'By fasting,' he says, 'the faithful brotherhood of the three, mastering the fire in the flashing furnace, adored the Lord received into the hospitality of the pyre.' These examples of the saints avail nothing to persuade the fasting of any day whatever, how much less of the Sabbath—since indeed we not only do not read that the three men were sent into the burning furnace of fire on the Sabbath, but we do not even read that they were there so long that anyone could say they had fasted; nay rather, there is scarcely the space of a single hour in which their confession and hymn is sung, nor did they walk about amid those harmless flames any longer than they finished that canticle—unless perchance even the space of a single hour is reckoned by this man as fasting.
But if this be so, he has no ground to be angry at those who dine on the Sabbath; for up until the hour of dinner one fasts far longer than in that furnace. He adduces also that testimony of the Apostle, where he says: 'The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit'; and he wants the kingdom of God to be understood as the Church, in which God reigns. I beseech you, was the Apostle doing this, when he spoke these things, so that Christians should fast on the Sabbath? But neither was he speaking of the fasting of any day whatever, when he said these things.
For it was said against those who, after the manner of the Jews according to the old law, thought that there was cleanness in the observance of certain foods, and for the admonition of those brethren by whose food and drink, indifferently taken, the weak were scandalized. Therefore, when he had said: 'Do not, by your food, destroy him for whom Christ died,' and: 'Let not therefore our good be blasphemed,' he then added: 'For the kingdom of God is not food and drink,' and the rest. For according as this man understands these words of the Apostle—that the kingdom of God, which is the Church, is not in food and drink but in fasting—we ought, I do not say to fast on the Sabbaths, but never at all to take food and drink, lest we ever depart from that kingdom of God.
But I think that, by this man's own confession, we belong to the Church somewhat more religiously on the Lord's Day, when nevertheless, even by his allowance, we dine. 'Why,' he says, 'should we murmur at offering to the more powerful Lord a sacrifice that is dear, which the Spirit desires and the angel praises?' Then he adds the testimony of the angel who says: 'Good is prayer with fasting and almsgiving.' What he meant by 'the more powerful Lord' we do not know, unless perchance the copyist erred and it escaped you, so that you did not correct what you sent me to read. Therefore he wants fasting to be understood as a sacrifice dear to the Lord—as though this question turned upon fasting and not upon the fasting of the Sabbath. For neither is the Lord's Day carried through without a sacrifice which is dear to God, merely because there is no fasting.
He goes on still further and heaps up testimonies utterly foreign to the cause he undertook to defend. 'Offer to God,' he says, 'a sacrifice of praise'; and wishing to connect this saying of the divine psalm, I know not how, with the matter in hand, he says: 'Assuredly not a banquet of blood or of drunkenness, in which not the praises owed to God, but blasphemies, with the devil abetting, run wild.' O improvident presumption! So then a sacrifice of praise is not offered on the Lord's Day, because there is no fasting, but rather a 'banquet of drunkenness' is held, and 'blasphemies run wild with the devil abetting.' But if it is impious to say this, let him understand that fasting is not signified in that which is written: 'Offer to God a sacrifice of praise.'
A fast, to be sure, is not observed on certain days, and especially on feast days, whereas the sacrifice of praise is offered up by the Church, spread throughout the whole world, on every single day. Otherwise — and this no one would dare to say, I do not mean no Christian, but not even a madman — those fifty days after Easter up to Pentecost, on which there is no fasting, would according to that man be strangers to the sacrifice of praise. Yet on these very days especially the Alleluia is sung, in many churches, but in all churches above all; and no Christian, however unlearned, is ignorant that this word is a word of praise.
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Yet even he himself acknowledges that on the Lord's Day one dines not in drunkenness but in gladness, when he says that we, the few elect chosen out of the many Jews and Gentiles by faith in the name of Christ, ought at the evening incense of the Sabbath, in place of the victims of cattle, to offer up to God a fast pleasing to him with praises, by whose fervour the works of our sins may be burned up and fail. 'And in the morning,' he says, 'the hearing shall hear us from ourselves, and our houses shall be for eating and drinking, not in drunkenness but in gladness, the Lord's festival being fulfilled.' Then, therefore, a good word (eulogia) is celebrated, not, as he said above, an absurd word (alogia).
