Tertullian: de Ieiunio

CAP. I. 1. Mirarer psychicos istos, si sola luxuria tenerentur, qua saepius nubunt, si non etiam ingluuie lacerarentur, qua ieiunia oderant. Monstrum scilicet haberetur libido sine gula, cum duo haec tam unita atque concreta sint, ut si disiungi omnino potuissent, ipsi prius uentri pudenda non adhaererent.

CHAPTER 1. 1. I would marvel at those psychics, if they were held only by lust, on account of which they marry more often, if they were not also torn by gluttony, on account of which they hate fasts. Surely a monster would be considered libido without the gullet, since these two are so united and concreted, that if they could have been altogether disjoined, the pudenda would not themselves have adhered to the belly in the first place.

Specta corpus, et una regio est. 2. Denique pro dispositione membrorum ordo uitiorum. Prior uenter, et statim cetera saginae substructa lasciuia est; per edacitatem salacitas transit.

Look upon the body, and it is one region. 2. Finally, according to the disposition of the members, the order of vices. The belly is first, and straightway the rest—lasciviousness—has its substructure in stuffing; through edacity salacity passes.

Agnosco igitur animalem fidera studio carnis, qua tota constat, tam multuorantiae quam multinubentiae pronam, ut merito spiritalem disciplinam pro substantia aemulam in hac quoque specie continentiae accuset perinde gulae frenos imbuentem per nullas interdum uel seras uel aridas escas, quemadmodum et libidini per unicas nuptias. 3. Piget iam cum talibus congredi, pudet etiam. de eis altercari quorum nec defensio uerecunda est.

I recognize, therefore, the animal (psychic) man to put his trust in the zeal of the flesh, on which he wholly consists, so prone to multi-edacity as to multi-nuptiality, that he with reason accuses the spiritual discipline, rival by its very substance, even in this kind of continence, as likewise applying reins to the gullet through no foods at times, whether late or dry foods, just so also to lust through single nuptials. 3. I am now weary of engaging with such men, indeed ashamed as well, to wrangle about those whose very defense is not modest.

Quomodo enim protegam castitatem et sobrietatem sine taxatione aduersariorum? Quinam isti sint, semel nominabo: exteriores et interiores botuli psychicorum. Hi paracleto controuersiam faciunt; propter hoc nouae prophetiae recusantur; non quod alium deum praedicent Montanus et Priscilla et Maximilla, nec quod Iesum Christum soluant, nec quod aliquam fidei aut spei regulam, euertant, sed quod plane doceant saepius ieiunare quam nubere.

How indeed shall I protect chastity and sobriety without the arraignment of adversaries? Who these are, I will name once for all: the outer and inner sausages of the psychics. These make a controversy with the Paraclete; for this the new prophecy is refused—not because Montanus and Priscilla and Maximilla preach another God, nor because they dissolve Jesus Christ, nor because they overturn any rule of faith or hope, but because they plainly teach to fast more often than to marry.

4. De modo quidem nubendi iam edidimus monogamiae defensionem. Nunc de castigatione uictus secunda uel magis prima continentiae pugna est. Arguunt nos, quod lemma propria custodiamus, quod stationes plerumque in uesperam producamus, quod etiam xerophagias obseruemus siccantes cibum ab omni carne et omni iurulentia et uuidioribus quibusque pomis nec quid uinositatis uel edamus uel potemus; lauacri quoque abstinentiam, congruentem arido uictui.

4. As to the manner of marrying, indeed, we have already published a defense of monogamy. Now, concerning the chastening of diet, this is the second, or rather the first, battle of continence. They argue against us, that we observe a “lemma” of our own, that we for the most part prolong the stations into the evening, that we also observe xerophagies, drying the food from all flesh and all brothy gravies, and from whatever fruits are the more moist, and that we neither eat nor drink anything of vinosity; abstinence, too, from the bath, congruent with a dry diet.

5. Nouitatem igitur obiectant, de cuius inlicito praescribant aut haeresin iudicandam, si humana praesumptio est, aut pseudoprophetiam pronuntiandam, si spiritalis indictio est, dum quaque ex parte anathema audiamus, qui aliter adnuntiamus.

5. Therefore they object novelty, about whose illicitness they lay down a prescriptive claim: either that heresy is to be judged, if it is a human presumption, or that pseudoprophecy is to be pronounced, if it is a spiritual injunction, while from every side we hear anathema, we who announce otherwise.

CAP II. 1. Nam quod ad ieiunia pertineat, certos dies a deo constitutos opponunt, ut cum in Leuitico praecipit dominus Moysi decimam mensis septimi diem placationis, sancta, inquiens, erit uobis dies, et uexabitis animas uestras, et omnis anima, quae uexata non fuerit in illa die, exterminabitur de populo suo. 2. Certe in euangelio illos dies ieiuniis determinatos putant, in quibus ablatus est sponsus, et hos esse iam. solos legitimos ieiuniorum.

CHAPTER 2. 1. Now as regards fasts, they oppose days constituted by God, since in Leviticus the Lord prescribes to Moses the tenth day of the seventh month as the day of propitiation, saying: it shall be a holy day for you, and you shall afflict your souls, and every soul which shall not have been afflicted on that day shall be cut off from his people. 2. Certainly in the Gospel they think those days are determined for fasts in which the bridegroom was taken away, and that these are now. the only legitimate fasts.

Christianorum abolitis legalibus et propheticis uetustatibus. Vbi uolunt enim, adgnoscunt quid sapiat lex et prophetae usque ad Iohannem. 3. Itaque de cetero indifferenter ieiunandum ex arbitrio, non ex imperio nouae disciplinae, pro temporibus et causis uniuscuiusque; sic et apostolos obseruasse, nullum aliud imponentes iugum certorum et in commune omnibus obeundorum ieiuniorum, proinde nec stationum, quae et ipsae suos quidem dies habeant quartae feriae et sextae, passiue tamen currant, neque sub lege praecepti neque ultra supremam diei, quando et orationes fere hora nona concludat de Petri exemplo, quod Actis refertur.

With the Christians’ legal and prophetic antiquities abolished. For where they wish, they acknowledge what the Law and the Prophets mean up to John. 3. Therefore, thereafter, fasting is to be done indifferently by choice, not by the command of the new discipline, according to the times and causes of each person; thus also the apostles observed, imposing no other yoke of fixed fasts to be undertaken in common by all, and likewise not of stations, which also themselves indeed have their own days, the fourth weekday and the sixth, yet let them run loosely, neither under the law of a precept nor beyond the day’s supreme point, since one for the most part concludes prayers at the ninth hour from Peter’s example, which is reported in the Acts.

4. Xerophagias uero nouum adfectati officii nomen et proximum ethnicae superstitioni, quales castimoniae Apim, Isidem et Magnam Matrem certorum eduliorum exceptione purificant, cum fides libera in Christo ne Iudaicae quidem legi abstinentiam quorundam ciborum debeat, semel in totum macellum ab apostolo admissa, detestatore eorum qui sicut nubere prohibeant, ita iubeant cibis abstinere a deo conditis. 5. Et ideo non esse iam tunc praenotatos in nouissimis temporibus abscedentes a fide, intendentes spiritibus mundi seductoribus, doctrinis mendaciloquorum inustam habentes conscientiam. Quibus, oro te, ignibus?

4. As for xerophagies, a new name of an affected duty and next to ethnic superstition, such purifications of chastity as purify Apis, Isis, and the Magna Mater by the exception of certain edibles, whereas faith, free in Christ, ought not even to the Jewish law an abstinence from certain foods, once for all admitted by the apostle into the whole meat-market, with him a detester of those who, just as they forbid to marry, so command to abstain from foods created by God.
5. And therefore were they not already then pre-noted as, in the last times, those departing from the faith, attending to seducing spirits of the world, to the doctrines of mendacious-speakers, having a conscience branded? By what, I pray you, fires?

Credo, quibus nuptias saepe deducimus et cenas quotidie coquimus? 6. Sic et cum Galatis nos quoque percuti aiunt obseruatores dierum et mensium et annorum. Iaculantur interea et Esaiam pronuntiasse: non tale ieiunium dominus elegit, id est non abstinentiam cibi, sed opera lustitiae, quae subtexit;et ipsum dominum in euangelio ad omnem circa uictum scrupulositatem compendio respondisse, non his communicari hominem quae in os inferantur, sed quae ex ore proferantur, cum.

I suppose—for those for whom we often conduct nuptials and cook banquets daily? 6. Thus too they allege that we are struck, with the Galatians, as observers of days and months and years. Meanwhile they hurl also that Esaias pronounced: the Lord has not chosen such a fast, that is, not abstinence from food, but works of justice, which he subjoins; and that the Lord himself in the Gospel, to every scrupulosity about victuals, answered in brief, that a man is not defiled by the things which are brought into the mouth, but by the things which are brought forth from the mouth, when.

et ipse manducaret et biberet usque in notationem: ecce homo uorator et potator! 7. Sic et apostolum docere, quod esca nos deo non commendet, neque abundantes, si edamus, neque deficientes, si non edamus. His et huiusmodi sensibus eo iam subtiliter tendunt, ut unusquisque pronior uentri possit superuacua nec adeo necessana existimare sublati uel deminiuti uel demorati cibi officia, praeponente scilicet deo iustitiae et innocentiae opera.

and he himself would eat and
drink even unto censure: behold the man, a glutton and a drinker! 7. So too the
apostle teaches that food does not commend us to God—neither are we abounding if
we eat, nor deficient if we do not eat. By these and suchlike sentiments they now
subtly tend to this point: that anyone prone to the belly may be able to reckon superfluous and not so
necessary the offices of food removed or diminished or deferred,
since God, to be sure, prefers the works of justice and innocence.

8. Et scimus, quales sint carnalium commodorum suasoriae, quam facile dicatur: opus est de totis praecordiis credam, diligam deum et proximum tamquam me. In his enim duobus praeceptis tota lex pendet et prophetae, non in pulmonum et intestinorum meorum inanitate.

8. And we know, what sort the persuasions of carnal commodities are, how easily it is said: it is needful that I believe with all my heart, that I love God and my neighbor as myself. For on these two precepts the whole Law and the Prophets hang, not on the emptiness of my lungs and intestines.

CAP III. 1. Itaque nos hoc prius affirmare debemus quod occulte subrui periclitatur, quantum ualeat apud deum inanitas ista, et ante omnia, unde ratio ipsa processerit hoc modo promerendi deum. Tunc enim agnoscetur obseruationis necessitas, cum eluxerit rationis auctoritas a primordio recensendae.

CHAPTER 3. 1. Therefore we must first affirm this, which is in danger of being secretly undermined: how much this emptiness avails with God, and before all, whence the very ratio itself proceeded for meriting favor with God in this way. Then indeed the necessity of the observance will be recognized, when the authority of the ratio, to be reviewed from the beginning, has shone forth.

