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IN OPPOSITION TO THE PSYCHICS.
[TRANSLATED BY THE REV. S. THELWALL.]
I Should wonder at the Psychics, if they were enthralled to
voluptuousness alone, which leads them to repeated marriages, if they
were not likewise bursting with gluttony, which leads them to hate
fasts. Lust without voracity would certainly be considered a monstrous
phenomenon; since these two are so united and concrete, that, had there
been any possibility of disjoining them, the pudenda would not have
been affixed to the belly itself rather than elsewhere. Look at the
body: the region (of these members) is one and the same. In short, the
order of the vices is proportionate to the arrangement of the members.
First, the belly; and then immediately the materials of all other
species of lasciviousness are laid subordinately to daintiness: through
love of eating, love of impurity finds passage. I recognise, therefore,
animal(2) faith by its care of the flesh (of which it wholly
consists)—as prone to manifold feeding as to manifold marrying—so
that it deservedly accuses the spiritual discipline, which according to
its ability opposes it, in this species of continence as well;
imposing, as it does, reins upon the appetite, through taking,
sometimes no meals, or late meals, or dry meals, just as upon lust,
through allowing but one marriage.
It is really irksome to engage with such: one is really ashamed
to wrangle about subjects the very defence of which is offensive to
modesty. For how am I to protect chastity and sobriety without taxing
their adversaries? What those adversaries are I will once for all
mention: they are the exterior and interior botuli of the Psychics. It
is these which raise controversy with the Paraclete; it is on this
account that the New Prophecies are rejected: not that Montanus and
Priscilla and Maximilia preach another God, nor that they disjoin Jesus
Christ (from God), nor that they overturn any particular rule of faith
or hope, but that they plainly teach more frequent fasting than
marrying. Concerning the limit of marrying, we have already published a
defence of monogamy.(3) Now our battle is the battle of the secondary
(or rather the primary) continence, in regard of the chastisement of
diet. They charge us with keeping fasts of our own; with prolonging our
Stations generally into the evening; with observing xerophagies
likewise, keeping our food unmoistened by any flesh, and by any
juiciness, and by any kind of specially succulent fruit; and with not
eating or drinking anything with a winey flavour; also with abstinence
from the bath, congruent with our dry diet. They are therefore
constantly reproaching us with NOVELTY; concerning the unlawfulness of
which they lay down a prescriptive rule, that either it must be
adjudged heresy, if (the point in dispute) is a human presumption; or
else pronounced pseudo-prophecy, if it is a spiritual declaration;
provided that, either way, we who reclaim hear (sentence of) anathema.
For, so far as pertains to fasts, they oppose to us the definite
days appointed by God: as when, in Leviticus, the Lord enjoins upon
Moses the tenth day of the seventh month (as) a day of atonement,
saying, "Holy shall be to you the day, and ye shall vex your souls; and
every soul which shall not have been vexed in that day shall be
exterminated from his people."(1) At all events, in the Gospel they
think that those days were definitely appointed for fasts in which "the
Bridegroom was taken away;"(2) and that these are now the only
legitimate days for Christian fasts, the legal and prophetical
antiquities having been abolished: for wherever it suits their wishes,
they recognise what is the meaning of" the Law and the prophets until
John."(3) Accordingly, (they think) that, with regard to the future,
fasting was to be indifferently observed, by the New Discipline, of
choice, not of command, according to the times and needs of each
individual: that this, withal, had been the observance of the apostles,
imposing (as they did) no other yoke of definite fasts to be observed
by all generally, nor similarly of Stations either, which (they think)
have withal days of their own (the fourth and sixth days of the week),
but yet take a wide range according to individual judgment, neither
subject to the law of a given precept, nor (to be protracted) beyond
the last hour of the day, since even prayers the ninth hour generally
concludes, after Peter's example, which is recorded in the Acts.
Xerophagies, however, (they consider) the novel name of a studied duty,
and very much akin to heathenish superstition, like the abstemious
rigours which purify an Apis, an Isis, and a Magna Mater, by a
restriction laid upon certain kinds of food; whereas faith, free in
Christ,(4) owes no abstinence from particular meats to the Jewish Law
even, admitted as it has been by the apostle once for all to the whole
range of the meat-market(5)—(the apostle, I say), that detester of
such as, in like manner as they prohibit marrying, so bid us abstain
from meats created by God.(6) And accordingly (they think) us to have
been even then prenoted as "in the latest times departing from the
faith, giving heed to spirits which seduce the world, having a
conscience inburnt with doctrines of liars."(7) (Inburnt?) With what
fires, prithee? The fires, I ween, which lead us to repeated
contracting of nuptials and daily cooking of dinners! Thus, too, they
affirm that we share with the Galatians the piercing rebuke (of the
apostle), as "observers of days, and of months, and of years."(8)
Meantime they huff in our teeth the fact that Isaiah withal has
authoritatively declared, "Not such a fast hath the Lord elected," that
is, not abstinence from food, but the works of righteousness, which he
there appends:(9) and that the Lord Himself in the Gospel has given a
compendious answer to every kind of scrupulousness in regard to food;
"that not by such things as are introduced into the mouth is a man
defiled, but by such as are produced out of the mouth;"(10) while
Himself withal was wont to eat and drink till He made Himself noted
thus; "Behold, a gormandizer and a drinker:"(11) (finally), that so,
too, does the apostle teach that "food commendeth us not to God; since
we neither abound if we eat, nor lack if we eat not."(12)
By the instrumentalities of these and similar passages, they
subtlely tend at last to such a point, that every one who is somewhat
prone to appetite finds it possible to regard as superfluous, and not
so very necessary, the duties of abstinence from, or diminution or
delay of, food, since "God," forsooth, "prefers the works of justice
and of innocence." And we know the quality of the hortatory addresses
of carnal conveniences, how easy it is to say, "I must believe with my
whole heart;(13) I must love God, and my neighbour as myself:(14) for
'on these two precepts the whole Law hangeth, and the prophets,' not on
the emptiness of my lungs and intestines."
Accordingly we are bound to affirm, before proceeding further,
this (principle), which is in danger of being secretly subverted;
(namely), of what value in the sight of God this "emptiness" you speak
of is: and, first of all, whence has proceeded the rationale itself of
earning the favour of God in this way. For the necessity of the
observance will then be acknowledged, when the authority of a
rationale, to be dated back from the very beginning, shall have shone
out to view.
