For mercy, patience, and charity, and those precepts of the aforementioned virtues, in which the chief good indeed resides, are not to be maintained for the sake of fasting; rather, fasting is to be maintained for their sake. For we must labor so that those virtues, which are truly good, may be acquired by fasting, and not so that those exercises of virtue should be directed toward the goal of fasting. For this reason, then, the affliction of the flesh is useful; for this reason the medicine of abstinence is to be applied to it: that through it we may be able to attain to charity, in which lies the good that is unchangeable and perpetual, exempt from every restriction of time.
Nor indeed are the disciplines of medicine, of goldsmithing, or of the other arts that exist in this world practiced for the sake of the instruments that pertain to their work; rather, the tools are prepared for the sake of practicing the art. And just as these tools are useful to the skilled, so they are superfluous to those who do not know the discipline of the art itself; and just as they greatly profit those who are supported by their service in accomplishing their work, so to those who, being ignorant of the purpose for which they were instituted, are content with merely possessing them, they can be of no profit at all—because such men set the whole of their advantage in the mere retention of them, and not in the completion of the work.
That, therefore, is the supreme and principal good, for the sake of which those things that are intermediate come to be; but that chief good itself is pursued for no other reason than solely for its own goodness. This good is distinguished from the others, which we have called intermediate, by these marks: if it be good in itself and not through something else; if it be necessary for its own sake and not for the sake of another; if it be unchangeably and always good, and, perpetually retaining its quality, can never pass over into its contrary; if its removal or cessation cannot but bring the utmost ruin; if that which is contrary to it be likewise a principal evil and can never at any time pass over into the side of good.
These definitions, by which the nature of the principal goods is discerned, can in no way be ascribed to fasting. For fasts are neither good in themselves nor necessary for their own sake, since they are wholesomely practiced for the sake of acquiring purity of heart and body, so that, once the goads of the flesh are blunted, the mind may be reconciled in peace to its Author. Nor are they unchangeably and always good, since for the most part we are not harmed by their intermission—nay, sometimes, when kept too importunately, they even turn to the ruin of the soul. But neither is that which seems opposed to it a principal evil, namely the naturally pleasant partaking of food:
for this, unless intemperance and luxury or certain other vices follow upon it, cannot be defined as evil, since it is not what enters into the mouth that defiles a man, but the things that proceed out of the mouth, these defile a man. Whoever, therefore, does a thing not for its own sake but for the sake of something else, detracts from the principal good and does not carry it out perfectly or without sin. For all things must be done for the sake of this good, but this good itself is to be sought for its own sake alone.
Holding fast, therefore, continually to such a definition concerning the quality of fasting, let us so desire it with all the powers of the soul, yet knowing that it is then at last fitting for us if in it the reckoning of times, the quality, and the measure be observed; not so that we fix in it the goal of our hope, but so that through it we may be able to attain to purity of heart and apostolic charity. Therefore, from this very fact it is manifest that fasting—to which not only are special times prefixed at which it ought either to be practiced or to be relaxed, but also a quality and manner are set forth—is not a principal good, but something intermediate.
But those things which by the authority of a precept are either commanded as good or forbidden as harmful are never so subject to the exception of times that sometimes what is forbidden ought to be done or what is commanded be omitted. For no measure is fixed for justice, patience, sobriety, chastity, or charity; nor, on the other hand, is license ever at any time permitted for injustice, impatience, rage, unchastity, envy, or pride. Wherefore, these things concerning the quality of fasting having been set forth, it seems that the authority of the Holy Scriptures should still be added, by which it may be more manifestly proved that fasting neither ought nor can be perpetually observed.
In the Gospel, when the Pharisees together with the disciples of John the Baptist were fasting, but the apostles, as friends and guests of that heavenly Bridegroom, were not yet keeping the observance of fasts, the disciples of John—who believed that they possessed the sum of righteousness in fasting, being followers of him who, as an eminent preacher of penance, offered himself as a pattern to all peoples by his example, so that he not only refused the various kinds of food supplied for human use, but was even utterly a stranger to the common eating of bread itself—complained to the Lord, saying: Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but thy disciples do not fast?
