foreign Customs at Drinking Parties

I had indeed passed over the harp, the psalteries, the timbrels, which we know are frequently employed at banquets of this sort, so that lusts may be aroused by wine and song. Many also, after the Persian manner, order women worthy of the company of the drunken to be brought in, and from them they receive the cups, and they lay themselves beneath those women as they sit. And this rite even sacred observances hold in the service of drunkenness. Thus even barbarians have wine: the Romans gladly indulge them in this; that they themselves also may be dissolved in drinking, and, enervated, be overcome by drunkenness. Nor does wine alone produce drunkenness, but also strong drink. Indeed the Hebrews call every drink that intoxicates by the name of sicera.

3. Morning Prayer Contrasted with Morning Drunkenness

Not undeservedly, then, woe to those who in the morning seek the drink of drunkenness, who ought rather to render praises to God, to anticipate the light, and to meet with prayer the Sun of justice, who visits his own and rises for us, if we rise to Christ, not to wine and strong drink. Hymns are sung, and do you hold the harp? Psalms are chanted, and do you take up the psaltery or the timbrel? Deservedly woe, because you abandon salvation, you choose death. Scarcely is it dawn, and already there is running through the taverns, wine is sought, carpets are shaken out, they hasten to spread the couch; they set out silver flagons, gilded cups. Woe, he says, to those who seek these things!

4. Babylon as the Golden Cup That Made Nations Drunk

Babylon a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, making all the earth drunk. All the nations have drunk of her wine, therefore they were shaken. And suddenly Babylon fell, and was broken. Therefore the golden cup was broken; because Babylon, which is the golden cup, was broken. But although she boasts herself in gold and in price, yet she too is in the power of the Lord. Indeed she is broken by divine indignation. For what reason a golden cup? Because he who lacks truth seeks allurement; so that at least the precious appearance may be able to entice some to drink.

5. The Golden Cup of Poison and the Earthen Vessel

Set before your eyes the pomp of this world, you see a showy allurement, but an empty grace. Let not golden and silver vessels lead you astray. We also have a treasure in earthen vessels. The apostolic vessel is earthen, but in it is the treasure of Christ. Woe to those who follow strong drink in the morning! This is a golden vessel, it is a cup, and in that cup is the poison of death, the poison of lust, the poison of drunkenness. Whoever drinks this is shaken and falls. He is shaken not only in body, but also with heart disturbed; for to be shaken belongs to sin.

Drunkenness is the kindling of lust, drunkenness is the incitement of madness, drunkenness is the poison of folly. This changes the senses and the shapes of men, through this men become like neighing horses. For since by the natural heat of a warm body, and inflamed besides by the unnatural heat of wine, they cannot restrain themselves, and are roused to bestial lusts; so that they have no fixed time at which it is fitting to indulge in intercourse. They lose their voice, they change color, their eyes blaze, their mouths pant, they snort through their nostrils, they burn into fury, they go beyond sense. Hence dangerous frenzy, hence the grievous penalty of stone, hence deadly indigestion, hence frequent vomiting, pouring out half-digested feasts together with the blood of the inward organs. I lie, unless the Lord himself spoke the same through Jeremiah, saying: Drink and be drunk, and vomit, and fall, and you shall not rise again. Hence also vain images, uncertain sight, unsteady step, they often leap over shadows as if they were pits.

With them the earth wavers along with their face, it seems suddenly to rise and sink, and as if it were turned about, they fall on their faces in fear, and grasp the ground with their hands, or seem to themselves enclosed by mountains rushing together. There is a murmur in the ears like the roar of a surging sea, and shores resounding with the wave. If they see dogs, they think them lions, and flee. Some are dissolved in unrestrained laughter, others weep with inconsolable grief, others perceive irrational terrors. Waking, they dream; sleeping, they quarrel. Life for them is a dream, sleep for them is death: they can be roused by no voices; however much you think they should be prodded with a thrust, unless they vomit up the wine, they cannot be awakened. Whence Jeremiah rightly thinks that a man of this sort, as a superfluous creature, is to be mourned. For what is a drunken man, but a superfluous creature?