Adam had received from God the law of not tasting "of the tree of
recognition of good and evil," with the doom of death to ensue upon
tasting. (15) However, even (Adam) himself at that time, reverting to
the condition of a Psychic after the spiritual ecstasy in which he had
prophetically interpreted that "great sacrament"(16) with reference to
Christ and the Church, and no longer being "capable of the things which
were the Spirit's," (17) yielded more readily to his belly than to God,
heeded the meat rather than the mandate, and sold salvation for his
gullet! He ate, in short, and perished; saved (as he would) else (have
been), if he had preferred to fast from one little tree: so that, even
from this early date, animal faith may recognise its own seed, deducing
from thence onward its appetite for carnalities and rejection of
spiritualities. I hold, therefore, that from the very beginning the
murderous gullet was to be punished with the torments and penalties of
hunger. Even if God had enjoined no preceptive fasts, still, by
pointing out the source whence Adam was slain, He who had demonstrated
the offence had left to; my intelligence the remedies for the offence.
Unbidden, I would, in such ways and at such times as I might have been
able, have habitually accounted food as poison, and taken the antidote,
hunger; through which to purge the primordial cause of death—a cause
transmitted to me also, concurrently with my very generation; certain
that God willed that whereof He nilled the contrary, and confident
enough that the care of continence will be pleasing to Him by whom I
should have understood that the crime of incontinence had been
condemned. Further: since He Himself both commands fasting, and calls
"a soul, wholly shattered "—properly, of course, by straits of diet—"
a sacrifice;" who will any longer doubt that of all dietary macerations
the rationale has been this, that by a renewed interdiction of food and
observation of precept the primordial sin might now be expiated, in
order that man may make God satisfaction through the self-same
causative material through which he had offended, that is, through
interdiction of food; and thus, in emulous wise, hunger might rekindle,
just as satiety had extinguished, salvation, contemning for the sake of
one unlawful more lawful (gratifications)?
This rationale was constantly kept in the eye of the providence
of God—modulating all things, as He does, to suit the exigencies of
the times—lest any from the opposite side, with the view of
demolishing our proposition, should say: "Why, in that case, did not
God forthwith institute some definite restriction upon food? nay,
rather, why did He withal enlarge His permission? For, at the beginning
indeed, it had only been the food of herbs and trees which He had
assigned to man: 'Behold, I have given you all grass fit for sowing,
seeding seed, which is upon the earth; and every tree which hath in
itself the fruit of seed fit for sowing shall be to you for food.'(2)
Afterwards, however, after enumerating to Noah the subjection (to him)
of 'all beasts of the earth, and fowls of the heaven, and things moving
on earth, and the fish of the sea, and every creeping thing,' He says,
'They shall be to you for food: just like grassy vegetables have I
given (them) you universally: but flesh in the blood of its own soul
shall ye not eat.'(3) For even by this very fact, that He exempts from
eating that flesh only the 'soul' of which is not out-shed through
'blood,' it is manifest that He has conceded the use of all other
flesh." To this we reply, that it was not suitable for man to be
burdened with any further special law of abstinence, who so recently
showed himself unable to tolerate so light an interdiction—of one
single fruit, to wit; that, accordingly, having had the rein relaxed,
he was to be strengthened by his very liberty; that equally after the
deluge, in the reformation of the human race, (as before it), one
law—of abstaining from blood—was sufficient, the use of all things
else being allowed. For the Lord had already shown His judgment through
the deluge; had, moreover, likewise issued a comminatory warning
through the "requisition of blood from the hand of a brother, and from
the hand of every beast."(4) And thus, preministering the justice of
judgment, He issued the materials of liberty; preparing through
allowance an undergrowth of discipline; permitting all things, with a
view to take some away; meaning to "exact more" if He had "committed
more;"(5) to command abstinence since He had foresent indulgence: in
order that (as we have said) the primordial sin might be the more
expiated by the operation of a greater abstinence in the (midst of the)
opportunity of a greater licence.
At length, when a familiar people began to be chosen by God to
Himself, and the restoration of man was able to be essayed, then all
the laws and disciplines were imposed, even such as curtailed food;
certain things being prohibited as unclean, in order that man, by
observing a perpetual abstinence in certain particulars, might at last
the more easily tolerate absolute fasts. For the first People had
withal reproduced the first man's crime, being found more prone to
their belly than to God, when, plucked out from the harshness of
Egyptian servitude "by the mighty hand and sublime arm"(6) of God, they
were seen to be its lord, destined to the "land flowing with milk and
honey;, but forthwith, stumbled at the surrounding spectacle of an
incopious desert sighing after the lost enjoyments of Egyptian satiety,
they murmured against Moses and Aaron "Would that we had been smitten
to the heart by the Lord, and perished in the land of Egypt, when we
were wont to sit over our jars of flesh and eat bread unto the full!
How leddest thou us out into these deserts, to kill this assembly by
famine?"(1) From the self-same belly preference were they destined (at
last) to deplore(3) (the fate of) the self-same leaden of their own and
eye-witnesses of (the power of) God, whom, by their regretful hankering
after flesh, and their recollection of their Egyptian plenties, they
were ever exacerbating: "Who shall feed us with flesh? there have come
into our mind the fish which in Egypt we were wont to eat freely, and
the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the
garlic. But now our soul is arid nought save manna do our eyes see!"(4)
Thus used they, too, (like the Psychics), to find the angelic bread s
of xerophagy displeasing: they preferred the fragrance of garlic and
onion to that of heaven. And therefore from men so ungrateful all that
was more pleasing and appetizing was withdrawn, for the sake at once of
punishing gluttony and exercising continence, that the former might be
condemned, the latter practically learned.