But why the Sabbath day, which God sanctified, gives him offence, I do not know — that he should think one may not eat and drink on it with such gladness as is free of drunkenness — since we can fast before the Sabbath just as he says one ought to fast on the Sabbath before the Lord's Day. Or does he judge it a wickedness to dine on two days in a row? Let him see, then, how great an insult he inflicts even upon the Roman church itself, where, even in those weeks in which there is fasting on the fourth day, the sixth, and the Sabbath, nevertheless on three continuous days — that is, on the Lord's Day, and then on the second and third — one dines. 'It is certain,' he says, 'that the life of the sheep depends upon the judgement of the shepherds; but woe to those who call good evil, and darkness light and light darkness, and bitter sweet and sweet bitter.'
What these words of his mean, I do not sufficiently understand. For if you write these things, as Urbicus says, then in the city the common people, hanging upon the judgement of their pastor, fast on the Sabbath together with their bishop; but if he wrote these things to you, because in your letter you too said something of the kind, let him not persuade you so to praise the Christian city that fasts on the Sabbath that you are forced to condemn the Christian world that dines. For when he says: 'Woe to those who call good evil, and darkness light and light darkness, and bitter sweet and sweet bitter,' wishing the fast of the Sabbath to be understood as good and light and sweet, but dining as evil and darkness and bitter — who could doubt that he condemns the whole world of earth in all the Christians who dine on the Sabbath?
He neither considers himself nor attends to those to whom he speaks, so that he might be restrained by his own writings from this headlong rashness. For immediately he added: 'Let no one therefore judge you in food or in drink' — which he himself certainly does, when he thus reproaches those who take food and drink on the Sabbath. How fitting it would have been that from this there should come to his mind also that saying which the same Apostle utters elsewhere: 'Let him who eats not despise him who does not eat, and let him who does not eat not judge him who eats.' In this way he would have kept, between those who fast on the Sabbath and those who eat, that moderation by which he might avoid scandals, so that whoever eats might not despise him who does not eat, and he who does not eat might not judge him who eats.
'Peter also,' he says, 'the head of the apostles, the doorkeeper of heaven and the foundation of the Church, when Simon had been destroyed — Simon who was a figure of the devil, to be overcome only by fasting — taught this very thing to the Romans, whose faith is proclaimed to the whole world of earth.' Did the other apostles then teach that Christians should dine, against Peter, throughout the whole world of earth? Therefore, just as Peter and his fellow-disciples lived among themselves in concord, so let those who fast on the Sabbath, whom Peter planted, and those who dine on the Sabbath, whom his fellow-disciples planted, live among themselves in concord.
There is indeed also this opinion held by very many — although many of the Romans maintain it to be false — namely, that the Apostle Peter, being about to contend with Simon Magus on the Lord's Day, because of the danger of that great trial, fasted the day before together with the church of that same city, and, following upon so prosperous and glorious a success, kept the same custom, and some of the churches of the West imitated it. But if, as this man says, Simon the magician was a figure of the devil, then that tempter is by no means a keeper of Sabbaths or of Lord's Days, but is a daily tempter;
and yet one does not fast against him daily, since even on all the Lord's Days and the fifty days after Easter, and in various places on the solemn feast days of the martyrs and on any festivals whatever, one dines — and nevertheless the devil is overcome, if our eyes are ever toward the Lord, that he himself may pluck our feet out of the snare, and whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we do all to the glory of God, and, as far as lies in us, are without offence to Jews and Greeks and to the Church of God. Of this those give too little thought who eat with offence or fast with offence, and through either kind of intemperance stir up scandals, by which the devil is not overcome but made glad.
But if it be answered that James taught at Jerusalem, John at Ephesus, and the rest in other places, what Peter taught at Rome — that is, that one should fast on the Sabbath — but that the other lands strayed from this teaching, and Rome alone stood firm in it; and if, on the contrary, it be replied that rather certain places of the West, in which Rome is, did not observe what the apostles handed down, whereas the lands of the East, whence the very Gospel began to be preached, remained without any variation in that which was handed down by all the apostles together with Peter himself, namely, that one should not fast on the Sabbath — then this dispute is interminable, breeding quarrels and never ending questions.