2. Acceperat Adam a deo legem non gustandi de arbore agnitionis boni et mali, moriturus si gustasset. Verum et ipse tunc in psychicum reuersus post ecstasin spiritalem, in qua magnum illud sacramentum in Christum et ecclesiam prophetauerat, nec iam capiens quae erant spiritus, facilius uentri quam deo cessit, pabulo potius quam praecepto annuit, salutem gula uendidit. Manducauit denique et periit, saluus alioquin, si uni arbusculae ieiunare maluisset; ut iam hinc animalis fides semen suum recognoscat exinde deducens carnalium adpetitionem et spiritalium recusationem.

2. Adam had received from God a law not to taste of the tree of the agnition of good and evil, destined to die if he should taste. But he too then, having returned into a psychic state after the spiritual ecstasy in which he had prophesied that great sacrament concerning Christ and the Church, and now no longer grasping the things that were of the Spirit, yielded more readily to the belly than to God, assented to fodder rather than to the precept, sold his salvation to his gullet. He ate, finally, and perished—otherwise safe, if he had preferred to fast from the one little tree; so that from this point the animal (psychic) faith may recognize its seed, deriving from thence the appetition of carnal things and the recusation of spiritual things.

3. Teneo igitur a primordio homicidam gulam tormentis atque suppliciis inediae puniendam, etiamsi deus nulla ieiunia praecepisset. Ostendens tamen, unde sit occisus Adam, mihi reliquerat intellegenda remedia offensae, qui offensam demonstrarat. Vltro cibum, quibus modis quibusque temporibus potuissem, pro ueneno deputarem et antidotum famem sumerem, per quam purgarem mortis a primordio causam in me quoque cum ipso genere transductam, certus hoc deum uelle cuius contrarium noluit satisque confidens placituram illi continentiae curam, a quo damnatam comperissem incontinentiae culpam.

3. I hold, therefore, from the primordium the homicidal gluttony to be punished with the torments and penalties of fasting, even if God had prescribed no fasts. Yet, by showing whence Adam was slain, he had left to me to understand the remedies of the offense, he who had pointed out the offense. Of my own accord I would reckon food, in whatever ways and at whatever times I could, as poison, and I would take hunger as the antidote, through which I might purge the cause of death from the beginning, transferred into me also along with the race itself, certain that God wills this, whose contrary he did not will, and quite confident that the care of continence would be pleasing to him, by whom I had found the fault of incontinence condemned.

4. Porro, cum et ipse ieiunium mandet et animam conquassatam proprie utique cibi angustiis sacrificium, appellet, quis iam dubitabit omnium erga uictum macerationum hanc fuisse rationem, qua rursus interdicto cibo et obseruato praecepto primordiale iam delictum expiaretur, ut homo per eandem materiam causae satis deo faciat per quam offenderat id est per cibi interdictionem, atque ita salutem aemulo modo redaccenderet inedia, sicut extinxerat sagina, pro unico inlicito plura licita contemnens?

4. Furthermore, since he himself both commands fasting and calls the soul—battered, to be sure, specifically by the constraints of food—a sacrifice, who now will doubt that this has been the rationale of all macerations with respect to victuals: that, with food interdicted anew and the precept observed, the primordial delict be expiated; that the human being, by the same material of the cause by which he had offended—namely, by the interdiction of food—may make satisfaction to God, and thus, in an emulous manner, re‑enkindle salvation by fasting, just as he had extinguished it by fattening, despising many lawful things in place of the single unlawful one?

CAP IV. 1. Haec ratio seruabatur apud prouidentiam dei pro temporibus omnia modulantis, ne quis ex diuerso ad deiciendam propositionem nostram, cur ergo, dicat, non statim deus aliquam uictus constituit castigationem, quin immo et auxit permissionem? 2. Nam in primordio quidem herbidum solummodo et arboreum homini pabulum addixerat: ecce dedi uobis omne faenum sementiuum seminans semen quod est super terram, et omne lignum quod habet in semetipso fructum seminis sementiui uobis erit in escam. Postea uero ad Noe enumerata subiectione omnium bestiarum terme et uolatilium caeli et mouentium in terra et piscium maris et omnis serpentis, erunt, inquit, uobis in escam: uelut holera faeni dedi uobis uniuersa, uerum carnem in sanguine animae suae non edetis.

CHAPTER 4. 1. This rationale was being preserved by the providence of God, modulating all things according to the times, lest someone, from the opposite side, to cast down our proposition, should say, why then did God not immediately establish some chastisement of diet, nay rather even increased the permission? 2. For in the beginning indeed he had assigned to man only herbaceous and arboreal provender: behold I have given you every seed-bearing grass sowing seed which is upon the earth, and every tree which has in itself the fruit of seed bearing seed shall be for you for food. Afterwards indeed, to Noah, after the enumeration of the subjection of all the beasts of the earth and the birds of heaven and the movers on the earth and the fishes of the sea and every serpent, “they shall be,” he says, “for you for food: as the herbs of grass I have given you all things; but flesh with the blood of its soul you shall not eat.”

3. Nam et hoc ipso, quod eam solam carnem esui eximit, cuius anima non per sanguinem effunditur, omnis reliquae carnis usum concessisse manifestum est. Ad haec respondemus non competisse onerari hominem aliqua adhuc abstinentiae lege, qui cum maxime tam leuem interdictionem unius scilicet pomi tolerare non potuit; remissum itaque illum libertate ipsa corroborandum. Aeque post diluuium in reformatione generis humani suffecisse unam interim legem a sanguine abstinendi permisso usu ceterorum.

3. For even by this very fact, that he exempts from eating only that flesh whose life is not poured out through blood, it is manifest that he has conceded the use of all the remaining flesh. To these things we respond that it was not fitting that man be burdened as yet by any law of abstinence, who just then could not tolerate so light an interdiction, namely of a single fruit; therefore he was relaxed, to be strengthened by liberty itself. Likewise, after the deluge, in the reformation of the human race, one law in the meantime sufficed: to abstain from blood, with the use of the rest permitted.

4. Iam enim iudicium dominus ostenderat per diluuium, adhuc etiam comminatus fuerat per exquisitionem sanguinis de manu fratris et de manu bestiae omnis. Itaque iustitiam iudicii praeministrans materiam libertatis emisit per ueniam supparans disciplinam, permittens omnia, ut demeret quaedam, plus exacturus, si plus commisisset, abstinentiam imperaturus, cum indulgentiam praemisisset, quo magis, ut diximus, primordiale delictum expiaretur maioris abstinentiae operatione in maioris licentiae occasione.

4. For already
the Lord had shown judgment through the deluge, and moreover had even threatened through
the exaction of blood from the hand of the brother and from the hand of every beast. Therefore,
pre-ministering the justice of judgment, he sent forth the material of liberty through pardon,
balancing discipline, permitting all things, in order to take away certain things, being about to exact more,
if more had been committed, to impose abstinence, since he had sent indulgence beforehand, so that the more, as we said, the primordial offense might be expiated by the operation of greater
abstinence on the occasion of greater license.

CAP V. 1. Denique ubi iam et familiaris populus allegi deo coepit et restitutio hominis imbui potuit, tunc leges disciplinaeque omnes impositae, etiam quae decerperent uictum, ademptis quibusdam ueluti immundis, quo facilius aliquando ieiunia toleraret homo perpetua in quibusdam abstinentia usus. 2. Nam et primus populus primi hominis resculpserat crimen pronior uentri quam deo deprehensus, cum de duritia Aegyptiae seruitutis ualida manu dei et sublimi brachio ereptus dominus eius uisus est, terrae lacte et melle mananti destinatus, statim autem solitudinis incopiosae circumspectu scandalizatus, saturitatis Aegyptiae detrimenta suspirans in Moysen et Aaron mussitauit: utinam obiissemus percussi a domino in terra Aegypti, quando super ollas carnium sedebamus et panes in plenitudinem comedebamus. Quomodo eduxisti nos in haec deserta ad interficiendam synagogam istam fame?

CHAPTER 5. 1. Finally, when already both the familial people began to be bound to God and the restoration of man could be imbued, then laws and disciplines were all imposed, even those which would pare away sustenance, certain things taken away as though unclean, in order that the human being might at some time more easily endure fasts, having practiced a perpetual abstinence in certain matters. 2. For the first people had recarved the crime of the first man, found more prone to the belly than to God, when, from the hardness of Egyptian servitude, by the strong hand of God and the lofty arm rescued, their Lord appeared, destined for a land flowing with milk and honey, but straightway, at the outlook of the unplenteous wilderness, scandalized, lamenting the losses of Egyptian satiety, he muttered against Moses and Aaron: would that we had died, struck by the Lord, in the land of Egypt, when we used to sit over pots of meats and eat breads to fullness. How have you led us out into these deserts to put this synagogue to death with hunger?

3. Eadem uentris praelatione deploraturus erat eosdem duces suos et dei arbitros, quos desiderio carnis et recordatu Aegyptiarum copiarum exacerbabat. Quis nos uescet carne? Venerunt in mentem nobis pisces quos in Aegypto edebamus gratis, et cucumeres et pepones et porri et cepe et allia.

3. By the same prelation of the belly he was about to bewail those same leaders of his and the arbiters of God, whom he was exacerbating by desire of flesh and by the recollection of Egyptian stores. Who will feed us with meat? There came into our mind the fishes which in Egypt we used to eat for free, and cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic.

At nunc anima nostra arida, nihil nisi manna uident oculi nostri. 4. Ita et illis xerophagiae panis angelici displicebant, allium potius et cepe quam caelum fragrare malebant. Et ideo tam ingratis gratiora et esculentiora quaeque detracta sunt, puniendae simul gulae et exercendae continentiae causa, ut illa damnaretur, ista erudiretur.

But now our soul is arid, our eyes see nothing except manna. 4. Thus too the xerophagy of the angelic bread displeased them; they preferred the reek of garlic and onions rather than the fragrance of heaven. And therefore from such ungrateful people the more agreeable and more esculent things were taken away, for the sake at once of punishing gluttony and exercising continence, so that the former might be condemned, the latter be instructed.

CAP VI. 1. Nunc si temere rationes castigati a deo uictus et castigandi propter deum a nobis ad primordiorum experimenta reuocauimus, conscientiam communem consulamus. Ipsa natura enuntiabit, quales nos ante pabulum et potum in uirgine adhuc saliua exhibere consuerit rebus dumtaxat sensu agendis, quo diuina tractantur, si multo pollentioris mentis, si multo uiuacioris cordis, quam cum totum illud domicilium interioris hominis escis stipatum, uinis inundatum, decoquendis iam, stercoribus exaestuans praemeditatorium efficitur latrinarum, in quo plane nihil tam in proximo supersit quam ad lasciuiam sapere. 2. Manducauit populus et bibit, et surrexerunt ludere.

CHAPTER 6. 1. Now, if we have, perhaps rashly, recalled to the experiments of the beginnings the rationales of diet chastised by God, and to be chastised by us for God’s sake, let us consult the common conscience. Nature herself will declare what sort she has been accustomed to exhibit us before fodder and drink, with the saliva still virgin, in affairs to be managed by sense, by which the divine are handled, whether of a much more potent mind, of a much more vivacious heart, than when that whole dwelling of the inner man, crammed with foods, inundated with wines, now decocting, boiling over with excrements, is made a premeditation-room of latrines, in which plainly nothing remains so near at hand as to savor of lasciviousness. 2. The people ate and drank, and they rose up to play.