And so he says thus: As with the weeping of Jazer, I will weep for you, O vine; for the city of Jazer is deserted. And below: They have not trodden wine in your winepresses in the morning, nor have they worked at noon. Jazer, ποίησις περισσός, is a superfluous making. For moderation is natural: whatever is beyond measure is held superfluous: such is drunkenness, which is bewailed by the prophetic weeping. Whence the Apostle says: Be not drunk with wine, wherein is luxury, but be filled with the Spirit. There is, then, a drunkenness of guilt, and there is one of grace. And perhaps this is of nature, as that is of grace, we who, having been made to the image and likeness of God, ought to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

1. Toasts to the Emperor's Health and Drinking at Martyrs' Tombs

But why should I speak of the protestations of drinkers? Why should I mention the oaths which they think it a sin to violate? Let us drink, they say: "I toast the health of the emperors; so that whoever will not drink becomes guilty of disloyalty." For he seems not to love the emperor who will not drink for his health. O pious observance of devotion! Let us drink for the health of the armies, for the valor of the counts, for the soundness of our sons. And they judge that these vows reach unto God, just as those who carry cups to the tombs of the martyrs, and there drink until evening, and believe they cannot otherwise be heard. O the folly of men, who think drunkenness a sacrifice: who suppose that drunkenness pleases those who have learned to endure suffering by fasting!

2. Confessions and Betrayals Drawn Out by Wine

How many do we know to have come to torments from an intemperate banquet? While in drunkenness they contend over their own rule, and promise kingdoms to themselves, promise honors to others, the unhappy ones have been led to punishment, not knowing what they said. Whence very many good judges have not thought that things said in drunkenness should be held against a man as a crime. Very many also use wine as a rack; and for those from whom torments cannot elicit the word of betrayal, they try them by drinking; so that they betray the state of their country, the safety of citizens, the plans of their own defense. For courage often overcomes pain: but drink excludes fidelity. I have known many who, though torn by the cords of torture, denied their own name. Who has, amid the cups, concealed what he wished to hide?

3. Excessive Drinking Through Horns and Its Harm to the Body

Why should I recount a kind of thing heard by me, not of a cup, but of a stream, whereby wines are poured into the mouths of men as if through pipes or channels? Should I judge these men more truly to be wineskins? And yet the very wineskins themselves, unless the pouring be measured, often burst. Through a horn also wines flow running into the throats of men; and if anyone has drawn breath, it is held a committed offense, a loosened edge, a movement out of place. Water running down from Lebanon dissolves rocky crags: how then do they think that the rushing of streams of wine does not harm the soft inward organs of drunkards?

4. The Elephant's Moderation Compared to Human Excess

Elephants also, they say, draw up with their trunk a very great quantity of water; yet the same are content with a measured drink to quench their thirst: but if by chance they have been cheated of their fee by some innkeeper, in indignation they fill the hollow of their trunks, not in order to drink, but to pour it out; and thus with momentary floods they water the tavern of him on whose account they thought themselves to be avenged. Pools are suddenly drained for the drink, and are suddenly poured out, everything swims. To whom is it not wondrous, that such immense bodies of beasts hold nothing superfluous?

1. Women's Immodest Dancing Under the Influence of Wine

But why should we speak of men, when even women, who ought to apply a more anxious guard for the sobriety of chastity, drink to the point of drunkenness? Then, rising up, women who ought not even to be heard by strangers, or seen, within the secrecy of the home, dare to go forth into public, with head unveiled, with a shameless countenance. The Apostle bids women be silent even in the church, and orders them at home to ask their husbands. But those women, in the streets, lead dances immodest even before the eyes of men, in the sight of intemperate young men, tossing their hair, dragging their tunics, their garments torn, their arms bare, clapping their hands, dancing with their feet, resounding with their voices, provoking in themselves the lusts of the youths by histrionic motion, by wanton eye, by shameful mockery. A crowd of young men watches, and it becomes a pitiable theater.

Amid the falls of the dancers and the lapses of the spectators, heaven is defiled by an impure gaze, the earth is polluted by shameful dancing, which is beaten by obscene leapings.