Now, if there has been temerity in our retracing to primordial
experiences the reasons for God's having laid, and our duty (for the
sake of God) to lay, restrictions upon food, let us consult common
conscience. Nature herself will plainly tell with what qualities she is
ever wont to find us endowed when she sets us, before taking food and
drink, with our saliva still in a virgin state, to the transaction of
matters, by the sense especially whereby things divine are, handled;
whether (it be not) with a mind much more vigorous, with a heart much
more alive, than when that whole habitation of our interior man,
stuffed with meats, inundated with wines, fermenting for the purpose of
excremental secretion, is already being turned into a premeditatory of
privies, (a premeditatory) where, plainly, nothing is so proximately
supersequent as the savouring of lasciviousness. "The people did eat
and drink, and they arose to play."(6) Understand the modest language
of Holy Scripture: "play," unless it had been immodest, it would not
have reprehended. On the other hand, how many are there who are mindful
of religion, when the seats of the memory are occupied, the limbs of
wisdom impeded? No one will suitably, fitly, usefully, remember God at
that time when it is customary for a man to forget his own self. All
discipline food either slays or else wounds. I am a liar, if the Lord
Himself, when upbraiding Israel with forgetfulness, does not impute the
cause to "fulness:" "(My) beloved is waxen thick, and fat, and distent,
and hath quite forsaken God, who made him, and hath gone away from the
Lord his Saviour."(7) In short, in the Self-same Deuteronomy, when
bidding precaution to be taken against the self-same cause, He says:
"Lest, when thou shalt have eaten, and drunken, and built excellent
houses, thy sheep and oxen being multiplied, and (thy) silver and gold,
thy heart be elated, and thou be forgetful of the Lord thy God."(8) To
the corrupting power of riches He made the enormity of edacity
antecedent, for which riches themselves are the procuring agents.(9)
Through them, to wit, had "the heart of the People been made thick,
lest they should see with the eyes, and hear with the ears, and
understand with a heart"(10) obstructed by the "fats" of which He had
expressly forbidden the eating, (11) teaching man not to be studious of
the stomach.(12)
On the other hand, he whose "heart" was habitually found "lifted
up" (13) rather than fattened up, who in forty days and as many nights
maintained a fast above the power of human nature, while spiritual
faith subministered strength (to his body),(14) both saw with his eyes
God's glory, and heard with his ears God's voice, and understood with
his heart God's law: while He taught him even then (by experience) that
man liveth not upon bread alone, but upon every word of God; in that
the People, though fatter than he, could not constantly contemplate
even Moses himself, fed as he had been upon God, nor his leanness,
sated as it had been with His glory!(15) Deservedly, therefore, even
while in the flesh, did the Lord show Himself to him, the colleague of
His own fasts, no less than to Elijah.(16) For Elijah withal had, by
this fact primarily, that he had imprecated a famine,(17) already
sufficiently devoted himself to fasts: "The Lord liveth," he said,
"before whom I am standing in His sight, if there shall be dew in these
years, and rain-shower."(1) Subsequently, fleeing from threatening
Jezebel, after one single (meal of) food and drink, which he had found
on being awakened by an angel, he too himself, in a space of forty
days and nights, his belly empty, his mouth dry, arrived at Mount
Horeb; where, when he had made a cave his inn, with how familiar a
meeting with God was he received!(2) "What (doest) thou, Elijah,
here?"(3) Much more friendly was this voice than, "Adam, where art
thou?"(4) For the latter voice was uttering a threat to a fed man, the
former soothing a fasting one. Such is the prerogative of circumscribed
food, that it makes God tent-fellow(5) with man—peer, in truth, with
peer! For if the eternal God will not hunger, as He testifies through
Isaiah,(6) this will be the time for man to be made equal with God,
when he lives without food.
And thus we have already proceeded to examples, in order that,
by its profitable efficacy, we may unfold the powers of this duty
which reconciles God, even when angered, to man.
Israel, before their gathering together by Samuel on occasion of
the drawing of water at Mizpeh, had sinned; but so immediately do they
wash away the sin by a fast, that the peril of battle is dispersed by
them simultaneously (with the water on the ground). At the very moment
when Samuel was offering the holocaust (in no way do we learn that the
clemency of God was more procured than by the abstinence of the
people), and the aliens were advancing to battle, then and there "the
Lord thundered with a mighty voice upon the aliens, and they were
thrown into confusion, and felt in a mass in the sight of Israel; and
the men of Israel went forth out of Mizpeh, and pursued the aliens, and
smote them unto Bethor,"—the unfed (chasing) the fed, the unarmed the
armed. Such will be the strength of them who "fast to God."(7) For
such, Heaven fights. You have (before you) a condition upon which
(divine) defence will be granted, necessary even to spiritual wars.
Similarly, when the king of the Assyrians, Sennacherib, after
already taking several cities, was volleying blasphemies and menaces
against Israel through Rabshakeh, nothing else (but fasting) diverted
him from his purpose, and sent him into the Ethiopias. After that, what
else swept away by the hand of the angel an hundred eighty and four
thousand from his army than Hezekiah the king's humiliation? if it is
true, (as it is), that on heating the announcement of the harshness of
the foe, he rent his garment, put on sackcloth, and bade the elders of
the priests, similarly habited, approach God through Isaiah—fasting
being, of course, the escorting attendant of their prayers.(8) For
peril has no time for food, nor sackcloth any care for satiety's
refinements. Hunger is ever the attendant of mourning, just as gladness
is an accessory of fulness.
Through this attendant of mourning, and (this) hunger, even that
sinful state, Nineveh, is freed from the predicted ruin. For repentance
for sins had sufficiently commended the fast, keeping it up in a space
of three days, starving out even the cattle with which God was not
angry.(9) Sodom also, and Gomorrah, would have escaped if they had
fasted.(10) This remedy even Ahab acknowledges. When, after his
transgression and idolatry, and the slaughter of Naboth, slain by
Jezebel on account of his vineyard, Elijah had upbraided him, "How hast
thou killed, and possessed the inheritance? In the place where dogs had
licked up the blood of Naboth, thine also shall they lick up,"—he
"abandoned himself, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and
slept in sackcloth. And then (came) the word of the Lord unto Elijah,
Thou hast seen how Ahab hath shrunk in awe from my face: for that he
hath shrunk in awe I will not bring the hurt upon (him) in his own
days; but in the days of his son I will bring it upon (him)"—(his
son), who was not to fast.(11) Thus a God-ward fast is a work of
reverential awe: and by its means also Hannah the wife of Elkanah
making suit, barren as she had been beforetime, easily obtained from
God the filling of her belly, empty of food, with a son, ay, and a
prophet.(12)
Nor is it merely change of nature, or aversion of perils, or
obliteration of sins, but likewise the recognition of mysteries, which
fasts will merit from God. Look at Daniel's example. About the dream of
the King of Babylon all the sophists are troubled: they affirm that,
without external aid, it cannot be discovered by human skill. Daniel
alone, trusting to God, and knowing what would tend to the deserving of
God's favour, requires a space of three days, fasts with his
fraternity, and—his prayers thus commended—is instructed throughout
as to the order and signification of the dream; quarter is granted to
the tyrant's sophists; God is glorified; Daniel is honoured; destined
as he was to receive, even subsequently also, no less a favour of God
in the first year, of King Darius, when, after care- ful and repeated
meditation upon the times predicted by Jeremiah, he set his face to God
in fasts, and sackcloth, and ashes. For the angel, withal, sent to him,
immediately professed this to be the cause of the Divine approbation:
"I am come," he said, "to demonstrate to thee, since thou art
pitiable"(1)—by fasting, to wit. If to God he was "pitiable," to the
lions in the den he was formidable, where, six days fasting, he had
breakfast provided him by an angel.(3)
We produce, too, our remaining (evidences). For we now hasten to
modern proofs.