Intellege sanctae scripturae uerecundiam: lusum nisi impudicum non denotasset. Ceterum quotusquisque meminerit religionis occupatis memoriae locis, impeditis sapientiae membris? Nemo ita ut decet, ita ut par est, ita ut utile est, recordabitur dei eo in tempore, quo ipsum sibi hominem excidere sollemne est.

Understand the modesty of holy scripture: it would not have denoted “play” unless impudent. Moreover, how many will remember religion, with the places of memory occupied, with the members of sapience impeded? No one, as is decent, as is meet, as is useful, will recall God at that time when it is customary for a man himself to fall away from himself.

Omnem disciplinam uictus aut occidit aut uulnerat. Mentior, si non dominus ipse obliuionem sui exprobrans Israeli causam plenitudini reputat. 3. Incrassatus est dilectus et pinguefactus et dilatatus est, et dereliquit deum, qui fecit eum, et abscessit a domino salutificatore suo.

Every discipline the regimen of living either slays or wounds. I lie, if the Lord himself, upbraiding Israel for the oblivion of himself, does not reckon the cause to fullness. 3. the beloved was incrassated and fattened and dilated, and he forsook God who made him, and withdrew from the Lord his Savior.

Denique in eodem Deuteronomio eandem causam praecaueri iubens, ne, inquit, cum manducaueris et biberis et domos optimas aedificaueris, ouibus et bubus tuis multiplicatis et argento et auro extollatur cor tuum et obliuiscaris domini dei tui. 4. Praeposuit corruptelae diuitiarum edacitatis enormitatem, cui ipsae diuitiae procurant. Per illam scilicet incrassatum erat cor populi, ne oculis uideret et auribus audiret et corde coniceret adipibus obstructo, quas nominatim esui abstulit dedocens hominem saginae studere.

Finally, in the same Deuteronomy, bidding that the same cause be pre-cautioned, “lest,” he says, when you have eaten and drunk and built the best houses, with your sheep and oxen multiplied and with silver and gold, your heart be exalted and you forget the Lord your God. 4. He set before the corruption of riches the enormity of edacity, which the riches themselves procure. Through that, namely, the heart of the people had been made fat, so that it might not see with eyes and hear with ears and conceive with heart, the heart being obstructed by fats, which he by name removed from eating, un-teaching man to be eager for fattening.

5. Ceterum cui cor erectum potius inueniebatur quam impinguatum, qui quadraginta diebus totidemque noctibus supra humanae naturae facultatem ieiunium perennauit spiritali fide uirtutem subministrante, et uidit oculis dei gloriam et audiuit auribus dei uocem et corde coniecit dei legem iam tunc docentis non in solo pane uiuere hominem, sed in omni uerbo dei, cum quidem nec ipsum Moysen deo pastum inediamque eius nomine saginatam constanter contemplari ualeret pinguior populus. Merito igitur etiam in carne se dominus ei ostendit collegae ieiuniorum suorum, non minus et Heliae. 6. Nam et Helias hoc primum, quod famem fuerat imprecatus, satis iam se ieiuniis uouerat.

5. But whose heart was found uplifted rather than fattened, who for forty days and just as many nights, beyond the capacity of human nature, kept up a fast, spiritual faith supplying strength, and he saw with his eyes the glory of God and with his ears heard the voice of God and with his heart grasped the law of God, already then teaching that man lives not by bread alone, but by every word of God—since indeed the more fattened people was not able steadfastly to behold even Moses himself, fed by God, and his fasting, as it were fattened by His name. Deservedly therefore the Lord also showed himself to him in the flesh, as a colleague in his fasts, and no less to Elijah. 6. For Elijah, first of all, in that he had invoked a famine, had already devoted himself sufficiently by fastings to that very thing.

Viuit, inquit, dominus, cui adsisto in conspectu eius, si erit ros istis annis et imber. Dehinc minantem Iezabel fugiens post unicum. pabulum et potum, quem ab angelo expergefactus inuenerat, et ipse quadraginta diebus et noctibus uacuo uentre, arido ore peruenit in montem Choreb, ubi cum in speluncam deuertisset, quam familiari congressu dei exceptus est!

“As the Lord lives,” he says, “before whose presence I stand, there shall be neither dew in these years nor rain.” Thereafter, fleeing the threatening Jezebel, after a single meal of food and drink, which, awakened by an angel, he had found, he too for forty days and nights, on an empty stomach, with a parched mouth, came to Mount Horeb, where, when he had turned aside into a cave, how he was received by the familiar congress with God!

7. Quid tu Helia hic? Multo amicior ista uox quam Adam ubi es ? Illa enim pasto homini minabatur, ista ieiuno blandiebatur. Tanta est circumscripti uictus praerogatiua, ut deum praestet homini contubernalem, parem reuera pari.

7. What are you doing here, Elijah? Much friendlier is that voice than 'Adam, where are you ?' For that one was menacing the man who had eaten, this one was blandishing the fasting man. So great is the prerogative of a circumscribed diet, that it affords God to man as a contubernal (tent-companion), a peer in truth to a peer.

Si enim deus aeternus non esuriet, ut testatur per Esaiam, hoc erit tempus, quo homo deo adaequetur, cum sine pabulo uiuit.

For if the eternal God will not hunger, as he attests through Esaias, this will be the time when man is made equal to God, when he lives without food.

CAP VII. 1. Processimus itaque iam ad exempla, uti reuoluamus utilitatis efficacia potestates istius officii, quod etiam iratum deum homini reconciliat. Deliquerat Israel in aquatione apud Maspha congregatus a Samuele, sed ita statim.

CHAPTER 7. 1. We have proceeded therefore now to examples, so that we may review the efficacy-powers of utility of this office, which even reconciles an angry God to man. Israel had transgressed at the water-drawing at Maspha, assembled by
Samuel, but thus immediately.

delictum. ieiunio diluit, ut periculum proelii simul fugerit. Cum maxime Samuel offerebat holocaustum (in nullo magis procuratam audimus dei clementiam quam in abstinentia populi) et allophyli proelio admouebant, ibidem dominus intonuit uoce magna super allophylos, et confusi sunt et corruerunt in conspectu Israelis, et processerunt uiri Israel ex Maspha et persecuti sunt allophylos et usque Bethor ceciderunt, pastos impasti, armatos inermes.

the offense: by fasting he washed it away, so that he at the same time fled the peril of battle. Just when Samuel was offering the holocaust (in nothing do we hear the clemency of God to have been more procured than in the abstinence of the people) and the Allophyls were advancing to battle, there the Lord thundered with a great voice over the Allophyls, and they were confounded and fell before Israel; and the men of Israel went out from Maspha and pursued the Allophyls, and they fell as far as Bethor—the well-fed by the unfed, the armed by the unarmed.

2. Hae erunt uires ieiunantium deo. Caelum pro eiusmodi militat. Habes formam praesidii etiam spiritalibus bellis necessariam.

2. Such will be the forces of those fasting for God. Heaven militates on behalf of such as these. You have the form of a defense necessary also for spiritual wars.

Perinde cum rex Assyriorum Sennacherib compluribus iam ciuitatibus captis Israeli per Rapsacen blasphemias et minas intentaret, nihil aliud illum a proposito in Aethiopias auertit. 3. Dehinc quid aliud centum et octoginta quatuor milia de exercitu eius per angelum absumpsit quam Ezechiae regis humiliatio? Siquidem duritia hostis adnuntiata uestem scidit, saccum induit eodemque habitu seniores sacerdotum ad deum per Esaiam adire iussit utique ieiunio preces prosequente.

Likewise, when Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians, with several cities already captured, was directing blasphemies and threats against Israel through the Rabshakeh, nothing else turned him aside from his purpose into the Ethiopias. 3. Thereafter, what else consumed 184,000 of his army by an angel but the humiliation of King Hezekiah? For when the hardness of the enemy was reported, he rent his garment, put on sackcloth, and in the same garb he ordered the elders of the priests to approach God through Isaiah, fasting, of course, accompanying the prayers.

Neque enim. cibi tempus in periculo nec saturitatis cultis in sacco. 4. Semper inedia maeroris sequela est sicut laetitia accessio saginae.

Nor indeed is it a time for food in
peril, nor for the adornments of satiety in sackcloth. 4. Always fasting is the sequel
of mourning, just as joy is an accession of fattening.

Per hanc maeroris sequelam et inediam etiam ciuitas illa peccatrix Niniue de exitio praedicato liberatur. Satis enim paenitentia scelerum commendauerat ieiunium triduo functam, etiam pecudibus enectis, quibus iratus deus non erat. Sodoma quoque et Gomorra euasissent, si ieiunassent.

Through this sequel of sorrow, namely fasting, even that sinful city Nineveh was delivered from the proclaimed destruction. For the penitence of crimes had sufficiently commended the fast, carried out for three days, even with the cattle worn out—against whom God was not angry. Sodom and Gomorrah also would have escaped, if they had fasted.

Hoc remedium agnoscit et Achab. 5. Cum illi post transgressionem et idololatriam et necem Nabuthae propter uineam interempti a Iezabel exprobrasset Helias: qualiter occidisti et hereditatem possedisti : in loco quo sanguinem Nabuthae canes delinxerant, tuum quoque delinguent, destituit semetipsum et saccum carni suae imposuit et ieiunauit et dormiuit in sacco. Et tunc sermo dominii ad Heliam: uidisti ut reueritus sit Achab a facie mea : pro eo, quod reueritus est, non superducam laesuram in diebus ipsius, sed in diebus filii eius superducam eam, qui non erat ieiunaturus.

This remedy Ahab also recognizes. 5. When Elijah had reproached him, after the transgression and idolatry and the killing of Naboth, slain on account of the vineyard, by Jezebel, in this manner: how you have killed and have possessed the inheritance
: in the place where the dogs had licked Naboth’s blood, they will lick yours also,
he humbled himself, and he put sackcloth upon his flesh, and he fasted, and he slept in sackcloth. And then the word of the Lord to Elijah: have you seen that Ahab has humbled himself before my face : because he has humbled himself, I will not bring the harm upon him in his days, but in the days of his son I will bring it, who was not going to fast.

6. Ita ieiunium in deum reuerentiae opus est, per quod Anna quoque ambiens uxor Helcanae retro sterilis impetrauit facile a deo inanem cibo uentrem filio implere et quidem propheta. Sed non modo naturae mutationem aut periculorum auersionem aut delictorum obliterationem, uerum etiam sacramentorum agnitionem ieiunia de deo merebuntur. 7. Aspice Danielis exemplum.

6. Thus fasting is a work of reverence toward God, through which Anna too, petitioning, the wife of Helcana, formerly barren, easily obtained from God to fill a belly empty of food with a son—and indeed a prophet. But not only a change of nature or an aversion of dangers or an obliteration of offenses, but even a recognition of sacraments, fastings will merit from God. 7. Look upon the example of Daniel.