Let there be, then, one faith of the universal Church, which is everywhere spread abroad, as though within, in its members, even if that very unity of faith is celebrated by certain diverse observances, by which in no way is that which is true in the faith hindered. For 'all the beauty of the king's daughter is within.' But those observances which are celebrated in varied fashion are understood to lie in her garment, whence it is there said: 'In golden fringes, clothed round about with variety.' Yet let even that garment be so varied by diverse celebrations that it be not torn apart by hostile contentions. 'Finally,' he says, 'if a Jew, by keeping the Sabbath, denies the Lord's Day, how does a Christian observe the Sabbath? Either we are Christians and keep the Lord's Day, or we are Jews and observe the Sabbath;
for no one can serve two masters.' Does he not speak as though the Sabbath had one master and the Lord's Day another? Nor does he hear that which he himself also recalled: 'For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.' But when he wishes us to be so estranged from the Sabbath as the Jews are estranged from the Lord's Day, does he not err so greatly that he could even say that we ought not to receive the Law and the Prophets, just as the Jews receive neither the Gospel nor the apostles? What evil he tastes who has such a taste, you certainly understand. 'But,' he says, 'all the old things have passed away, and in Christ have been made new.' This is true;
for on this account we do not, like the Jews, keep the Sabbath idle, even if, to signify the rest which was signified on that day, we relax the bond of fasting, while preserving Christian sobriety and frugality; and if some of our brethren think that the rest of the Sabbath is not to be signified by the relaxation of fasting, we by no means quarrel over the variety of the royal garment, lest, where we hold one faith even concerning that rest, we should vex the inner members of the queen herself. For even though, because the old things have passed away, with them there has also passed away the carnal keeping of the Sabbath idle, nevertheless, because we dine on the Sabbath and the Lord's Day without superstitious idleness, we do not on that account serve two masters, since of both the Sabbath and the Lord's Day there is one Lord.
But this man, who so says that the old things have passed away — that 'in Christ the hearth-altar (ara) yielded to the altar (altare), the sword to fasting, fire to prayers, the beast to bread, blood to the cup' — does not know that the name 'altar' (altare) is more frequently used in the writings of the Law and the Prophets, and that an altar was set up to God earlier, in the tabernacle which was made by Moses, and that the hearth-altar (ara) too is found in the apostolic writings, where the martyrs cry out 'under the altar of God.' He says the sword yielded to fasting, not remembering that sword with which the soldiers of the Gospel are armed out of both Testaments — the two-edged sword. He says fire yielded to prayers, as though even then prayers were not brought into the temple, and now fire has been sent by Christ into the world.
He says the beast yielded to bread, as though not knowing that even then the loaves of proposition used to be placed on the Lord's table, and that now he receives a part of the body of the unspotted Lamb. He says the blood yielded to the cup, not considering that even now he receives blood in the cup. How much better and more fitting, then, would he say that the old things have passed away and new things have been made in Christ, if he said it thus: that altar yielded to altar, sword to sword, fire to fire, bread to bread, beast to beast, blood to blood. For we see in all these things the carnal oldness yielding to the spiritual newness. So, therefore, it is to be understood: whether on this seventh rolling day one dines, or by certain persons one even fasts, nevertheless the carnal Sabbath has yielded to the spiritual Sabbath;
since in the latter the everlasting and true rest is longed for, in the former the temporal idleness is now despised as superstitious. As for the rest that follows, by which this man concludes his disputation, like certain other things which I have not judged worth recalling from it, they pertain much less to the case in which the question is of Sabbath fasting or dining. But these I leave to yourself to weigh and to judge, especially if you are helped at all by the things that have been said by me. If, however — since I think I have answered this man sufficiently, as far as I could — you ask my own opinion on this matter, then, turning it over in my mind, I see in the writings of the Gospels and the apostles, and in the whole instrument that is called the New Testament, that fasting is enjoined.
But on what days one ought not to fast and on what days one ought, I do not find defined by any precept of the Lord or of the apostles. And through this I think, indeed, that not for the obtaining of that which faith and righteousness obtain — in which is the beauty of the king's daughter within — but nevertheless for the signifying of the everlasting rest, where is the true Sabbath, the relaxation rather than the constriction of fasting more aptly agrees. Nevertheless, in the fasting or dining of this Sabbath, nothing seems to me to be more safely and more peacefully observed than that he who eats should not despise him who does not eat, and he who does not eat should not judge him who eats; for 'neither,
if we eat, we shall abound; nor, if we do not eat, shall we lack' — provided, that is, that among those among whom we live and with whom we live unto God there be preserved, in these matters, an unoffended fellowship. For just as, as the Apostle says, it is true that it is evil for a man who eats with offence, so it is evil for a man who fasts with offence. Let us not, therefore, be like those who, seeing John neither eating nor drinking, said: 'He has a demon,' nor again like those who, seeing Christ eating and drinking, said: 'Behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.' For a thing very necessary the Lord himself added to these sayings, and said: 'And wisdom is justified by her children.'
But who these are, if you inquire, read what is written: 'The children of wisdom are the church of the righteous.' These are they who, when they eat, do not despise those who do not eat, and when they do not eat, do not judge those who eat, but rather those who through offence do not eat or do eat, either despise or judge. And concerning the day of the Sabbath, indeed, the case is easier, because both the Roman church fasts and some others also, even if few, whether near to it or far off.