On the threshold of the Gospel,(3) Anna the prophetess, daughter
of Phanuel, "who both recognised the infant Lord, and preached many
things about Him to such as were expecting the redemption of Israel,"
after the pre-eminent distinction of long-continued and
single-husbanded widowhood, is additionally graced with the testimony
of "fastings" also; pointing out, as she does, what the duties are
which should characterize attendants of the Church, and (pointing out,
too, the fact) that Christ is understood by none more than by the once
married and often fasting.
By and by the Lord Himself consecrated His own baptism (and, in
His own, that of all) by fasts;(4) having (the power) to make "loaves
out of stones," say, to make Jordan flow with wine perchance, if He had
been such a "glutton and toper."(6) Nay, rather, by the virtue of
contemning food He was initiating "the new man" into "a severe
handling" of "the old,"(7) that He might show that (new man) to the
devil, again seeking to tempt him by means of food, (to be) too strong
for the whole power of hunger.
Thereafter He prescribed to fasts a law—that they are to be
performed "without sadness:"(8) for why should what is salutary be sad?
He taught likewise that fasts are to be the weapons for battling with
the more direful demons:(9) for what wonder if the same operation is
the instrument of the iniquitous spirit's egress as of the Holy
Spirit's ingress? Finally, granting that upon the centurion Cornelius,
even before baptism, the honourable gift of the Holy Spirit, together
with the gift of prophecy besides, had hastened to descend, we see that
his fasts had been heard,(10) I think, moreover, that the apostle too,
in the Second of Corinthians, among his labours, and perils, and
hardships, after "hunger and thirst," enumerates "fasts" also "very
many"
This principal species in the category of dietary restriction may already afford a prejudgment concerning the inferior operations of abstinence also, as being themselves too, in proportion to their measure, useful or necessary. For the exception of certain kinds from use of food is a partial fast. Let us therefore look into the question of the novelty or vanity of xerophagies, to see whether in them too we do not find an operation alike of most ancient as of most efficacious religion.
I return to Daniel and his brethren, preferring as they did a diet of vegetables and the beverage of water to the royal dishes and decanters, and being found as they were therefore "more handsome" (lest any be apprehensive on the score of his paltry body, to boot!), sides being spiritually cultured into the bargain.(12) For God gave to the young men knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature, and to Daniel in every word, and in dreams, and in every kind of wisdom; which (wisdom) was to make him wise in this very thing also,—namely, by what means the recognition of mysteries was to be obtained from God. Finally, in the third year of Cyrus king of the Persians, when he had fallen into careful and repeated meditation on a vision, he provided another form of humiliation. "In those days," he says, "I Daniel was mourning during three weeks: pleasant bread I ate not; flesh and wine entered not into my mouth; with oil I was not anointed; until three weeks were consummated:" which being elapsed, an angel was sent out (from God), addressing him on this wise: "Daniel, thou art a man pitiable; fear not: since, from the first day on which thou gavest thy soul to recogitation and to humiliation before God, thy word hath been heard, and I am entered at thy word."(13) Thus the "pitiable" spectacle and the humiliation of xerophagies expel fear, and attract the ears of God, and make men masters of secrets.
I return likewise to Elijah. When the ravens had been wont to
satisfy him with "bread and flesh,"(1) why was it that afterwards, at
Beersheba of Judea, that certain angel, after rousing him from sleep,
offered him, beyond doubt, bread alone, and water?(2) Had ravens been
wanting, to feed him more liberally? or had it been difficult to the
"angel" to carry away from some pan of the banquet-room of the king
some attendant with his amply-furnished waiter, and transfer him to
Elijah, just as the breakfast of the reapers was carried into the den
of lions and presented to Daniel in his hunger? But it behoved that an
example should be set, teaching us that, at a time of pressure and
persecution and whatsoever difficulty, we must live on xerophagies.
With such food did David express his own exomologesis; "eating ashes
indeed as it were bread," that is, bread dry and foul like ashes:
"mingling, moreover, his drink with weeping"—of course, instead of
wine.(3) For abstinence from wine withal has honourable badges of its
own: (an abstinence) which had dedicated Samuel, and consecrated Aaron,
to God. For of Samuel his mother said: "And wine and that which is
intoxicating shall he not drink:"(4) for such was her condition withal
when praying to God.(5) And the Lord said to Aaron "Wine and spirituous
liquor shall ye not drink, thou and thy son after thee, whenever ye
shall enter the tabernacle, or ascend unto the sacrificial altar; and
ye shall not die."(6) So true is it, that such as shall have ministered
in the Church, being not sober, shall "die." Thus, too, in recent times
He upbraids lsrael: "And ye used to give my sanctified ones wine to
drink." And, moreover, this limitation upon drink is the portion of
xerophagy. Anyhow, wherever abstinence from wine is either exacted by
God or vowed by man, there let there be understood likewise a
restriction of food fore-furnishing a formal type to drink. For the
quality of the drink is correspondent to that of the eating. It is not
probable that a man should sacrifice to God half his appetite;
temperate in waters, and intemperate in meats. Whether, moreover, the
apostle had any acquaintance with xerophagies—(the apostle) who had
repeatedly practised greater rigours, "hunger, and thirst, and fists
many," who had forbidden "drunkennesses and revellings"(7)—we have a
sufficient evidence even from the case of his disciple Timotheus; whom
when he admonishes, "for the sake of his stomach and constant
weaknesses," to use "a little wine,"(8) from which he was abstaining
not from rule, but from devotion—else the custom would rather have
been beneficial to his stomach—by this very fact he has advised
abstinence from wine as "worthy of God," which, on a ground of
necessity, he has dissuaded.
In like manner they censure on the count of novelty our Stations
as being enjoined; some, moreover, (censure them) too as being
prolonged habitually too late, saying that this duty also ought to be
observed of free choice, and not continued beyond the ninth
hour,—(deriving their rule), of course, from their own practice. Well:
as to that which pertains to the question of injunction, I will once
for all give a reply to suit all causes. Now, (turning) to the point
which is proper to this particular cause—concerning the limit of time,
I mean—I must first demand from themselves whence they derive this
prescriptive law for concluding Stations at the ninth hour. If it is
from the fact that we read that Peter and he who was with him entered
the temple "at the ninth (hour), the hour of prayer," who will prove to
me that they had that day been performing a Station, so as to interpret
the ninth hour as the hour for the conclusion and discharge of the
Station? Nay, but you would more easily find that Peter at the sixth
hour had, for the sake of taking food, gone up first on the roof to
pray;(9) so that the sixth hour of the day may the rather be made the
limit to this duty, which (in Peter's case) was apparently to finish
that duty, after prayer. Further: since in the self-same commentary of
Luke the third hour is demonstrated as an hour of prayer, about which
hour it was that they who had received the initiatory gift of the Holy
Spirit were held for drunkards;(10) and the sixth, at which Peter went
up on the roof; and the ninth, at which they entered the temple: why
should we not understand that, with absolutely perfect indifference, we
must pray(11) always, and everywhere, and at every time; yet still that
these three hours, as being more marked in things human—(hours) which
divide the day, which distinguish businesses, which re-echo in the
public ear—have likewise ever been of special solemnity in divine
prayers? A persuasion which is sanctioned also by the corroboratire
fact of Daniel praying thrice in the day;(12) of course, through
exception of certain stated hours, no other, moreover, than the more
marked and subsequently apostolic (hours)—the third, the sixth, the
ninth. And hence, accordingly, I shall affirm that Peter too had been
led rather by ancient usage to the observance of the ninth hour,
praying at the third specific interval, (the interval) of final prayer.