Circa somnium regis Babylonis omnes turbantur sophistae, negant ultra de praestantia humana posse cognosci. Solus Daniel deo fidens et sciens, quid ad demerendam dei gratiam faceret, spatium tridui postulat, cum sua fraternitate ieiunat, atque ita orationibus commendatis et ordinem et significationem somnii per omnia instruitur, tyranni sophistis parcitur, deus glorificatur, Daniel honoratur, non minorem dei gratiam et postea quoque relaturus anno primo regis Darii, cum ex recogitatu praedicatorum temporum ab Hieremia dedit faciem suam deo in ieiuniis et sacco et cinere. 8. Nam et angelus missus ad eum hanc statim professus est causam diuinae dignationis : ueni, inquit, demonstrare tibi, quatenus miserabilis es, ieiunando scilicet.

Around the dream of the king of Babylon all the sophists are disturbed; they deny
that it can be known beyond human excellence. Daniel alone, trusting in God and
knowing what he should do to merit God’s grace, asks a space of three days; with
his fraternity he fasts, and thus, prayers having been commended, he is instructed in every respect both in the order and the
signification of the dream; the tyrant’s sophists are spared,
God is glorified, Daniel is honored—destined to relate no lesser grace of God also afterward—
in the first year of King Darius, when, from the reconsideration of the times proclaimed
by Jeremiah, he set his face toward God in fastings and sackcloth and ashes. 8. For even an angel sent to him immediately professed this cause of divine
condescension: “I have come,” he says, “to show you, insofar as you are pitiable—
namely, by fasting.”

Si deo miserabilis, leonibus in lacu fuerat horribilis, ubi quidem illi sex diebus ieiunanti prandium angelus procurauit.

If to God pitiable, to the lions in the pit he had been horrible, where indeed for him, fasting for six days, an angel procured a luncheon.

CAP VIII. 1. Reddimus et cetera. Ad noua enim nunc documenta properamus.

CHAPTER 8. 1. We render the rest as well. For indeed we now hasten to new proofs.

In limine euangelii Anna prophetis, filia Phanuelis, quae infantem dominum et agnouit et multa super eo praedicauit expectantibus redemptionern Israelis, post egregium titulum uete ris et uniuirae uiduitatis ieiuniorum quoque testimonio augetur, ostendens, in quibus officiis adsideri ecclesiae debeat, et a nullis magis intellegi Christum quam semel nuptis et saepe ieiunis. 2. Ipse mox dominus baptisma suum, et in suo omnium, ieiuniis dedicauit habens efficere panes ex lapidibus, etiam Iordanem uino fortasse manare, si ita uorator et potator fuisset. Immo nouum hominem in ueteris sugillationem uirtute fastidiendi cibi initiabat, ut eum diabolo rursus per escam temptare quaerenti fortiorem fame tota ostentaret.

In
at the threshold of the Gospel Anna the prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, who both recognized the infant Lord and proclaimed many things about him to those awaiting the redemption of Israel,
after the distinguished title of advanced age and of widowhood of one husband is also increased by the testimony of fasts, showing in which offices one ought to attend the Church,
and that by none should Christ be more understood than by those once married and often fasting. 2.
He himself, the Lord, soon dedicated his baptism—and, in his, that of all—with fasts, having it in his power to make loaves out of stones, even perhaps to cause the Jordan to flow with wine, if he had been such a devourer and drinker.
Nay rather, he was initiating the new man, to the disparagement of the old, by the virtue of loathing food, so that he might display him stronger by total hunger to the Devil who in turn was seeking to tempt through food.

Praestituit exinde ieiuniis legem sine tristitia transigendis. 3. Cur enim triste, quod salutare? Docuit etiam aduersus diriora daemonia ieiuniis proeliandum.

He prescribed thereafter a law for fasts
to be carried through without sadness. 3. Why indeed is that sad, which is salutary? He taught
also that against more dire demons battle is to be waged by fasts.

Quid enim mirum, si eadem operatione spiritus iniquus educitur, qua sanctus inducitur? 4. Denique, ut in centurionem Cornelium necdum tinctum dignatio spiritus sancti cum charismate insuper prophetiae festinasset, ieiunia eius legimus exaudita. Puto autem et apostolus in secunda Corinthiorum inter labores suos et pericula et incommoda post famem ac sitim ieiunia quoque plurima enumerat.

What, indeed, is marvelous, if by the same operation the iniquitous spirit is led out, by which the holy is led in? 4. Finally, as upon the centurion Cornelius, not yet baptized, the gracious favor of the Holy Spirit with the charisma, in addition, of prophecy had hastened, we read that his fastings were heard. I think, moreover, that the Apostle in the Second to the Corinthians, among his own labors and dangers and incommodities, after hunger and thirst, also very many fastings enumerates.

CAP IX. 1. Principalis haec species in castigatione uictus potest iam de inferioribus quoque abstinentiae operationibus praeiudicare ut et ipsis pro modo utilibus aut necessariis. Nam exceptio eduliorum quorundam portionale ieiunium est. Inspiciamus igitur et xerophagiarum nouitatem aut uanitatem, si non et in his tam antiquissimae quam efficacissimae religionis operatio est.

CHAPTER 9. 1. This principal species in the castigation of diet can already prejudge concerning the lower operations of abstinence also, that these too are, according to measure, useful or necessary. For the exception of certain edibles is a partial fast. Let us, therefore, examine also the novelty or vanity of xerophagies, if not that even in these there is the operation of a religion as most ancient as it is most efficacious.

2. Redeo ad Danielem et fratres eius leguminum pabulum et aquae potum ferculis et oenophoris regiis praeferentes atque exinde formosiores, ne qui de specie quoque corpusculi metuat, ceterum spiritu insuper cultos. Dedit enim deus adolescentulis scientiam et intellegentiam in omni litteratura et Danieli in omni uerbo et in somniis et in omni sophia, qua hoc ipsurn quoque saperet, quibus modis de deo impetraretur agnitio sacramentorum. 3. Anno denique tertio Cyri regis Persarum cum in recogitatum incidisset uisionis, aliam formam humiliationis prospexit.

2. I return to Daniel and his brothers, preferring a diet of legumes and a drink of water to the royal dishes and wine‑vessels, and from this becoming more comely—lest anyone even fear about the appearance of the body—yet, moreover, adorned in spirit besides. For God gave to the young men knowledge and understanding in all literature, and to Daniel in every word and in dreams and in all wisdom, whereby he might also have the savvy of this very thing—by what modes the recognition of the sacraments would be obtained from God. 3. Finally, in the third year of Cyrus, king of the Persians, when he had fallen into the reconsideration of the vision, he beheld another form of humiliation.

In illis, inquit, diebus ego Daniel eram lugens per tres hebdomadas, panem suauem non edi, caro et uinum non introierunt in os meum, oleo unctus non sum, donec consummarentur tres hebdomades, quibus transactis angelus emissus est taliter alloquens: Daniel, homo es miserabilis, ne timueris, quoniam ex die prima, qua dedisti animam tuam recogitatui et humiliationi coram deo, exauditum est uerbum tuum, et ego introiui uerbo tuo. 4. Ita xerophagiarum miseratio et humiliati metum expellunt et aures dei aduertunt et occultorum compotes faciunt. Reuertor etiam ad Heliam.

In those, he says, days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks, I did not eat pleasant bread, flesh and wine did not enter into my mouth, I was not anointed with oil, until three weeks were consummated, and when these were completed an angel was sent, addressing thus: Daniel, you are a pitiable man, do not fear, since from the first day on which you gave your soul to meditation and humiliation before God, your word was heard, and I entered by your word. 4. Thus the miseration of xerophagies and of the humbled expel fear and turn the ears of God and make them partakers of hidden things. I return also to Elijah.

Cum corui illum pane et carne saturare consuessent, cur postmodum apud Bersabe Iudaeae excitato ei de somno quidam ille angelus sine dubio panem solum et aquam obtulit? 5. Defecerant corui, qui eum liberalius pascerent, an difficile angelo fuerat aliquem alicunde de conuiuio regis ministrum cum instructissimo ferculo raptum ad Heliam transferre, sicut Danieli in lacu leonum esurienti prandium metentium exhibitum est? 6. Sed constitui oportebat exemplum docens in tempore pressurae et persecutionis et cuiuscunque circumstantiae xerophagiis esse uiuendum.

Since the ravens had been accustomed to satisfy him with bread and meat, why
afterward, at Beersheba of Judea, when a certain angel had roused him from sleep, did he, no doubt, offer him only bread and water? 5. Had the ravens failed, who had fed him more liberally,
or was it difficult for the angel to transfer to Elijah some attendant snatched from somewhere out of the king’s banquet with a most well-furnished dish, just as to Daniel, hungry in the lions’ den, the reapers’ luncheon was presented? 6. But it was necessary to establish an example teaching that in a time of pressure and persecution and of any circumstance whatsoever one must live by xerophagies.

Tali uictu Dauid exomologesin suam expressit cinerem quidem edens uelut panem, id est panem uelut cinerem aridum et sordidum, potum uero fletu miscens utique pro uino. 7. Habet enim et abstinentia uini suos titulos, quae et Samuelem deo uouerat et Aaronem consecrarat. Nam de Samuele mater, et uinum, inquit, et ebriamen non bibet; talis enim et ipsa deum orabat.

With such a diet David expressed his exomologesis, indeed eating ash as if bread—that is, bread as if ash, dry and sordid—and mixing his drink with weeping, to be sure, instead of wine. 7. For even abstinence from wine has its own titles, which both vowed Samuel to God and consecrated Aaron. For concerning Samuel his mother says, “and wine,” she says, “and an inebriating drink he will not drink”; for such indeed was she herself as she prayed to God.

Et dominus ad Aaron: uinum et siceram non bibetis, tu et filius tuus post te, si quando ingrediemini tabernaculum uel ascendetis ad altare, et non moriemini. 8. Adeo morientur qui non sobrii in ecclesia ministrauerint. Sic et Israeli proximo exprobrat et potum: dabatis sanctificatis meis uinum.

And the Lord to Aaron: wine and
strong drink you shall not drink, you and your son after you, whenever you may enter
the tabernacle or go up to the altar, and you shall not die. 8. Thus they will die
who have ministered not soberly in the church. So too, in the next [passage], he reproaches Israel
about drink as well: you were giving wine to my consecrated ones.

Et haec autem, strictura potus xerophagiae portio est. Quamquam ubi abstinentia uini aut a deo exigitur aut ab homine uouetur, illic intellegatur etiam pabuli pressura formam praestruens potui. Qualis enim esus, talis et potus.

And this too, the restriction of drink
is a portion of xerophagy. Although when abstinence from wine is either exacted by God or
vowed by a human, there let it be understood that the pressure of fare, pre-structuring the form
for drink. For as the eating, so also the drinking.