2. Wine and Lust Joined in Ruin

How shall I speak of it patiently, pass over it piously, mourn it fittingly? Wine has brought upon us the loss of so many souls. For if wine and women make men depart from God, since either drunkenness or lust are the allurements of transgression, if each of these separately does this, what will they do when united? Whence not undeservedly a certain wise man before us said: A drunken woman is a great wrath.

3. The Israelites' Desire for Flesh in the Wilderness

But what wonder is it if the souls of women are deceived by wine, when all those tribes of the fathers, when they drank water from the rock, ate manna, conquered the strongest nations, and there was none feeble among them: yet when they began to desire flesh, and by their desires turned back to Egypt, out of so many thousands of men they deserved to reach the land of promise, save two only? Therefore what good sobriety is, what evil intemperance is, may be gathered from this: when murmuring, seeking after the delights of Egypt, they were bitten by serpents: when passing through the path of the Red Sea, they drank water. Do we not then fear the example, do we not flee delights, lest they defraud us of the attainment of future goods?

1. Isaiah's Oracle on Tyre's Luxury and the Root of Avarice

And why should I use the sentences of others? Let us hear what the well-fed and luxurious themselves hope for. For the prophet Isaiah brings them in, saying: Let us eat and drink: for tomorrow we shall die. And rightly he cries out: Howl, ye ships of Carthage, which have perished, and shall be no more. This is said of the vision of Tyre, which we know to have been a luxurious city. And therefore it is the ninth vision, not the seventh or eighth, because that city keeps neither the law nor the grace of the Gospel: since on the lawful sabbath it was forbidden even to kindle the fires of lust, and by the sequence of the Gospel the eighth day shines with the resurrection. And the same day is both first and eighth, because the Lord's day recurs upon itself. Luxury, then, has neither faith nor the observance of discipline: luxury is the seedbed and origin of vices.

And do not think that I have spoken against the Apostle, because he says that avarice is the root of all vices, since luxury is itself the mother of avarice. For when anyone has exhausted his own resources through luxury, he afterward seeks greedy gains.

2. The Perils of Sea Trade and the Story of Jonah

Hear today what has been read: Merchants, it says, of the Phoenicians crossing over the sea in much water: the seed of merchants like a harvest that is carried away. These cities are neighbors, Tyre, Phoenicia, Sidon: neighbors as much in vices as in location. Merchants seeking small gains from trading through the perilous crossing of the sea. The life of men is anxious, their manner of living restless, and always in a kind of whirlwind, more mobile than the very winds by which it is tossed, and often driven this way and that. Indeed you complain of frequent shipwrecks—who compels you to sail? As though it were not the envy of wealth that makes lands unsafe for you, and stirs up so many to brigandage? God made the sea not for sailing, but for the beauty of the element. He poured out the wide expanses of the deep, surely so that he might enclose the lands with a strait, lest you wander further, a vagrant and an exile. But the sea is tossed by storm.

Therefore you ought to fear it, not to make free use of it. The innocent element has done no wrong: human rashness is itself its own peril. In short, he who does not sail knows no fear of shipwreck. The Lord said: Have dominion over the fish of the sea; he did not say: Sail upon the waves. Hence also the prophet Jonah, who was sent to Nineveh to preach repentance, because he wished to sail in order to flee from the face of God, was troubled by a storm, chosen by lot, cast into the sea, and taken up by a whale.

3. David's Psalm and the Rebuke of Merchant Greed

The prophet David also says, when recounting God's grace toward man: You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, moreover also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heaven, and the fish of the sea, which pass through the paths of the sea. To the fish, not to men, he gave to pass through the paths of the sea. The sea was given to you for food, not for peril: use it for sustenance, not for trade. Why do you generate danger for yourself out of pleasure? Why do you search out the depths of an element set apart from you? Why do you disturb the higher secrets of the world? Why, in short, does the restless sailor strive so often to plow and furrow the waves? Why do you so often tempt the harmless seas, provoke the storms? O insatiable greed of merchants! Even the sea yields to you, and the deep cannot bear your restlessness. In short, plowed so often by returning merchants: Blush, Sidon, says the sea.