These (arguments), moreover; (we have advanced) for their sakes
who think that they are acting in conformity with Peter's model, (a
model) of which they are ignorant: not as if we slighted the ninth
hour, (an hour) which, on the fourth and sixth days of the week, we
most highly honour; but because, of those things which are, observed on
the ground of tradition, we are bound to adduce so much the more worthy
reason, that they lack the authority of Scripture, until by some signal
celestial gift they be either confirmed or else corrected. "And if,"
says (the apostle), "there are matters which ye are ignorant about, the
Lord will reveal to you." Accordingly, setting out of the question the
confirmer of all such things, the Paraclete, the guide of universal
truth,(2) inquire whether there be not a worthier reason adduced among
its for the observing of the ninth hour; so that this reason (of ours)
must be attributed even to Peter if he observed a Station at the time
in question. For (the practice) comes from the death of the Lord; which
death albeit it behoves to be commemorated always, without difference
of hours yet are we at that time more impressively commended to its
commemoration, according to the actual (meaning of the) name of
Station. For even soldiers, though never unmindful of their military
oath, yet pay a greater deference to Stations. And so the "pressure"
must be maintained up to that hour in which the orb—involved from the
sixth hour in a general darkness—performed for its dead Lord a
sorrowful act of duty; so that we too may then return to enjoyment when
the universe regained its sunshine.(3) If this savours more of the
spirit of Christian religion, while it celebrates more the glory of
Christ, I am equally able, from the self-same order of events, to fix
the condition of late protraction of the Station; (namely), that we are
to fast till a late hour, awaiting the time of the Lord's sepulture,
when Joseph took down and entombed the body which he had requested.
Thence (it follows) that it is even irreligious for the flesh of the
servants to take refreshment before their Lord did.
But let it suffice to have thus far joined issue on the
argumentative challenge; rebutting, as I have done, conjectures by
conjectures, and yet (as I think) by conjectures more worthy of a
believer. Let us see whether any such (principle) drawn from the
ancient times takes us under its patronage.
In Exodus, was not that position of Moses, battling against
Amalek by prayers, maintained as it was perseveringly even till
"sunset," a "late Station?"(4) Think we that Joshua the son of Nun,
when warring down the Amorites, had breakfasted on that day on which he
ordered the very elements to keep a Station?(5) The sun "stood" in
Gibeon, and the moon in Ajalon; the sun and the moon "stood in station
until the People was avenged of his enemies, and the sun stood in the
mid heaven." When, moreover, (the sun) did draw toward his setting and
the end of the one day, there was no such day beforetime and in the
latest time (of course, (no day) so long), "that God," says (the
writer), "should hear a man"—(a man,) to be sure, the sun's peer, so
long persistent in his duty—a Station longer even than late.
At all events, Saul himself, when engaged in battle, manifestly
enjoined this duty: "Cursed (be) the man who shall have eaten bread
until evening, until I avenge me on mine enemy;" and his whole people
tasted not (food), and (yet) the whole earth was breakfasting! So
solemn a sanction, moreover, did God confer on the edict which enjoined
that Station, that Jonathan the son of Saul, although it had been in
ignorance of the fast having been appointed till a late hour that he
had allowed himself a taste of honey, was both presently convicted, by
lot, of sin, and with difficulty exempted from punishment through the
prayer of the People:(6) for he had been convicted of gluttony,
although of a simple kind. But withal Daniel, in the first year of King
Darius, when, fasting in sackcloth and ashes, he was doing exomologesis
to God, said: "And while I was still speaking in prayer, behold, the
man whom I had seen in dreams at the beginning, swiftly flying,
approached me, as it were, at the hour of the evening sacrifice."(7)
This will be a "late" Station which, fasting until the evening,
sacrifices a fatter (victim of) prayer to God!(8)
CHAP XI.—OF THE RESPECT DUE TO "HUMAN AUTHORITY;" AND OF THE CHARGES OF "HERESY" AND "PSEUDO-PROPHECY."
But all these (instances) I believe to be unknown to those who
are in a state of agitation at our proceedings; or else known by the
reading alone, not by careful study as well; in accordance with the
greater bulk of "the unskilled"(9) among the overboastful multitude, to
wit, of the Psychics. This is why we have steered our course straight
through the different individual species of fastings, of xerophagies,
of stations: in order that, while we recount, according to the
materials which we find in either Testament, the advantages which the
dutiful observances of abstinence from, or curtailment or deferment of,
food confer, we may refute those who invalidate these things as empty
observances; and again, while we similarly point out in what rank of
religious duty they have always had place, may confute those who accuse
them as novelties: for neither is that novel which has always been, nor
that empty which is useful.
The question, however, still lies before us, that some of these
observances, having been commanded by God to man, have constituted this
practice legally binding; some, offered by man to God, have discharged
some votive obligation. Still, even a vow, when it has been accepted by
God, constitutes a law for the time to come, owing to the authority of
the Acceptor; for he who has given his approbation to a deed, when
done, has given a mandate for its doing thenceforward. And so from this
consideration, again, the wrangling of the opposite party is silenced,
while they say: "It is either a pseudo-prophecy, if it is a spiritual
voice which institutes these your solemnities; or else a heresy, if it
is a human presumption which devises them." For, while censuring that
form in which the ancient economies ran their course, and at the same
time drawing out of that form arguments to hurl back (upon us) which
the very adversaries of the ancient economies will in their turn be
able to retort, they will be bound either to reject those arguments, or
else to undertake these proven duties (which they impugn): necessarily
so; chiefly because these very duties (which they impugn), from
whatsoever institutor they are, be he a spiritual man or merely an
ordinary believer, direct their course to the honour of the same God as
the ancient economies. For, indubitably, Both heresy and
pseudo-prophecy will, in the eyes of us who are all priests of one only
God the Creator and of His Christ, be judged by diversity of divinity:
and so far forth I defend this side indifferently, offering my
opponents to join issue on whatever ground they choose. "It is the
spirit of the devil," you say, O Psychic. And how is it that he enjoins
duties which belong to our God, and enjoins them to be offered to none
other than our God? Either contend that the devil works with our God,
or else let the Paraclete be held to be Satan. But you affirm it is "a
human Antichrist:" for by this name heretics are called in John.(1) And
how is it that, whoever he is, he has in (the name of) our Christ
directed these duties toward our Lord; whereas withal antichrists have
(ever) gone forth (professedly teaching) towards God, (but) in
opposition to our Christ? On which side, then, do you think the Spirit
is confirmed as existing among us; when He commands, or when He
approves, what our God has always both commanded and approved? But you
again set up boundary-posts to God, as with regard to grace, so with
regard to discipline; as with regard to gifts, so, too, with regard to
solemnities: so that our observances are supposed to have ceased in
like manner as His benefits; and you thus deny that He still continues
to impose duties, because, in this case again, "the Law and the
prophets (were) until John." It remains for you to banish Him wholly,
being, as He is, so far as lies in you, so otiose.