Verisimile non est, ut quis dimidiam gulam deo immolet, aquis sobrius et cibis ebrius. 9. An autem et apostolus xerophagias norit, qui maiora celebrauerat, sitim et famem et multa ieiunia, qui ebrietates et comessationes recusauerat, uel de discipulo Timotheo argumenti satis est, quem propter stomachum et adsiduas imbecillitates modico uino monens uti, quo ille non ex institutione, sed ex deuotione abstinebat (ceterum stomacho magis consuetudo prodesset), hoc ipso abstinentiam uini dignam deo suasit, quam ex necessitate dissuasit.

It is not plausible that, someone should immolate to God a half gullet, sober with waters and drunk with foods. 9. Or does even the apostle also know xerophagies, who had celebrated greater things, thirst and hunger and many fastings, who had refused ebrieties and comessations; or of the disciple Timothy there is argument enough, whom, on account of the stomach and continual weaknesses, he, admonishing to use a little wine, from which he abstained not from institution but from devotion (moreover, for the stomach habit would be more beneficial), by this very thing he recommended an abstinence from wine worthy of God, which on account of necessity he dissuaded.

CAP X. 1. Aeque stationes nostras ut indictas, quasdam uero et in serum constitutas nouitatis nomine incusant, hoc quoque munus et ex arbitrio obeundum esse dicentes et non ultra nonam detinendum, de suo scilicet more. Sed quod pertineat ad indictionis quaestionem, semel pro omnibus causis respondebo. Nunc ad proprium huius speciei articulum, de modo temporis dico, de ipsis prius expostulandum, unde hanc formam nona dirimendis stationibus praescribant.

CHAPTER 10. 1. Likewise they accuse our stations as though they were appointed, and indeed some as even set late, under the name of novelty, saying that this duty too should be fulfilled at discretion and not held beyond the ninth hour—clearly according to their own custom. But as concerns the question of appointment, I will answer once for all causes. Now to the proper point of this kind: I speak about the measure of time; it must first be demanded of them whence they prescribe this form of the ninth hour for bringing stations to an end.

2. Si, qua Petrus et qui cum eo ad horam nonam orationis templum introgressi leguntur, quis mihi probabit illos ea die statione functos, ut horam nonam ad clausulam et expunctionem stationis interpretetur ? Atqui facilius inuenias Petrum hora sexta capiendi cibi causa prias in superiora ad orandum ascendisse, quo magis sexta diei finiri officio huic possit, quae illud absolutura post orationem uidebatur. 3. Porro cum in eodem commentario Lucae et tertia hora orationis demonstretur, sub qua spiritu sancto initiati pro ebriis habebantur, et sexta, qua Petrus ascendit in superiora, et nona, qua templum sunt introgressi, cur non intellegamus salua plane indifferentia semper et ubique et omni tempore orandi tamen tres istas horas ut insigniores in rebus humanis, quam diem distribuunt, quae negotia distinguunt, quae publice resonant, ita et sollemniores fuisse in orationibus diuinis? 4. Quod etiam suadet Danielis quoque argumentum ter die orantis, utique per aliquarum horarum exceptionem, non aliarum autem quam insigniorum, exinde apostolicarum, tertiae, sextae, nonae.

2. If, on the basis of which Peter and those with him are read to have entered at the ninth hour of prayer the temple, who will prove to me that they had discharged a station that day, so as to interpret the ninth hour as the closure and expunction of the station ? But you will more readily find that Peter, at the sixth hour, for the sake of taking food, first went up into the upper quarters to pray, whereby the sixth of the day might the more be able to be brought to an end by this office, which seemed about to consummate that after the prayer. 3. Moreover, since in the same commentary of Luke both the third hour of prayer is shown, under which, having been initiated by the Holy Spirit, they were accounted as drunk, and the sixth, at which Peter went up into the upper parts, and the ninth, at which they entered the temple, why should we not understand—while plainly safeguarding the indifference of praying always and everywhere and at every time—yet these three hours, as more insignis in human affairs, which distribute the day, which distinguish businesses, which resound publicly, thus also to have been more solemn in divine prayers? 4. Which is also recommended by the argument of Daniel too, praying three times a day—surely by the exception of certain hours, and not of others than the more notable ones, thence apostolic: the third, the sixth, the ninth.

Hinc itaque et Petrum dicam ex uetere potius usu nonam obseruasse tertio orantem supremae orationis munere. 5. Haec autem propter illos qui se putant ex forma Petri agere, quam ignorant; non quasi respuamus nonam, cui et quarta sabbati et sexta plurimum fungimur, sed quia eorum quae ex traditione obseruantur tanto magis dignam rationem adferre debemus, quanto carent scripturae auctoritate, donec aliquo caelesti charismate aut confirmentur aut corrigantur. Et si qua, inquit, ignoratis, dominus uobis reuelabit.

Hence, therefore, I will say that Peter too, by rather old usage, observed the ninth hour, praying for the third time, with the office of the final prayer. 5. These things, moreover, on account of those who think that they act according to the form of Peter, which they are ignorant of; not as though we spurn the ninth, at which on the fourth of the Sabbath and on the sixth we most fully discharge it, but because for those things which are observed from tradition we ought to bring so much the more a worthy reason, the more they lack the authority of Scripture, until by some heavenly charisma they are either confirmed or corrected. And if anything, he says, you are ignorant of, the Lord will reveal to you.

6. Itaque seposito confirmatore omnium istorum paracleto, duce uniuersae ueritatis, an dignior apud nos ratio adferatur nonam obseruandi require, ut etiam Petro ea ratio deputanda sit, si statione tunc functus est. Venit enim de exitu domini, quem etsi semper commemorari oportet sine differentia horarum, impressius tamen tum ei secundum ipsum stationis uocabulum addicimur. 7. Nam et milites numquam immemores sacramenti magis stationibus parent.

6. Therefore, with the confirmer of all those things, the Paraclete, the leader of universal truth, set aside, let it be inquired whether a more worthy rationale is brought among us for observing the ninth, so that even to Peter that rationale is to be deputed, if he then performed a station. For it comes from the exit of the Lord, which, although it ought always to be commemorated without difference of hours, yet more impressively then we are bound to it according to the very vocabulary of “station.” 7. For even soldiers, never unmindful of the sacrament, obey their stations the more.

Itaque in eam usque horam celebranda pressura est, in qua a sexta contenebratus orbis defuncto domino lugubre fecit officium, ut tunc et nos reuertamur ad iucunditatem, cum et mundus recepit claritatem. 8. Hoc si magis ad religionem sapit Christianam, dum magis Christi gloriam celebrat, possum aeque serae stationis ex eodem rei ordine statum figere, ut ieiunemus ad serum expectantes tempus dominicae sepulturae, cum Ioseph postulatum detulit corpus et condidit. Inde et irreligiosum est ante famulorum carnem refrigerari quam domini.

Therefore the affliction is to be celebrated up to that very hour in which, from the sixth, the world, darkened, performed its lugubrious office for the deceased Lord, so that then we too may return to gladness, when the world also received back brightness. 8. If this savors more of the Christian religion, inasmuch as it more celebrates Christ’s glory, I can likewise fix the status of a late station from the same order of the matter, namely that we fast till late, awaiting the time of the Lord’s burial, when Joseph presented the petition and laid the body to rest. From this it is also irreligious that the flesh of the servants be refreshed before that of the Lord.

9. Sed hactenus haec ex argumentationum prouocatione commiserim comecturas comecturis et tamen puto fidelioribus repercutiens. Videamus, an aliquid tale nobis de uetustatibus quoque patrocinetur. In Exodo habitus ille Moysis aduersus Amalech orationibus proeliantis usque in occasum.

9. But thus far I have, from the provocation of argumentations, pitted conjectures against conjectures, and yet, I think, rebutting with the more faithful ones. Let us see whether something of the sort may also, from the antiquities, plead as advocate for us. In Exodus, that bearing of Moses against Amalek, warring by prayers, endured until sunset.

perseuerans nonne statio fuit sera? 10. Iesum Naue debellantem Amorrhaeos prandisse illa die existimamus qua ipsis elementis stationem imperauit? Stetit sol in Gabaon et luna in Aialon, stetit sol et luna in statione, donec ultus est populus de inimicis suis, et stetit sol medio caelo.

persevering, was it not a late station? 10. Do we suppose that Joshua son of Nave, while defeating the Amorites, had lunched on that day on which he commanded even the elements to a station? The sun stood still in Gibeon and the moon in Aijalon,
the sun and the moon stood in a station, until the people had taken vengeance upon their enemies, and the sun stood in the middle of the sky.

Vt autem accedebat in occasum et finem diei unius, non fuit dies talis retro et in nouissimo, utique tain prolixus, ut, inquit, exaudiret deus hominem, parem scilicet solis, instantem tam diu in officio, stationem et sera longiorem. 11. Certe Saul et ipse in proelio constitutus manifeste munus istud indixit : maledictus homo, qui ederit panem ad uesperam usque, dum ulciscar de inimico meo, et non gustauit totus populus eius, et tota terra prandebat. 12. Tantam autem deus praestitit auctoritatem edicto stationis illius, ut Ionathan, filius Saulis, quamquam ignarus ieiunationis in serum definitae gustum mellis admiserat, et forte mox de delicto sit traductus et uix per precem populi periculo, exemptus.

But as it was drawing on to sunset and the end of a single day, there was not such a day before nor in the latter time, assuredly so prolonged, that, he says, God would hearken to a man—manifestly a peer of the sun—pressing so long in his duty, a station even later and longer. 11. Surely Saul, he too stationed in battle, clearly proclaimed that office: “Cursed is the man who shall eat bread until evening, until I have taken vengeance on my enemy,” and all his people did not taste, while all the land was taking lunch. 12. Moreover, God granted such authority to the edict of that station, that Jonathan, the son of Saul, although ignorant of the fast appointed for the late hour, admitted a taste of honey, and perhaps was soon thereupon brought to arraignment for the offense, and hardly, by the prayer of the people, was he exempted from peril.

Gulae enim, licet simplicis reus fuerat. 13. Sed et Daniel anno primo regis Darii, cum ieiunus in sacco et cinere exomologesin deo ageret, et adhuc, inquit, loquente me in oratione, ecce uir, quem uideram in somnis initio, uelociter uolans appropinquauit mihi quasi hora uespertini sacrificii. Haec erit statio sera quae ad uesperam ieiunans pinguiorem orationem deo immolat.

Gulae for, although he had been guilty of a simple sort. 13. But also Daniel, in the first year of King Darius, when, fasting, in sackcloth and ashes, he was performing exomologesis to God; and while, he says, I was still speaking in prayer, behold, a man whom I had seen in dreams at the beginning, flying swiftly, came near to me as it were at the hour of the evening sacrifice. This will be the late station, which, fasting to evening, sacrifices a richer prayer to God.

CAP XI. 1. Omnia autem ista credo ignota eis, qui ad nostra turbantur, aut sola forsitan lectione, non etiam intentione comperta secundum maiorem uim imperitorum apud gloriosissimam scilicet multitudinem psychicorum. Propterea per singulas direximus species ieiunationum, xerophagiarum, stationum, ut, dum recensemus secundum utriusque testamenti paraturam, quantum proficiant recusati uel recisi uel retardati pabuli officia, eos retundamus, qui haec uelut uacantia infirmant, item dum pariter ostendimus, quo semper in ordine fuerint religionis, eos reuincamus, qui haec ut noua accusant; nec nouum enim quod semper nec uacuum quod utile. 2. Sed et illud in medio est, quaedam ex his officiis a deo homini imperata legem constituisse, quaedam ab homine deo oblata uotum expunxisse.