As though it were the voice of the wearied element speaking: Blush, Sidon—that is, you the trader accuse my waves, though you yourself are more restless than the waves; and blush at least with shame, since you are not moved by danger. The winds are more modest than your desires. They have their times of rest; your zeal for gain is never idle. And when the storm is at rest, your ships are never idle. The wave stirs beneath the oar when it rests from the blast.

4. Carthage's Inherited Luxury from Tyre

I have not travailed, it says, nor given birth, nor nourished young men. Why do those disturb me whom I do not know, whom I do not recognize? Go into Carthage, howl, you who inhabit the islands. Above it said: Howl, ships of Carthage. For the Tyrians founded Carthage, and therefore the Carthaginians follow the luxury of their founders, having had poured into themselves the discolored succession of wickedness, the worse heirs of the worst vices. And rightly he called the luxurious "ships." For just as ships are tossed by wind, so these are tossed by food and wine. They inhabit bodies full of drink like islands, they resound with shipwrecks all around, their drunkennesses are beaten by the waves, and they rest neither by day nor by night. Of these merchants, then, the seed is in the water, the harvest in the waves. For in water they sow their labors, so that they may reap perils. In water their crop springs up, in water their harvest abounds. The fruit itself is in water, never safe and never solid.

Whence he rightly says: He who sowed on earth did not enter into trade; rather, he who sowed in heaven. But the earth is good, in which whoever sows, heavenly fruits will spring up for him.

1. Tyre's Foretold Fall and Renewal After Seventy Years

Howl, it says, again, ships of Carthage, for your stronghold has perished; and it shall be on that day, Tyre shall be forsaken. And below: And it shall come to pass after seventy years, Tyre shall be like the song of a harlot. See what words the prophet uses, and let him not shrink from the baseness of such words. We sometimes shrink back—not because our tongue is more chaste than theirs, but because our authority is lesser. For there is greater force in the expression of such words, so that those who are not ashamed of their sins may be ashamed even of the names of their sins. And Tyre, it says, shall be like the song of a harlot. See that when someone sees those choirs singing shameful words, he may say: Behold, Tyre has become like the song of a harlot. The oracle of the prophetic announcement has been fulfilled.

2. The Harlot's Song and Rahab as a Type of Grace

And he adds: Take a harp, and wander about, you forgotten harlot city, play well upon the harp, sing many songs, that there may be remembrance of you. And after seventy years Tyre shall be like the song of a harlot, and God will make a visitation of Tyre. Whence we can also take the "song" in a good sense as that of Rahab, that harlot who received the spies of Joshua with faithful mind. For the Lord also says: We have sung to you, and you have not danced. And David says: Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth—that is, the song of the harlot, which before that harlot earth in Adam and Eve sang, a harlot amid the people of the nations. This harlot has made very many good harlots, of whom it was said by the Lord Jesus to that elect and elder people of God: Publicans and harlots go before you into the kingdom of God.

3. Renouncing the Devil's Works Through Christ's Mercy

Therefore since we have so merciful a Lord, who forgives even grave error, let us turn away from vices, let us not withdraw from the law, let us carry out the Lord's precept with the diligent zeal of little servants. What have we to do with impurities and shamelessness? What with the works of the devil? You heard today in the reading just recited what the legion said: What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? And you say too, if perchance you see the devil's temptations fighting against you: What have I to do with you, Belial? I am the servant of Christ, redeemed by his blood, I have given myself wholly to him. What have I to do with you? I do not know your works, I seek nothing of yours, I possess nothing of yours, I desire nothing of yours. How much more ought we to be separated from the devil, if he separates himself from Christ?

And if we were in any way obligated to him, we are so no longer: we have fled to the physician, he has healed our former wounds. And if any bitterness remains, the remedy will not be lacking. And if we have done him any wrong, he who has once forgiven will not remember it. And if we have committed grave sins, we have found a great physician, we have received the great medicine of his grace. For a great medicine takes away great sins.