For, by this time, in this respect as well as others, "you are
reigning in wealth and satiety"(1)—not making inroads upon such sins
as fasts diminish, nor feeling need of such revelations as xerophagies
extort, nor apprehending such wars of your own as Stations dispel.
Grant that from the time of John the Paraclete had grown mute; we
ourselves would have arisen as prophets to ourselves, for this cause
chiefly: I say not now to bring down by our prayers God's anger, nor to
obtain his protection or grace; but to secure by premunition the moral
position of the "latest times;"(3) enjoining every species of of
tapeinofronhsis , since the prison must be familiarized to us, and
hunger and thirst practised, and capacity of enduring as well the
absence of food as anxiety about it acquired: in order that the
Christian may enter into prison in like condition as if he had (just)
come forth of it,—to suffer there not penalty, but discipline, and not
the world's tortures, but his own habitual observances; and to go forth
out of custody to (the final) conflict with all the more confidence,
having nothing of sinful false care of the flesh about him, so that the
tortures may not even have material to work on, since he is cuirassed
in a mere dry skin, and cased in horn to meet the claws, the succulence
of his blood already sent on (heavenward) before him, the baggage as it
were of his soul,—the soul herself withal now hastening (after it),
having already, by frequent fasting, gained a most intimate knowledge
of death!
Plainly, your habit is to furnish cookshops in the prisons to
untrustworthy martyrs, for fear they should miss their accustomed
usages, grow weary of life, (and) be stumbled at the novel discipline
of abstinence; (a discipline) which not even the well-known
Pristinus—your martyr, no Christian martyr—had ever come in contact
with: he whom—stuffed as he had long been, thanks to the facilities
afforded by the "free custody" (now in vogue, and) under an obligation,
I suppose, to all the baths (as if they were better than baptism!), and
to all the retreats of voluptuousness (as if they were more secret than
those of the Church!), and to all the allurements of this life (as if
they were of more worth than those of life eternal!), not to be willing
to die—on the very last day of trial, at high noon, you premedicated
with drugged wine as an antidote, and so completely enervated, that on
being tickled—for his intoxication made it feel like tickling—with a
few claws, he was unable any more to make answer to the presiding
officer interrogating him "whom he confessed to be Lord;" and, being
now put on the rack for this silence, when he could utter nothing but
hiccoughs and belchings, died in the very act of apostasy! This is why
they who preach sobriety are "false prophets;" this why they who
practise it are "heretics!" Why then hesitate to believe that the
Paraclete, whom you deny in a Montanus, exists in an Apicius?
You lay down a prescription that this faith has its solemnities "appointed" by the Scriptures or the tradition of the ancestors; and that no further addition in the way of observance must be added, on account of the unlawfulness of innovation. Stand on that ground, if you can. For, behold, I impeach you of fasting besides on the Paschal-day, beyond the limits of those days in which "the Bridegroom was taken away;" and interposing the half-fasts of Stations; and you, (I find), sometimes living on bread and water, when it has seemed meet to each (so to do). In short, you answer that "these things are to be done of choice, not of command." You have changed your ground, therefore, by exceeding tradition, in undertaking observances which have not been "appointed." But what kind of deed is it, to permit to your own choice what you grant not to the command of God? Shall human volition have more licence than Divine power? I am mindful that I am free from the world,(1) not from God. Thus it is my part to perform, without external suggestion thereto, an act of respect to my Lord, it is His to enjoin. I ought not merely to pay a willing obedience to Him, but withal to court Him; for the former I render to His command, the latter to my own choice.
But it is enough for me that it is a customary practice for the
bishops withal to issue mandates for fasts to the universal commonalty
of the Church; I do not mean for the special purpose of collecting
contributions of alms, as your beggarly fashion has it, but sometimes
too from some particular cause of ecclesiastical solicitude. And
accordingly, if you practise tapeinofronhsis at the bidding of a
man's edict, and all unitedly, how is it that in our case you set a
brand upon the very unity also of our fastings, and xerophagies, and
Stations?—unless, perhaps, it is against the decrees of the senate and
the mandates of the emperors which are opposed to "meetings" that we
are sinning! The Holy Spirit, when He was preaching in whatsoever lands
He chose, and through whomsoever He chose, was wont, from foresight of
the imminence either of temptations to befall the Church, or of plagues
to befall the world, in His character of Paraclete (that is, Advocate
for the purpose of winning over the judge by prayers), to issue
mandates for observances of this nature; for instance, at the present
time, with the view of practising the discipline of sobriety and
abstinence: we, who receive Him, must necessarily observe also the
appointments which He then made. Look at the Jewish calendar, and you
will find it nothing novel that all succeeding posterity guards with
hereditary scrupulousness the precepts given to the fathers. Besides,
throughout the provinces of Greece there are held in definite
localities those councils gathered out of the universal Churches, by
whose means not only all the deeper questions are handled for the
common benefit, but the actual representation of the whole Christian.
name is celebrated with great veneration. (And how worthy a thing is
this, that, under the auspices of faith, men should congregate from all
quarters to Christ! "See, how good and how enjoyable for brethren to
dwell in unity!"(2) This psalm you know not easily how to sing, except
when you are supping with a goodly company!) But those conclaves first,
by the operations of Stations and fastings, know what it is "to grieve
with the grieving," and thus at last "to rejoice in company with the
rejoicing."(3) If we also, in our diverse provinces, (but) present
mutually in spirit,(4) observe those very solemnities, whose then
celebration our present discourse has been defending, that is the
sacramental law.