CHAPTER 11. 1. But I believe all these things are unknown to those who are disturbed at our practices, or perhaps known only by reading, not also by intention, in accordance with the greater force of the unskilled among the most glorious, to wit, multitude of psychics. Therefore we have set forth severally the kinds of fastings, xerophagies, stations, so that, while we review, according to the arrangement of both Testaments, how much the observances of nourishment refused or cut down or retarded profit, we may blunt those who weaken these things as though empty; likewise, while at the same time we show in what order of religion they have always been, we may refute those who accuse these things as new; for neither is that new which is perpetual, nor empty that which is useful. 2. But there is also this to be put in the midst: that certain of these observances, commanded by God to man, have established a law; certain, offered by man to God, have discharged a vow.

Tamen et uotum, cum a deo acceptatum est, legem in postenim facit per auctoritatem acceptatoris; exinde enim faciendum mandauit qui factum comprobauit. Itaque et hinc in alia specie altercatio diuersae partis obducitur, cum dicunt: aut pseudoprophetia est, si spiritalis uox sollemnia ista constituit, aut haeresis, si humana praesumptio adinuenit. 3. Eam enim formam reprehendentes, qua et uetera decucurrerunt, et ex ea retorquentes, quae et aduersarŸ ueterum aduersus illa poterunt retractare, aut et illa recusare debebunt aut exerta ista suscipere; necessarie maxime cum et ista, a quocumque institutore sunt siue spiritali siue tantum fideli, eidem deo currant, cui et uetera.

Yet even a vow, when it has been accepted by God,
makes a law for the hereafter by the authority of the acceptor; for from then on
he has mandated its being done who approved its having been done. And so from this point too, in another species,
a debate of the opposing party is drawn over, when they say: either it is pseudo-prophecy,
if a spiritual voice has constituted these solemnities, or heresy, if human
presumption has invented them. 3. For, reprehending that form by which also the old observances
ran their course, and, twisting back from it those points which even the adversaries of the ancients
could take up again against those things, they will either have to refuse those as well or accept these things set forth;
most necessarily, since these too, from whatever institutor they are, whether spiritual or only faithful,
run to the same God to whom also the former things did.

4. Indubitate enim. et haeresis et pseudoprophetia diuinitatis diuersitate iudicabuntur apud nos omnes unici dei creatoris et Christi eius antistites, adeoque indifferenter hanc partem defendo illis offerens in quo uelint gradum figere. Spiritus diaboli est, dicis, o psychice.

4.
For, without doubt. both heresy and pseudo-prophecy will be judged by the diversity of divinity among us all, the prelates of the one-and-only God the Creator and of His Christ, and thus I defend this side quite indifferently, offering to them the ground on which they wish to set their step. It is the Spirit of the Devil, you say, o psychic.

Et quomodo dei nostri officia indicit nec alii offerenda quam deo nostro? 5. Aut contende diabolum cum deo facere nostro aut satanas paracletus habeatur. Sed hominem antichristum adfirmas; hoc enim uocantur haeretici nomine penes Iohannem.

And how does he enjoin the offices of our God, not to be offered to any other than to our God? 5. Or else contend that the devil works together with our God, or let Satan be accounted Paraclete. But you affirm a man as antichrist; for by this name, with John, heretics are called.

Et quomodo, quisquis ille est, in Christo nostro haec erga dominum. nostrum officia disposuit, cum et antichristi erga deum, aduersum nostrum processerint Christum? Quo itaque putas laterum confirmatum apud nos spiritum, cum imperat an cum probat, quae deus noster et imperauit semper et probauit?

And how, whoever he is, has he in our Christ arranged these offices toward our Lord, since even the things of Antichrist toward God have proceeded adverse to our Christ? On which side, then, do you think the spirit stands confirmed among us—when he commands or when he approves—the things which our God has both always commanded and approved?

6. Sed rursus palos terminales figitis deo, sicut de gratia, ita de disciplina, sicut de charismatibus, ita et de sollemnibus, ut perinde officia cessauerint, quemadmodum et beneficia eius, atque ita negetis usque adhuc eum munia imponere, quia et hic lex et prophetae usque ad Iohannem. Superest ut totum auferatis, quantum in uobis, tam otiosum.

6. But again you fix boundary-stakes for God, as concerning grace, so concerning discipline; as concerning charismata, so also concerning solemnities, so that the offices have ceased in like manner as also his benefits; and thus you deny that up to now he imposes duties, since here too, "the Law and the Prophets until John." It remains that you take away the whole, so far as lies in you, making him so idle.

CAP XII. 1. Iam enim et in ista specie ditati saturatique regnatis, non delicta incursantes, quae ieiuniis elimentur, nec reuelationum scientia indigentes, quae xerophagiis extorqueantur, nec bella propria metuentes, quae stationibus discutiantur. 2. Vt ab Iohanne paracletus obmutuisset, et ipsi nobis prophetae in hanc maxime causam extitissemus, iam non dico ad exorandam dei iram nec ad impetrandam tutelam eius aut gratiam, sed ad praemuniendam per nosmet ipsos nouissimorum temporum condicionem indicentes omnem tapeinofronhsin , cum carcer ediscendus et fames ac sitis exercendae et tam inediae quam anxii uictus tolerantia usurpanda sit, ut in carcerem talis introeat Christianus, qualis inde prodisset, non poenam illic passurus, sed disciplinam, nec saeculi tormenta, sed sua officia, eoque fidentior processurus ad certamen e custodia abusus nihil habens carnis, sic ut nec habeant tormenta materiam, cum sola et arida sit cute loricatus, et contra ungulas corneus, praemisso iam sanguinis suco tamquam animae impedimentis, properante iam et ipsa, quae iam saepe ieiunans mortem de proximo norit.

CHAPTER 12. 1. For now too in this guise you reign enriched and satiated, not incurring delicts which are eliminated by fasts, nor lacking a knowledge of revelations which are wrung out by xerophagies, nor fearing your own wars which are shaken off by stations. 2. As if the Paraclete had fallen mute after John, and we ourselves had stood forth as prophets for this very cause, I do not now say for the purpose of begging off God’s wrath nor of obtaining his tutelage or favor, but for the purpose of pre-fortifying by ourselves the condition of the last times, declaring all lowliness of mind, since prison is to be learned and hunger and thirst to be exercised, and the endurance both of inanition and of anxious sustenance is to be put into use, so that into prison such a Christian may enter as he would have come out from it, there to suffer not punishment but discipline, not the torments of the world, but his own offices, and so to proceed more confident to the contest from custody, having in nothing abused the flesh, so that the torments may not have material, since he is cuirassed with mere dry skin, and horn-like against the claws, the juice of the blood already sent ahead as though impediments of the soul, the soul itself now also hastening, which by now, often fasting, has learned death at close quarters.

3. Plane uestrum est in carceribus popinas exhibere martyribus incertis, ne consuetudinem quaerant, ne taedeat uitae, ne noua abstinentiae disciplina scandalizentur, quam nec ille Pristinus uester non Christianus martyr adtigerat, quem ex facultate custodiae liberae aliquamdiu fartum, omnibus balneis quasi baptismate melioribus et omnibus luxuriae secessibus quasi ecclesia secretioribus et omnibus uitae istius inlecebris quasi aeterna dignioribus hoc puto obligatum, ne mori uellet, postremo ipso tribunalis die luce summa condito mero tamquam antidoto praemedicatum ita eneruastis, ut paucis ungulis titillatus (hoc enim ebrietas sentiebat) quem, dominum confiteretur interroganti praesidi respondere non potuerit amplius, atque ita de hoc iam extortus, cum singultus et ructus solos haberet, in ipsa negatione discessit. 4. Ideo sobrietatis disciplinam qui praedicant, pseudoprophetae, ideo haeretici, qui obseruant. Quid ergo cessatis paracletum, quem in Montano negatis, in Apicio credere?

3. Clearly it is your practice to set up taverns in the prisons for uncertain martyrs, lest they miss their habit, lest they grow weary of life, lest they be scandalized by the new discipline of abstinence, which not even that Pristinus of yours, a non‑Christian martyr, had touched; whom, by the facility of free custody, you for some time stuffed full, with all the baths as if better than baptism, and all the retreats of luxury as if more secret than the church, and all the allurements of this life as if more worthy than the eternal, so that, I suppose, he was bound not to wish to die; finally, on the very day of the tribunal, with high noonday light and spiced neat wine, pre‑medicated as though with an antidote, you so enervated him that, tickled by a few claws (for such was the sensation of drunkenness), to the governor asking whom he confessed as Lord he was no longer able to answer, and thus, with this now extorted from him, since he had only hiccups and belches, he departed in the very act of denial. 4. Therefore those who preach the discipline of sobriety are pseudo‑prophets; therefore those who observe it are heretics. Why then do you delay to believe in a Paraclete, whom you deny in Montanus, in Apicius?

CAP XIII. 1. Praescribitis constituta esse sollemnia huic fidei scripturis uel traditione maiorum nihilque obseruationis amplius adiciendum ob illicitum innouationis. State in isto gradu, si potestis.

CHAPTER 13. 1. You prescribe that solemnities for this faith have been established by the Scriptures or by the tradition of the elders, and nothing of observance further to be added on account of the unlawfulness of innovation. Stand in that degree, if you can.

Ecce enim conuenio uos et praeter pascha ieiunantes citra illos dies, quibus ablatus est sponsus, et stationum semi-ieiunia interponentes, et uos interdum pane et aqua uictitantes, ut cuique uisum est. 2. Denique respondetis haec ex arbitrio agenda, non ex imperio. Mouistis igitur gradum excedendo traditionem, cum quae non saut constituta obitis.

Behold, indeed, I meet
you also fasting beyond the Pasch, short of those days on which the Bridegroom was taken away,
and inserting the semi-fasts of the stations, and you sometimes subsisting on bread and
water, as it has seemed to each. 2. Finally you reply that these things are to be done by choice, not by command. You have therefore moved your step by exceeding
tradition, since you observe things which are not constituted.

Quale est autem ut tuo arbitrio permittas, quod imperio dei non das? Plus humanae licebit uoluntati quam diuinae potestati? Ego me saeculo, non deo liberum memini.

But what sort of thing is it that you permit by your own arbitrament what you do not grant to the command of God? Will more be licit to human will than to divine power? I remember myself free with respect to the world, not to God.

Sic meum est ultro officium facere domino, sic indicere illius est. 3. Non tantum obsequi ei debeo, sed et adulari; illud enim imperio eius, hoc arbitrio meo praesto. Bene autem, quod et episcopi uniuersae plebi mandare ieiunia adsolent, non dico de industria stipium conferendarum, ut uestrae capturae est, sed interdum.