4. Redeeming Sin Through Almsgiving

We have also many other aids by which we may redeem our sins. You have money—redeem your sin. The Lord is not for sale, but you yourself are for sale. You have been sold to your sins; redeem yourself by your works, redeem yourself by your money. Money is cheap, but mercy is precious. Almsgiving, it says, delivers from sin. And elsewhere it says: The redemption of a man is his riches. And in the Gospel the Lord says: Make for yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity. And often an antidote is tempered with poison, that is, poison is expelled by poison. By poison death is repelled, life is preserved. Do you too, like a good steward, make of the instrument of avarice a support for mercy, and of the enticement of corruption a grace of sincerity.

1. The Prophet's Warning of the World's Destruction

You heard what was read today: Behold, the Lord comes to destroy the whole earth. As though the holy prophet were pointing with his hand, as though he were seeing with his eyes the coming day of judgment, so he says: Behold, the Lord comes to destroy the whole earth. Rather, because in the spirit even future things are revealed to prophets as though present, therefore he wished to show us also what he saw, so as to call us back from error to conversion.

2. The World's Destruction Explained by the Stadium

Yet no one ought to be crushed when he hears that the Lord will destroy the whole earth. Lest perhaps he say: Granted, we have committed grave sins—what has heaven done wrong, what has earth, what has the sea, that he should destroy them too? Why shall so beautiful an adornment perish? Such an opinion is of a narrow mind. But if you look more deeply, you will find that this is for us, which you think is against us: you will judge that this is for the world, which you suppose to be against the world. The stadium is not always full of spectators, not always disturbed by contests, not always covered with dust; but when the contests occur, then the people are at the spectacle, the wrestler in the arena, the dust in the stadium. When the contests are finished, the assembly disperses, each one departs either as victor to glory, or as vanquished to reproach: the crown lifts up the victor, shame presses down the vanquished, wrong afflicts him.

If then someone should afterward enter the stadium, and see it empty of festivity, he might say to the president of the games: Why is the stadium empty; why are the contests silent; why do the solemnities lie idle? He who presides over the contest will answer: The athletes must rest, the spectators must rest. For what is the fruit of labor, except rest after labor? Likewise the whole world too must at some time be dissolved, that there may be rest for the weary.

3. The Christian Athlete's Discipline Under Angelic Witness

We are athletes, we contend in a certain spiritual stadium. In short, the good athlete said: We have been made a spectacle to this world. And elsewhere: If I run, it is not as into uncertainty: so I strive, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body. And elsewhere: Forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to the things that are before, I press on toward the appointed prize. We are athletes, then; we must contend lawfully. There are many wrestling-matches: and he who is defeated today, restores himself tomorrow. First one strives for the prize, afterward for the crown. Does the athlete lie idle in leisure, once he has given his name to the contest? He is exercised daily, anointed daily. His very food is the food of a contestant, discipline is required, chastity is guarded. And you have given your name to the contest of Christ, you have subscribed for the competition of the crown: meditate, exercise, anoint yourself with the oil of gladness, with unguent poured out.

Let your food be the food of sobriety, having nothing of intemperance, nothing of luxury. Let your drink be sparer, lest any drunkenness creep in: guard the chastity of your body, that you may be fit for the crown, lest your reputation offend the affection of the spectator, lest your supporters see you negligent and abandon you. The Archangels watch you, and the Powers, and the Dominions, and those ten thousand times ten thousand of Angels. Under such spectators, consider how disgraceful it is to blush with shame. Having entered the stadium, rouse the vigor of your soul with the dust, shake your limbs. Having advanced into the arena, you must needs receive the dust, endure the blazing heat of the summer sun. The heat is heavy, but the victory sweet: the darkness of the dust is troublesome, but endurance is beautiful. No one enters the stadium covered in dust, but the contests render one dusty. Dust gathers there where the palm is set forth. Again, no one is crowned while shining clean; dust befits victory.

4. The Coming Renewal of Heaven and Earth

Come then, Lord Jesus, let your crown go forth, admit the victors into rest, the vanquished into compunction. And if you destroy the whole earth, more are your invisible works than those which we have seen. He who is of narrower mind does not discern these things, he grieves that you destroy the whole earth: but he who knows how to gaze upon the things that are invisible rejoices that you come, and set all free. The athletes rejoice who can say: Let your kingdom come, your will be done as in heaven, so also on earth. The creature of the world will rejoice, that it may be freed from the vanity of this world, which now groans together and travails; because that creature too is subjected to vanity, until the adoption of sons is multiplied, and the redemption of the whole body is completed. In a good sense, then, he will destroy the whole earth. For there shall be a new heaven, and night shall be no more.