But to fast on the Lord's Day is a great scandal, especially after there became known the detestable heresy of the Manichaeans — a heresy most plainly contrary to the catholic faith and to the divine Scriptures — who appointed for their hearers this day as though a lawful one for fasting. By which it came to pass that fasting on the Lord's Day was held to be more horrible, unless perchance someone be able, with no refreshment interposed, to continue his fast beyond a week, so as to approach, as far as he can, to a fast of forty days, as we have learned that some have done. For it has been affirmed to us by brethren most worthy of trust that a certain man reached even that very number of forty.
For just as in the times of the ancient fathers Moses and Elijah did nothing against the Sabbath dinings when they fasted forty days, so he who has been able to pass seven days by fasting has not chosen the Lord's Day for fasting, but has found it among those many days which he vowed he would fast. Yet even a continued fast, if it is to be broken within the week, is broken on no day more fittingly than on the Lord's Day. But if the body is refreshed after a week, then certainly the Lord's Day is not chosen for fasting, but is found within the number which it pleased him to vow.
Nor let that trouble one, that the Priscillianists, most similar to the Manichaeans, are wont to bring forward, for fasting on the Lord's Day, a testimony from the Acts of the Apostles, when the Apostle Paul was at Troas. For thus it is written: 'And on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul, being about to depart on the next day, discoursed to them, and prolonged his sermon until midnight.' Then, when he had come down from the upper room where they were gathered, to raise up the young man who, heavy with sleep, had fallen from the window and was carried out dead, Scripture speaks thus of the Apostle himself: 'And going up,' it says, 'when he had broken bread and tasted, and had discoursed sufficiently until dawn, so he departed.'
Far be it that this should be so understood, as though the apostles were wont solemnly to fast on the Lord's Day. For 'the first day of the week' was then the name of the day which is now called the Lord's Day, as is found more plainly in the Gospels. For the day of the Lord's resurrection is called 'the first day of the Sabbath' by Matthew, but by the other three 'the first day of the week' (una sabbati) — which is agreed to be that day which was afterwards called the Lord's Day.
Either, then, after the Sabbath day had been completed, they had gathered at the beginning of the night — a night which certainly already belonged to the Lord's Day, that is, to the first day of the week — and so on that same night, being about to break bread as it is broken in the sacrament of Christ's body, he prolonged his sermon until midnight, so that, after the sacraments had been celebrated, again discoursing to the assembled until dawn, because he was in great haste, he might set out at daybreak on the Lord's Day; or else certainly, if they had gathered not through the night but through the day, at the hour of the Lord's Day of the first day of the week, then by that very statement — 'Paul, being about to depart on the next day, discoursed to them' — the reason for prolonging the sermon is expressed: because he was about to depart and desired to instruct them sufficiently.
They did not, therefore, fast solemnly on the Lord's Day, but the necessary sermon, which was heard with the ardour of the most fervent zeal, seemed not to be interrupted for the sake of refreshing the body by the Apostle who was about to depart — who, on account of his other journeys hither and thither, either never or very rarely visited them, especially because then, as the following passages teach, he was about to depart from those lands in such a way that he would no longer see them in the flesh. And by this it is rather shown that fasting on Lord's Days was not customary for them, because, lest this be believed, the writer of the book took care to set forth the reason for prolonging the sermon, so that we might know that, if some necessity should arise, dining is not to be preferred to a more urgent action.
Although by those who listened most eagerly, and who thought upon the very fountain that was about to depart, and therefore with a great thirst not for water but for the word, drank in without satiety whatever flowed forth — not only the carnal dinner but even the supper was despised. But at that time, although fasting on the Lord's Day was not customary for them, there was nevertheless no such notable offence to the Church, if under some such necessity as the Apostle Paul had, they should not take care to refresh their bodies through the whole Lord's Day until midnight, or even until dawn.
But now, after the most impious heretics have begun not to perform the fasts of the Lord's Day as occurring by some necessity, but to dogmatize them as though appointed by a sacred solemnity, and after this has become known to the Christian peoples, I certainly think that not even under such a necessity as the Apostle had should one do what he did, lest a greater evil be incurred in scandal than the good that is received from the word.