Thus it is mine to perform duty of my own accord for the lord, thus it is his to impose it. 3. Not only ought I to obey him, but also to flatter; that I render by his command, this by my discretion. It is well, moreover, that bishops too are wont to mandate fasts for the whole people, I do not say with the deliberate aim of alms-contributions to be collected, as is for your haul, but at times.

et ex aliqua sollicitudinis ecclesiasticae causa. 4. Itaque si et ex hominis edicto et in unum omnes tapeinofronhsin agitatis, quomodo in nobis ipsam quoque unitatem ieiunationum et xerophagiarum, et stationum denotatis? 5. Nisi forte in senatus consulta et in principum mandata coitionibus opposita delinquimus.

and from some cause of ecclesiastical solicitude
cause. 4. And so, if both by a man’s edict and all together into one you are driven to tapeinofronhsin (humble‑mindedness), how is it that in us you denote even the unity itself of fastings and of xerophagies, and of stations? 5. Unless perhaps we transgress against senatorial decrees and against the mandates of princes set against assemblies.

Spiritus sanctus, cum in quibus uellet terris et per quos uellet praedicaret, ex prouidentia imminentium siue ecclesiasticarum. temptationum siue mundialium plagarum, qua paracletus id est aduocatus ad exorandum iudicem dicitur, huiusmodi officiorum remedia mandabat, puta, nunc ad exercendam. sobrietatis et abstinentiae disciplinam; hunc qui recipimus, necessario etiam quae tunc constituit obseruamus.

The Holy Spirit, when he preached in whatever lands he wished and through whatever persons he wished, out of the providence of impending temptations—whether ecclesiastical or the worldly scourges—by reason of which he is called Paraclete, that is, Advocate for imploring the Judge, mandated remedies of duties of this kind, for instance, now for exercising the discipline of sobriety and abstinence; him whom we receive, we necessarily also observe the things which at that time he established.

6. Aspice ad Iudaicos fastos et inuenies nihil nouum, si, quae patribus sunt praecepta, omnis deinceps posteritas hereditaria religione custodit. Aguntur praeterea per Graecias illa certis in locis concilia ex uniuersis ecclesiis, per quae et altiora quaeque in commune tractantur, et ipsa repraesentatio totius nominis Christiani magna ueneratione celebratur. 7. Et hoc quam dignum fide auspicante congregari undique ad Christum!

6. Look to the Jewish fasts and you will find nothing new,
if the things that were commanded to the fathers every posterity thereafter
keeps by hereditary religion. Moreover, throughout the Greek lands those councils
are held in certain places from all the churches, through which both the higher matters
are handled in common, and the very representation of the whole Christian name is celebrated
with great veneration. 7. And how worthy is this, with faith as auspice, to be gathered
from every side to Christ!

Vide, quam bonum et quam iucundum habitare fratres in unum! Hoc tu psallere non facile nosti, nisi quo tempore cum compluribus cenas. 8. Conuentus autem illi stationibus prius et ieiunationibus operati dolere cum dolentibus et ita demum congaudere gaudentibus norunt.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity!
This you are not readily wont to psalm, except at the time when you dine with several.
8. Conventicles, moreover, having first been exercised by stations and fastings,
know to grieve with those who grieve, and then at last to rejoice together with those who rejoice.

Si et ista sollemnia, quibus tunc praesens patrocinatus est sermo, nos quoque ini diuersis prouinciis fungimur in spiritu inuicem repraesentati, lex est sacramenti.

If we too, in the diverse provinces, perform these solemnities—being mutually represented in spirit—by which at that time the present sermon acted as patron, it is the law of the sacrament.

CAP XIV. 1. Horum igitur tempora obseruantes et dies et menses et annos galaticamur? Plane, si Iudaicarum caeremoniarum, si legalium sollemnitatum obseruantes sumus; illas enim apostolus dedocet compescens ueteris testamenti in Christo sepulti perseuerantiam et nouisistens.

CHAPTER 14. 1. Therefore, observing these times and days and months and years
are we Galatianizing? Clearly, if we are observers of Judaic ceremonies, of legal solemnities
we are; those indeed the apostle unteaches, restraining the perseverance of the Old Testament buried in Christ and insisting on the new.

2. Quod si noua conditio in Christo, noua et sollemnia esse debebunt: aut si omnem in totum deuotionem temporum et dierum et mensium et annorum erasit apostolus, cur pascha celebramus annuo circulo in mense primo? Cur quinquaginta exinde diebus in omni exultatione decurrimus? Cur stationibus quartam et sextam sabbati dicamus et ieiuniis parasceuen?

2. But if there is a new condition in Christ, the solemnities too will have to be new: or if the apostle has erased all devotion of times and days and months and years altogether, why do we celebrate Pascha by the annual circle in the first month? Why thereafter for fifty days do we run through in all exultation? Why do we name for stations the fourth and the sixth of the sabbath, and for fasts the Parasceve?

3. Quamquam uos etiam sabbatum, si quando, continuatis, numquam nisi in pascha ieiunandum secundum rationem alibi redditam. Nobis certe omnis dies etiam uulgata consecratione celebratur. Nec ergo apud apostolum differentiae ratio, distinguentem noua et uetera.

3. Although you also keep the Sabbath, if
ever, continuously, you hold it never to be fasted except at Pascha, according to the rationale
rendered elsewhere. For us, certainly, every day also by common consecration
is celebrated. Nor, therefore, with the Apostle is there a reckoning of differences, distinguishing new
and old.

4. Sed et hic inaequalitas uestra ridebitur, cum uetustatum formam nobis exprobratis in quo causam nouitatis accusatis.

4. But even here your inequality will be laughed at, when you reproach us with the form of antiquity, in the very matter wherein you accuse the cause of novelty.

CAP XV. 1. Reprobat etiam illos qui iubeant cibis abstinere, sed de prouidentia spiritus sancti, praedamnans iam haereticos perpetuam abstinentiam praecepturos ad destruenda et despicienda opera creatoris, quales inueniam apud Marcionem, apud Tatianum, apud Iouem, hodiernum de Pythagora haereticum, non apud paracletum. 2. Quantula est enim apud nos interdictio ciborum? Duas in anno hebdomadas xerophagiarum nec totas, exceptis scilicet sabbatis et dominiicis, offerimus deo abstinentes ab eis quae non reicimus, sed differimus.

CHAPTER 15. 1. He also reproves those who command to abstain from foods, but does so from the providence of the Holy Spirit, pre-condemning already heretics who will prescribe perpetual abstinence for the destroying and despising of the works of the Creator, such as I find with Marcion, with Tatian, with Jove, today’s heretic from Pythagoras, not with the Paraclete. 2. How small, indeed, is the interdiction of foods among us? Two weeks in the year of xerophagies, and not entire, the Sabbaths and the Lord’s days excepted, we offer to God, abstaining from those things which we do not reject, but defer.

3. Atqui ad Romanos scribens uos nunc compungit detractatores huius officii. Ne propter pabulum solueritis, inquit, opus dei. Quod opus?

3. And yet, writing to the Romans, he now convicts you, detractors of this office. Do not on account of provender dissolve, he says, the work of God. What work?

De quo ait : bonum est carnem non edere et uinum non potare. Nam qui in istis seruit, placabilis et propitiabilis deo nostro est. Quidam credit omnia manducanda esse, quidam autem infirmus holera uescitur; qui manducat, ne nullificet non manducantem.

About which he says: it is good not to eat flesh and not to drink wine. For he who serves in these is placable and propitiable to our God. Someone believes that all things are to be eaten, but someone weak eats vegetables; let him who eats not nullify the one who does not eat.

Tu quises, qui alienum seruum iudicas? Et qui manducat et qui non manducat, deo agit gratias. 4. Cum autem humano arbitrio uetet controuersiam fieri, quanto magis diuino?

Who are you, who judge another’s servant? And both the one who eats and the one who does not eat gives thanks to God. 4. But when he forbids a controversy to be made by human arbitrium, how much more by divine?

Ita sciebat quosdam castigatores et interdictores uictus incusare, qui ex fastidio, non qui ex officio abstinerent, probare uero qui in honorem, non qui in conuicium creatoris. 5. Et si claues macelli tibi tradidit permittens esui omnia ad constituendam idolothytorum exceptionem, non tamen in macello regnum dei inclusit. Nec enim, inquit, esus aut potus est dei regnum, et, esca nos deo non commendat, non ut de arida dictum putes, sed potius de uncta et accurata, siquidem subiciens : nec si manducauerimus, abundabimus, nec si non manducauerimus, deficiemus, tibi magis intonat, qui abundare te existimas, si edas, et deficere, si non edas, et ideo ista detractas.

Thus he knew that certain castigators and interdictors of victuals
accuse those who abstain from fastidiousness, not from office; but he approves those who do it in honor, not in revilement of the Creator. 5. And even if he handed over to you the keys of the meat-market, permitting all things for eating, to establish the exception of idolothyta (things sacrificed to idols),
yet he did not enclose the kingdom of God in the meat-market. For neither, he says, is eating or drinking
the kingdom of God, and, “food does not commend us to God,” not that you should think it said of dry fare,
but rather of rich and elaborated, since he subjoins : “neither if we have eaten shall we abound, nor if we have not eaten shall we fail,” it
thunders the more at you, who suppose that you abound if you eat, and fail if you do not eat,
and therefore you disparage these things.

6. Dominium quoque quam indigne ad tuam libidinem interpretaris passim manducantem et bibentem, sed puto, quod etiam ieiunarit, qui beatos non saturatos, sed esurientes et sitientes pronuntiarit, qui escam profitebatur, non quam discipuli existimarant, sed paterni operis perfectionem, docens operari escam quae permanet in uitam aeternam, in ordinaria etiam oratione panem mandans postulandum, non et Attalicas diuitias. 7. Sic et Esaias non negauit deum elegisse ieiunium, sed quale non elegerit enumerauit. In diebus enim, inquit, ieiuniorum uestrorum inueniuntur uoluntates uestrae, et omnes subiectos uobis succutitis aut ad conuicia et lites ieiunatis et caeditis pugnis.

6. You also interpret the Dominion how unworthily according to your libido, as if he were everywhere eating and drinking; but I suppose that he also fasted, he who pronounced blessed not the sated, but the hungry and the thirsty, who professed food—not what the disciples had supposed, but the perfection of the paternal work—teaching to work for the food which remains into eternal life, and in the ordinary prayer commanding that bread be asked for, not also Attalic riches. 7. So too Isaiah did not deny that God chose a fast, but he enumerated what kind he had not chosen. For “on the days of your fasts,” he says, “your own wills are found, and you shake all who are subject to you, or you fast for revilings and quarrels, and you strike with fists.”

Non tale ieiunium ego elegi, sed quale subiecit, et subiciendo non abstulit, sed confirmauit.

Not such a fast did I choose, but such as he subjoined; and by subjoining he did not take it away, but confirmed it.

CAP XVI. 1. Nam et si manuult opera iustitiae, non tamen sine sacrificio, quod est anima conflictata ieiuniis. Ille certe deus, cui nec populus incontinens gulae placuit, nec sacerdos nec prophetes.