Hence, it says, he will reveal his face, that with face revealed we may behold the glory of Christ.

1. The Call to Fasting and the Example of Moses

Let us then, established in the stadium, consider how great either delight or grief we shall be to those who are now our supporters, lest they begin to blush for shame on our account. For as there will be joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance, so there will be sadness over him who, grace not obtained, has finished the course of this life. Let us then chastise our body with fastings, let us flee unseemly feastings. Let us beware lest it be said to us: Howl because of wine. Lest Moses come, and summon the Levites: and whoever is prepared to bear an armed right hand for the Lord, let him separate himself from those who by eating and drinking have contracted grave sins. And Moses comes today too, when the Law is recited: Moses calls, when the Law commands.

2. Separating the Disorderly from the Altar of Christ

The Apostle teaches that we should separate ourselves from every brother who behaves disorderly. Let us strike him with the spiritual sword, which is the word of God. Let us have regard for neither brother nor kinsman, but let us cut off every unclean person from the altars of Christ; that he may cleanse and correct his lapses, whereby he may merit to return to the sacraments of Christ.

3. Elijah's Altar as a Type of Baptism

But if anyone is not yet baptized, let him be converted more securely, receiving remission of sins. For baptism is like a certain fire that consumes sins; because Christ baptizes in fire and spirit. Now this type is read in the Books of Kings, where Elijah placed wood upon the altar, and said that they should pour water from the jars over it, and he said: Do it again, and they did it again; and he said: Do it a third time, and they did it a third time; and when the water flowed, Elijah prayed, and fire came down from heaven. You are the man upon the altar, who are washed with water, whose guilt is burned away, so that life may be renewed. For fire consumes wood and stubble. Do not fear the fire by which you are illumined. Therefore it is said to you: Come to him, and be enlightened. Take up the yoke of Christ. Do not fear because it is a yoke: hasten, because it is light.

It does not crush the neck, but honors it. Why do you hesitate? Why do you delay? It does not bind the neck with chains, but joins the mind by grace: it does not constrain by necessity, but directs the will toward good work.

4. The Urgency of Baptism and Elijah's Open Heaven

Why do you still claim there is time? Every time is opportune for pardon. If I should offer you gold, you would not say to me: I will come tomorrow, but you would demand it at once. No one defers receiving gold, no one makes excuse: the redemption of the soul is promised, and no one hastens. John baptized unto repentance, and all Judea came together: Christ baptizes in the Spirit: Christ dispenses grace, and it is met with disdain. Elijah showed forth the type of baptism, and opened heaven which had been closed for three years and six months. How much greater are the gifts of the truth! He opened heaven, indeed, not by rain descending, but by grace ascending. For no one ascends into the kingdom of heaven except through water and the Spirit. Perfidy had closed heaven to men, but faith opened it.

5. The Opening of Heaven and the Danger of Delay

Even before this, heaven lay open to men. Indeed, Enoch was caught up to heaven. Again it was closed: but Elijah, who was caught up in a fiery chariot, opened it. And you also can ascend, if you attain the grace of the sacrament. How long, delights? How long, feastings? The day of judgment presses near: while you delay grace, death draws close. Who could say: Now I have no leisure, I am occupied, do not show me the light, I do not wish to be redeemed so soon, I have no need yet of the heavenly kingdom? Does not he who excuses himself from baptism say just this? And with how great a grace are you renewed, O man! You are cleansed, and not burned: you are healed, and do not suffer: you are reformed, and not dissolved: you do not receive the blow of death, and yet you rise again. And still you dissemble; still you wait to live for the world, and afterward reserve yourself for God.

Do you not know that Cain’s sacrifice displeased for this reason, that he did not offer the firstfruits, but himself first enjoyed the firstfruits, and attempted to offer God a gift from what remained afterward: whereas Abel, preferred by the offering of his firstfruits, deserved to be praised by a notable oracle of piety.