1. They mortify their members which are upon the earth, when they chastise the insolent body by continual fasting, when they temper their appetite within the necessary measure; when they not only withhold themselves from the more delicate foods with moderate strictness, but even in common foods allow nothing to their flesh for desire's sake, but only for the necessity of sustaining life; being certain that no delicacies whatever, if taken without desire, do harm, and that even cheap foods generally hinder the profit of abstinence, if they are taken greedily. Hence it is that holy David chastised in himself the longing for water, and, when it was offered him by his men, poured it out, lest he should seem to satisfy his own desire by it (2 Sam. 23:16;
1 Chron. 11:16ff.); and to holy Elijah the partaking of flesh, which was not coveted, did no harm (1 Kings 17:6). From which it is given to understand that those who truly abstain condemn, not the natures of foods, but the concupiscences, and mortify their pleasures by abstaining from the desired food or drink. But those who desire to abstain not only from the quality but also from the quantity of foods, strive for nothing else but that they may indulge only as much as seems sufficient for restoring the stomach and removing hunger; and that they may not satiate their appetites by greediness of taking, but restrain them, and that not the fullness of eating, but the will, may set an end to them: such men will refrain both from the desire of precious foods and from the excessive taking of cheap ones;
who wish neither to be dissolved by daintier foods with the flesh running riot, nor to be burdened by the distension of the belly with cheap ones: since men who abstain are wont to be neither dainty nor greedy. 2. Now as to abstaining from wine or partaking of it, what shall I say, concerning which the holy Apostle fixed a sure rule, saying: 'Be not drunk with wine, wherein is luxury' (Eph. 5:18)? As if he said: It is the excessive taking of wine, not its nature, that makes and nourishes luxury; and therefore I forbid you not to use wine, but to be drunken: since a moderate use of wine strengthens a weak stomach, while drunkenness weakens both mind and body. Finally, to his disciple Timothy, who had already broken himself
by strict abstinence, and had injured his stomach by the partaking of water, he commanded that he ought to use a little wine, saying: 'Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thy frequent infirmities' (1 Tim. 5:23). And through this, those do nothing against abstinence who partake of wine not for the sake of drunkenness, but only for the health of the body, nor does the will offer it to them, but infirmity permits it: which infirmity, if it be absent, one must abstain from wine, lest the partaking of wine, which sustains the sick, should inflame a sound body. Since to use wine, and to have oil for use, no one would say is a sin;
but we ought not on this account to grant these things to the flesh that desires them, lest, when we begin to concede lawful things to it, it should demand unlawful things, and, by our complying with it in the least matters, we should be driven into crimes deserving punishment, and, the natural order being disturbed, not the body serve the spirit that orders it, but the spirit serve the body that masters it. To this is added that the breaking of abstinence makes the very mind itself alert; and it renders the flesh also—wearied not to the point of exhaustion, but subjected to the ordaining spirit—nimble. The senses too, which heaped-up delicacies are said to make gross or to weigh down, the habit of frugality unburdens, and refines, as it were, by a certain polishing of religious exercise.