Yet whatever cause or necessity may arise for which a Christian man is compelled to fast on the Lord's Day — such as we find also in the Acts of the Apostles, in the peril of shipwreck, where the Apostle himself was sailing, that they fasted fourteen days, and by this on two Lord's Days — we ought in no way to doubt that the Lord's Day, when more days are not vowed to be continued without any refreshment, is not to be placed among the days of fasting. But why the Church fasts especially on the fourth and sixth days, this reason seems to be given: that, upon consideration of the Gospel, on that very fourth day of the week — which people commonly call the fourth feria (Wednesday) — the Jews are found to have made their plan to kill the Lord.
But one day having intervened — on whose evening the Lord ate the Passover with his disciples, which was the end of that day which we call the fifth day of the week (Thursday) — he was then betrayed on that night which already belonged to the sixth day of the week (Friday), which is manifestly the day of his passion. This was the first day of unleavened bread, beginning from the evening. But the Evangelist Matthew says that the fifth day of the week was the first day of unleavened bread, because on its ensuing evening the Passover supper was to take place, with which supper the unleavened bread began, and the eating of the immolation of the lamb. From which it is gathered that it was the fourth day of the week when the Lord said: 'You know that after two days the Passover will be, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.'
And through this that very day was appointed for fasting, because, as the Evangelist goes on and says, then were gathered together the chief priests and the elders of the people into the court of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and they took counsel to seize Jesus by guile and to kill him. But one day having intervened, of which the Gospel says: 'On the first day of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Where do you wish that we prepare for you to eat the Passover?' — on this day, then, one day having intervened, the Lord suffered, which no one doubts, on the sixth day of the week. Wherefore that sixth day too is rightly appointed for fasting; for fasts signify humility, whence it is said: 'And I humbled my soul in fasting.'
There follows the Sabbath, on which day the flesh of Christ rested in the tomb, just as in the first works of the world God rested on that day from all his works.
Hence arose this variety in that royal garment, so that some — as especially the peoples of the East — for the sake of signifying rest, preferred to relax the fast, while others, for the sake of the humility of the Lord's death, preferred to fast, as the Roman and some churches of the West do. On one day, indeed, on which Easter is celebrated, for the sake of renewing the memory of the deed, in which the disciples in a human way grieved over the Lord's death, all fast in such a way that even those keep that Sabbath fast most devotedly who dine on all the other Sabbaths throughout the whole year, signifying both things, namely, on the one anniversary day the mourning of the disciples, and on the other Sabbaths the good of rest.
For there are two things which cause the blessedness of the righteous and the end of all misery to be hoped for: the death and the resurrection of the dead. In death there is rest, of which it is said through the prophet: 'My people, enter into your chambers, hide yourself a little while, until the wrath of the Lord pass over'; but in the resurrection there is perfect felicity in the whole man, that is, in flesh and spirit. Hence it came about that both of these two were thought to be signified not by the labour of fasting but rather by the cheerfulness of refreshment, with the exception of the one paschal Sabbath, on which the mourning of the disciples, as we have said, for the sake of the memory of the deed, was to be signified by a more prolonged fast.
But since we do not find, as I have already recalled above, in the writings of the Gospels and the apostles, which properly pertain to the revelation of the New Testament, that fasts are evidently enjoined to be observed on certain particular days — and therefore this matter too, like very many others which it is difficult to enumerate, finds a place in the garment of that king's daughter, that is, in the variety of the Church — I will indicate to you what the venerable Ambrose, bishop of Milan, by whom I was baptized, answered me when I inquired about this.
For when my mother was with me in that same city, and, while we as yet catechumens gave too little heed to these matters, she bore anxiety over whether she ought to fast on the Sabbath according to the custom of our own city, or to dine according to the custom of the church of Milan, I, to free her from this hesitation, asked the aforesaid man of God. And he said: 'What more can I teach you here than what I myself do?' Where I had thought that by this answer he had enjoined nothing except that we should dine on the Sabbath — for I knew that he himself did this very thing. But he went on and added: 'When I am here, I do not fast on the Sabbath; when I am at Rome, I fast on the Sabbath.
And to whatever church you may come,' he said, 'observe its custom, if you do not wish to suffer scandal or to cause it.' This answer I reported to my mother, and it sufficed her, nor did she doubt that it was to be obeyed; this also we ourselves have followed. But since it has happened, especially in Africa, that one church, or the churches of one region, have some who dine on the Sabbath and others who fast, the custom of those to whom the governing of the congregation of these same peoples has been committed seems to me to be followed. Wherefore, if you willingly acquiesce in my counsel — especially because in this matter I have perhaps spoken more than was enough, at your asking and urging — do not resist your bishop in this matter, and, without any scruple or dispute, follow what he himself does.