CHAPTER 16. 1. For even if he prefers the works of justice, yet not without a sacrifice, which is the soul afflicted by fasts. That God assuredly, to whom neither a people incontinent in gluttony was pleasing, nor priest nor prophets.

Manent adhuc monumenta concupiscentiae, ubi sepultus est populus carnis auidissimus usque ad choleram ortygometras cruditando. 2. Eliditur pro templi foribus senior Heli, fili eius in acie ruunt, nurus expirat in partu. Hanc enim meruerat a deo plagam domus impudens, sacrificiorum carnalium defraudatrix.

Monuments of concupiscence still remain, where the people, most avid for flesh, is buried, even to choler, by surfeiting themselves on quail by the measure. 2. The elder Heli is dashed down before the doors of the temple, his sons fall in the battle-line, the daughter-in-law expires in childbirth. For this blow the shameless house, a defrauder of carnal sacrifices, had merited from God.

Sameas, homo dei, cum exitum prophetasset idololatriae introductae a rege Hieroboam, post manum eius regis arefactam et statim restitutam, post altare diffissum, ob haec signa ad satisfactionem inuitatus a rege plane excusauit (prohibitus enim a deo fuerat) illic cibum in totum attingere; sed ab alio mox sene mentito prophetam temere pastus secundum uerbum dei ibidem factum super mensam non est in paternis sepultus. 3. Leonis enim in uia occursu prostratus et apud exteros conditus poenam deserti ieiunii luit. Haec erunt exempla et populo et episcopis, etiam spiritalibus, si quam incontinentiam gulae admiserinit.

Sameas, a man of God, when he had prophesied the outcome of the idolatry introduced by King Jeroboam, after that king’s hand was dried up and immediately restored, after the altar was split, having been invited by the king to satisfaction on account of these signs, plainly excused himself (for he had been forbidden by God) from touching any food there; but soon, rashly fed by another old man who was lying that he was a prophet, according to the word of God that was made there over the table, he was not buried in the sepulchre of his fathers. 3. For, thrown down by a lion’s encounter on the road and laid to rest among foreigners, he paid the penalty for the fast he had deserted. These will be examples both for the people and for bishops, even spiritual ones, if they shall have admitted any incontinence of the gullet.

Sed nec apud inferos admonitio cessauit, ubi in diuite epulone quidem conuiuia craciantur, ini paupere uero ieiunia recreantur, habentia praeceptores Moysen et prophetas. 4. Nam et Iohel exclamauit: sancite ieiunium et praedicate curationem, prospiciens iam tunc et alios apostolos et prophetas sancituros ieiunium et praedicaturos officia curantia deum. Vnde et qui in idolis comendis et in hac re ornandis et ad singulas horas salutandis diis adulantur, curationem facere dicuntur.

But neither in the underworld did admonition cease, where in the rich banqueter indeed convivial banquets are chastised, but in the poor man fasts are refreshed, having as preceptors Moses and the prophets. 4. For Joel also cried out: sanctify a fast and proclaim a curation, foreseeing even then that others too—apostles and prophets—would sanctify a fast and would proclaim offices caring-for God. Whence also those who adulate the gods by commending idols and by adorning them in this matter and by saluting the gods at every hour are said to perform a curation.

5. Sed et omnem tapeinofronhsin ethnici agnoscunt. Cum stupet caelum et aret annus, nudipedalia denuntiantur, magistratus purpuras ponunt, fasces retro auertunt, precem indigitant, hostiam instaurant. Apud quasdam uero colonias praeterea annuo ritu saccis uelati et cinere conspersi idolis suis inediam supplicem obiciunt, balnea et tabernae in nonam usque cluduntur.

5. But even all humble-mindedness the ethnics acknowledge. When the heaven is astounded and the year is parched, barefoot-processions are proclaimed, the magistrates put off their purples, they turn the fasces backward, they designate a prayer, they renew the victim. Among certain colonies, moreover, by an annual rite, veiled in sackcloth and sprinkled with ash, they set before their idols a suppliant fast, and the baths and taverns are shut up until the ninth hour.

Vnus in publico ignis apud aras, aquae nec in lancibus. 6. Niniuiticum credo iustitium. Iudaicum certe ieiunium ubique celebratur, cum omissis templis per omne litus quocumque in aperto aliquando iam precem ad caelum mittunt.

One single public fire at the altars, and not even waters in the basins. 6. I think it is a Ninevitic iustitium. The Judaic fast, certainly, is celebrated everywhere, since, with the temples set aside,
along every littoral, wherever in the open, now at some time they send a prayer to heaven.

Et licet cultu et ornatu maeroris munus infament, tamen fidem abstinentiae adfectant et stellae auctoritatem demorantis suspirant. 7. Sed bene quod tu nostris xerophagiis blasphemias ingerens casto Isidis et Cybeles eas adaequas. Admitto testimonialem comparationem.

And although by dress and ornament they defame the office of mourning, nevertheless they aspire to the credit of abstinence and sigh for the authority of the delaying star. 7. But it is well that you, thrusting blasphemies upon our xerophagies, make them equal to the chaste rites of Isis and Cybele. I admit the testimonial comparison.

Hinc diuinam constabit, quam diabolus diuinorum aemulator imitatur. Ex ueritate mendacium struitur, ex religione superstitio compinigitur. 8. Hinc tu eo inreligiosior, quanto ethnicus paratior.

Hence the divine will be established, which
the devil, an emulator of things divine, imitates. From truth mendacity is constructed, from
religion superstition is cobbled together. 8. Hence you are the more irreligious, in proportion as
the pagan is the more ready.

Ille denique idolo gulam suam mactat, tu deo non uis. Deus enim tibi uenter est et pulmo templum et aqualiculus altare et sacerdos cocus et sanctus spiritus nidor et condimenta charismata et ructus prophetia.

He, finally, sacrifices his gullet to an idol; you are unwilling to do so to God. For to you the belly is a god and the lung a temple and the paunch an altar and the cook a priest and the Holy Spirit the reek and the condiments the charismata and the belch a prophecy.

CAP XVII. 1. Vetus es, uera si uelimus dicere, tu qui tantum gulae indulges, et merito te priorem iactitas; semper agnosco sapere Esau uenatorem ferarum ; ita passim indagandis turdis studes, ita de campo laxissimae disciplinae tuae uenis, ita spiritu deficis. 2. Si tibi lenticulam defruto inrufatam obtulero, statim totos primatus tuos uendes; apud te agape in caccabis feruet, fides in culmis calet, spes in ferculis iacet.

CHAPTER 17. 1. You are ancient, if we wish to speak true, you who indulge the gullet so much, and with merit you boast yourself the prior; I always recognize you to savor of Esau, the hunter of wild beasts ; thus everywhere you are eager for tracking down thrushes, thus from the field of your most lax discipline you come, thus you fail in spirit. 2. If I were to offer you a little lentil-porridge reddened with defrutum, at once you would sell your whole birthright; with you the agape seethes in cauldrons, faith grows warm on the straw, hope lies on platters.

3. Sed maioris est agape, quia per hanc adulescentes tui cum sororibus dormiunt. Appendices scilicet gulae lasciuia atque luxuriae. Quam societatem et apostolus sciens cum praemisisset non in ebrietatibus nec in comessationibus, adiunxit nec in cubilibus et libidinibus.

3. But there is a greater agape, because through this your young men sleep with the sisters. Appendages, namely, of gluttony: lasciviousness and luxury. Which fellowship also the Apostle, knowing it, when he had prefaced “not in drunkennesses nor in carousings,” added “nor in beds and lusts.”

4. Ad elogium gulae tuae pertinet, quod duplex apud te praesidentibus honor binis partibus deputatur, cum apostolus duplicem honorem dederit ut et fratribus et praepositis. Quis sanctior inter uos, nisi conuiuandi frequentior, nisi obsonandi pollucibilior, nisi calicibus instructior? 5. Merito homines solius animae et carnis spiritalia recusatis.

4. To the eulogy of your gluttony it pertains, that a double
honor is assigned among you to the presiding men in two portions, whereas the apostle
gave a double honor both to the brethren and to the prelates. Who is holier among
you, unless he is more frequent at banqueting, unless more sumptuous in catering, unless
better furnished with chalices? 5. With good reason, you, men merely of soul and flesh, refuse spiritual things.

Talibus si placerent prophetae, mei non erant. Cur ergo non constanter praedicatis: manducemus et bibamus, cras enim moriemur? Sicuti nos non dubitamus exerte mandare : ieiunemus fratres et sorores, ne forte cras moriamur.

If such things pleased the prophets, they were not mine. Why then do you not constantly preach: let us eat and let us drink, for tomorrow we die? Just as we do not hesitate to mandate expressly: let us fast, brothers and sisters, lest perhaps tomorrow we die.

6. Palam disciplinas nostras uindicemus. Nos certi sumus eos qui in carne sunt deo placere non posse, non utique ini substantia carnis, sed in cura, sed in affectione, sed in operatione, sed in uoluntate. Macies non displicet nobis; neque enim ad pondus deus carnem tribuit, sicut nec spiritum ad mensuram.

6. Let us openly vindicate our disciplines. We are certain that those who are in the flesh cannot please God, not, to be sure, in the substance of the flesh, but in care, but in affection, but in operation, but in will. Leanness does not displease us; for God did not assign flesh by weight, just as He did not assign the spirit by measure.

7. Facilius, si forte, per angustam salutis ianuam introibit caro exilior; citius resuscitabitur caro leuior, diutius ini sepultura durabit caro aridior. Saginentur pugiles et pyctae Olympici. Illis ambitio corporis competit, quibus et uires necessariae, et tamen illi quoque xerophagiis inualescunt.

7. More easily, perhaps, through the narrow door of salvation
will a more slender flesh enter; more swiftly will a lighter flesh be resuscitated, longer in
sepulture will a drier flesh endure. Let the pugilists and the Olympic pyctae be fattened. For them
ambition of the body is fitting, for whom also strength is necessary, and yet even they too
grow strong by xerophagies.

8. Sed nostra alia robora aliaeque uires, sicut et alia certamina, quibus non est luctatio aduersus carnem et sanguinem, sed aduersus mundi potestates, aduersus spiritalia malitiae. Aduersus haec non carne et sanguine, sed fide et spiritu robusto oportet adsistere. 9. Ceterum saginiatior Christianus ursis et leonibus forte quam deo erit necessarius, nisi quod et aduersus bestias maciem exercere debebit.

8. But our strengths are of another kind and our powers different, just as there are
other contests, in which there is not wrestling against flesh and blood, but
against the powers of the world, against the spiritual powers of malice. Against these it is necessary not
by flesh and blood, but by faith and a robust spirit to stand. 9. Moreover
a more well-fattened Christian will perhaps be more necessary to bears and lions than to God,
except that he will also have to exercise leanness against the beasts.

EXPLICIT LIBER TERTVLLIANI DE IEIVNIO ADVERSVS PSYCHICOS.

HERE ENDS THE BOOK OF TERTULLIAN ON FASTING AGAINST THE PSYCHICS.