Being, therefore, observers of "seasons" for these things, and
of "days, and months, and years,"(5) we Galaticize. Plainly we do, if
we are 112
observers of Jewish ceremonies, of legal solemnities: for those the apostle unteaches, suppressing the continuance of the Old Testament which has been buried in Christ, and establishing that of the New. But if there is a new creation in Christ,' our solemnities too will be bound to be new: else, if the apostle has erased all devotion absolutely "of seasons, and days, and months, and years," why do we celebrate the passover by an annual rotation in the first month? Why in the fifty ensuing days do we spend our time in all exultation? Why do we devote to Stations the fourth and sixth days of the week, and to fasts the "preparation-day?"(2) Anyhow, you sometimes continue your Station even over the Sabbath,—a day never to be kept as a fast except at the passover season, according to a reason elsewhere given. With us, at all events, every day likewise is celebrated by an ordinary consecration. And it will not, then, be, in the eyes of the apostle, the differentiating principle—distinguishing (as he is doing) "things new and old"(3)—which will be ridiculous; but (in this case too) it will be your own unfairness, while you taunt us with the form of antiquity all the while you are laying against us the charge of novelty.
The apostle reprobates likewise such as "bid to abstain from
meats; but he does so from the foresight of the Holy Spirit,
precondemning already the heretics who would enjoin perpetual
abstinence to the extent of destroying and despising the works of the
Creator; such as I may find in the person of a Marcion, a Tatian, or a
Jupiter, the Pythagorean heretic of to-day; not in the person of the
Paraclete. For how limited is the extent of our "interdiction of
meats!" Two weeks of xerophagies in the year (and not the whole of
these,—the Sabbaths, to wit, and the Lord's days, being excepted) we
offer to God; abstaining from things which we do not reject, but defer.
But further: when writing to the Romans, the apostle now gives you a
home-thrust, detractors as you are of this observance: "Do not for the
sake of food," he says, "undo(4) the work of God." What "work?" That
about which he says,(5) "It is good not to eat flesh, and not to drink
wine:" "for he who in these points doeth service, is pleasing and
propitiable to our God." "One believeth that all things may be eaten;
but another, being weak, feedeth on vegetables. Let not him who eateth
lightly esteem him who eateth not. Who art thou, who judgest another's
servant?" "Both he who eateth, and he who eateth not, giveth God
thanks." But, since he forbids human choice to be made matter of
controversy, how much more Divine! Thus he knew how to chide certain
restricters and interdicters of food, such as abstained from it of
contempt, not of duty; but to approve such as did so to the honour, not
the insult, of the Creator. And if he has "delivered you the keys of
the meat-market," permitting the eating of "all things" with a view to
establishing the exception of" things offered to idols ;" still he has
not included the kingdom of God in the meat-market: "For," he says,
"the kingdom of God is neither meat nor drink;"(6) and, "Food
commendeth us not to God"—not that you may think this said about dry
diet, but rather about rich and carefully prepared, if, when he
subjoins, "Neither, if we shall have eaten, shall we abound; nor, if we
shall not have eaten, shall we be deficient," the ring of his words
suits, (as it does), you rather (than us), who think that you do
"abound" if you eat, and are "deficient if you eat not; and for this
reason disparage these observances.
How unworthy, also, is the way in which you interpret to the
favour of your own lust the fact that the Lord "ate and drank"
promiscuously! But I think that He must have likewise "fasted" inasmuch
as He has pronounced, not "the full;" but "the hungry and thirsty,
blessed:"(7) (He) who was wont to profess "food" to be, not that which
His disciples had supposed, but "the thorough doing of the Father's
work;"(8) teaching "to labour for the meat which is permanent unto life
eternal;"(9) in our ordinary prayer likewise commanding us to request
"bread,"(10) not the wealth of Attalus(11) therewithal. Thus, too,
Isaiah has not denied that God "hath chosen" a "fist;" but has
particularized in detail the kind of fast which He has not chosen: "for
in the days," he says, "of your fasts your own wills are found
(indulged), and all who are subject to you ye stealthily sting; or else
ye fast with a view to abuse and strifes, and ye smite with the fists.
Not such a fast have I elected;"(12) but such an one as He has
subjoined, and by subjoining has not abolished, but confirmed.
For even if He does prefer "the works of righteousness," still
not without a sacrifice, which is a soul afflicted with fasts.(1) He,
at all events, is the God to whom neither a People incontinent of
appetite, nor a priest, nor a prophet, was pleasing. To this day the
"monuments of concupiscence" remain, where the People, greedy of
"flesh," till, by devouring without digesting the quails, they brought
on cholera, were buried. Eli breaks his neck before the temple
doors,(2) his sons fall in battle, his daughter-in-law expires in
child-birth:(3) for such was the blow which had been deserved at the
hand of God by the shameless house, the defrauder of the fleshly
sacrifices.(4) Sameas, a "man of God," after prophesying the issue of
the idolatry introduced by King Jeroboam—after the drying up and
immediate restoration of that king's hand—after the rending in twain
of the sacrificial altar,—being on account of these signs invited
(home) by the king by way of recompense, plainly declined (for he had
been prohibited by God) to touch food at all in that place; but having
presently afterwards rashly taken food from another old man, who
lyingly professed himself a prophet, he was deprived, in accordance
with the word of God then and there uttered over the table, of burial
in his fathers' sepulchres. For he was prostrated by the rushing of a
lion upon him in the way, and was buried among strangers; and thus paid
the penalty of his breach of fast.(5)
These will be warnings both to people and to bishops, even
spiritual ones, in case they may ever have been guilty of incontinence
of appetite. Nay, even in Hades the admonition has not ceased to speak;
where we find in the person of the rich feaster, convivialities
tortured; in that of the pauper, fasts refreshed; having—(as
convivialities and fasts alike had)—as preceptors "Moses and the
prophets."(6) For Joel withal exclaimed: "Sanctify a fast, and a
religious service;"(7) foreseeing even then that other apostles and
prophets would sanction fasts, and would preach observances of special
service to God. Whence it is that even they who court their idols by
dressing them, and by adorning them in their sanctuary, and by saluting
them at each particular hour, are said to do them service. But, more
than that, the heathens recognise every form of tap
inofronhs
s .
When the heaven is rigid and the year arid, barefooted processions are
enjoined by public proclamation; the magistrates lay aside their
purple, reverse the fasces, utter prayer, offer a victim. There are,
moreover, some colonies where, besides (these extraordinary
solemnities, the inhabitants), by an annual rite, clad in sackcloth and
besprent with ashes, present a suppliant importunity to their idols,
(while) baths and shops are kept shut till the ninth hour. They have
one single fire in public—on the altars; no water even in their
platters. There is, I believe, a Ninevitan suspension of business! A
Jewish fast, at all events, is universally celebrated; while,
neglecting the temples, throughout all the shore, in every open place,
they continue long to send prayer up to heaven. And, albeit by the
dress and ornamentation of mourning they disgrace the duty, still they
do affect a faith in abstinence, and sigh for the arrival of the
long-lingering evening star to sanction (their feeding). But it is
enough for me that you, by heaping blasphemies upon our xerophagies,
put them on a level with the chastity of an Isis and a Cybele. I admit
the comparison in the way of evidence. Hence (our xerophagy) will be
proved divine, which the devil, the emulator of things divine,
imitates. It is out of truth that falsehood is built; out of religion
that superstition is compacted. Hence you are more irreligious, in
proportion as a heathen is more conformable. He, in short, sacrifices
his appetite to an idol-god; you to (the true) God will not. For to you
your belly is god, and your lungs a temple, and your paunch a
sacrificial altar, and your cook the priest, and your fragrant smell
the Holy Spirit, and your condiments spiritual gifts, and your belching
prophecy.
"Old" you are, if we will say the truth, you who are so indulgent
to appetite, and justly do you vaunt your "priority:" always do I
recognise the savour of Esau, the hunter of wild beasts: so unlimitedly
studious are you of catching fieldfares, so do you come from "the
field" of your most lax discipline, so faint are you in spirit.(8) If I
offer you a paltry lentile dyed red with must well boiled down,
forthwith you will sell all your "primacies:" with you "love" shows its
fervour in sauce-pans, "faith" its warmth in kitchens, "hope" its
anchorage in waiters; but of greater account is "love," because that is
the means whereby your young men sleep with their sisters! Appendages,
as we all know, of appetite are lasciviousness and voluptuousness.
Which alliance the apostle withal was aware of; and hence, after
premising, "Not in drunkenness and revels," he adjoined, "nor in
couches and lusts."(9)
To the indictment of your appetite pertains (the charge) that
"double honour" is with you assigned to your presiding (elders) by
double shares (of meat and drink); whereas the apostle has given them
"double honour" as being both brethren and officers.(1) Who, among you,
is superior in holiness, except him who is more frequent in banqueting,
more sumptuous in catering, more learned in cups? Men of soul and flesh
alone as you are, justly do you reject things spiritual. If the
prophets were pleasing to such, my (prophets) they were not. Why, then,
do not you constantly preach, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
shall die?"(2) just as we do not hesitate manfully to command, "Let us
fast, brethren and sisters, lest to-morrow perchance we die." Openly
let us vindicate our disciplines. Sure we are that "they who are in the
flesh cannot please God;"(3) not, of course, those who are in the
substance of the flesh, but in the care, the uffection, the work, the
will, of it. Emaciation displeases not us; for it is not by weight that
God bestows flesh, any more than He does "the Spirit by measure." (4)
More easily, it may be, through the "strait gate"(5) of salvation will
slenderer flesh enter; more speedily will lighter flesh rise; longer in
the sepulchre will drier flesh retain its firmness. Let Olympic
cestus-players and boxers cram themselves to satiety. To them bodily
ambition is suitable to whom bodily strength is necessary; and yet they
also strengthen themselves by xerophagies. But ours are other thews and
other sinews, just as our contests withal are other; we whose
"wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the world's(6)
power, against the spiritualities of malice." Against these it is not
by robustness of flesh and blood, but of faith and spirit, that it
behoves us to make our antagonistic stand. On the other hand, an
over-fed Christian will be more necessary to bears and lions,
perchance, than to God; only that, even to encounter beasts, it will be
his duty to practise emaciation.
ELUCIDATIONS.
I.
(Greater licence, p. 104.)
IN this treatise, which is designed to justify the extremes of
Montanistic fasts, Tertullian's genius often surprises us by his
ingenuity. This is one of the instances where the forensic orator comes
out, trying to outflank and turn the position of an antagonist who has
gained an advantage. The fallacy is obvious. Kaye cites, in comparison,
a passage(1) from "The Apparel of Women," and another(2) from "The
Exhortation to Chastity." He remarks, "Were we required to produce an
instance [i.e. to prove the tendency of mankind to run into extremes],
we should without hesitation refer the reader to this treatise."
Fasting was ordained of Christ Himself as a means to an end. It
is here reduced from its instrumental character, and made an excuse for
dividing the household of faith, and for cruel accusations against
brethren.
In our age of an entire relaxation of discipline, the enthusiast
may nevertheless awaken us, perhaps, to honest self-examination as to
our manner of life, in view of the example of Christ and His apostles,
and their holy precepts.
II.
(Provinces of Greece, p. III.)
We have here an interesting hint as to the arkaia eqh to which
the Council of Nice s refers in one of her most important canons.
Provinces, synods, and the charges or pastoral letters of the bishops
are referred to as established institutions. And note the emphasis
given to "Greece" as the mother of churches, and of laws and customs.
He looks Eastward, and not by any means to the West, for high examples
of the Catholic usages by which he was endeavouring to justify his own.
III.
(An over-fed Christian, p. 114.)
"Are we not carnal" (psychics) in our days? May not the very
excesses of Tertullian sting and reproach us with the charge of
excessive indulgence (Matt. ix. 15)? The "over-fed Christians" whom he
here reproaches are proved by this very treatise to have observed a
system of fasting which is little practised anywhere in our times—for
a mere change to luxurious fish-diet is the very mockery of fasting. We
learn that the customary fasts of these psychics were as follows: (1)
the annual Paschal fast,(1) from Friday till Easter-Day; (2) Wednesdays
and Fridays (stationary days(2))every week; and (3) the "dry-food
days,"(3)—abstinence from "pleasant bread" (Dan. x. 2),—though some
Catholics objected to these voluntary abstinences.
IV.
(Practise emaciation, p. 114.)
Think of our Master's fast among the wild beasts! Let us
condescend to go back to Clement, to Origen, and to Tertullian to learn
the practical laws of the Gospel against avarice, luxury, and "the
deceitfulness of sin." I am emboldened to say this by some remarkable
words which I find, to my surprise, thrown out in a scientific work(4)
proceeding from Harvard University. It is with exceeding gratitude that
I quote as follows: "It is well to go away at times, that we may see
another aspect of human life which still survives in the East, and to
feel that influence which led even the Christ into the wilderness to
prepare for the struggle with the animal nature of man.(5) We need
something of the experience of the Anchorites of Egypt, to impress us
with the great truth that the distinction between the spiritual and the
material remains broad and clear, even if with the scalpel of our
modern philosophy we cannot completely dissect the two; and this
experience will give us courage to cherish our aspirations, keep bright
our hopes, and hold fast our Christian faith until the consummation
comes." IX.