To them the Lord, answering, clearly showed that fasting is not fitting nor necessary at every time, since some festivity of the seasons or an intervening occasion of charity admits the indulgence of refreshment, saying: Can the children of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast. And although He spoke these words before the resurrection of His body, yet they properly point to the season of Pentecost, in which, after the resurrection, during the forty days while the Lord feasted with His disciples, the joy of His daily presence did not permit them to fast. GERMANUS:
Why, then, throughout the whole of Pentecost do we relax the rigor of abstinence with midday meals, when in fact Christ tarried with His disciples only forty days after the resurrection? THEONAS: Your not unfitting question deserves to learn the reasoning of the whole and unblemished truth. After the ascension of our Savior, which took place on the fortieth day of His resurrection, the apostles returned from Mount Olivet, on which He, going to the Father, offered Himself to be gazed upon—as the reading of the Acts of the Apostles also attests—and, having entered Jerusalem, are reported to have awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit for ten days; and when these were completed, they received Him with joy on the fiftieth day.
And thus by these the number of this festivity is manifestly fulfilled, which we read was also figuratively foreshadowed in the Old Testament, wherein, when the seven weeks were completed, the bread of the firstfruits was commanded to be offered to the Lord by the priests. This bread is most truly shown to have been offered to the Lord through the preaching of the apostles, by which on that day they are read to have discoursed to the people—namely, the true bread of the firstfruits, which, brought forth by the institution of the new doctrine, when five thousand men had been satisfied with the gift of its food, consecrated to the Lord from the Jews the firstfruits of the Christian people. And therefore these ten days too, together with the preceding forty, are to be celebrated with equal solemnity and gladness.
The tradition of this festivity, handed down to us through apostolic men, is to be preserved with the same tenor. For this reason, in these very days the knees are not bent in prayer, because the bending of the knees is, as it were, a sign of penance and mourning. Whence also throughout these days we keep the same solemnity as on the Lord's Day, on which our forefathers handed down that no fast is to be observed nor knee to be bent, out of reverence for the Lord's resurrection. GERMANUS:
Can this flesh, enticed by the unwonted allurements of so long a festivity, help sprouting forth something rank from that root of vices, however cut away? Or can the mind, laden beyond custom with feasting presumptuously taken, help relaxing the rigor of its dominion over the servant body—especially since in us the greener age can quickly drive the subjected members to rebellion, if we should either take the accustomed foods more abundantly, or the unaccustomed ones more freely? THEONAS:
If we weigh all that we do with a rational examination of the mind, and concerning the purity of our heart consult not the judgments of others but always our own conscience, it is certain that this interval of refreshment cannot be an obstacle to just strictness—provided only, as has been said, that the uncorrupt mind, weighing in an equal balance the fair measure of both indulgence and continence, chastise both excesses alike, and by true discernment distinguish whether the weight of delicacies depresses our spirit, or whether, on the other hand, the greater austerity of abstinence inclines the other part, that is, the body—either repressing or lifting up whichever portion it perceives to be either exalted or burdened.
For our Lord wills nothing to be done for His worship and honor without the moderation of judgment, since the honor of the king loveth judgment. And therefore the most wise Solomon, that we may not decline by a judgment leaning to either side, admonishes, saying: Honor God from thy just labors, and offer Him firstfruits from the fruits of thy righteousness. For there sits in our conscience a certain incorrupt and true judge, who sometimes alone is not deceived concerning the state of our purity, while all others err.
With all caution, therefore, and with the diligence of a continually watchful heart, let the intention be preserved, lest in any way—the judgment of our discernment erring, or inflamed by desire for inconsiderate continence, or enticed by longing for excessive relaxation—we weigh the substance of our strength on the balance of an unjust scale; but placing in one pan the purity of the soul, and in the other the strength of the body, let us so weigh both by the judgment of a true conscience that, with neither side preponderating through affection for a single thing, we may not, being perverse, incline the balance of equity too readily either toward immoderate strictness or toward excessive relaxation; lest that be said to us, whether on account of excess of relaxation or of strictness:
Hast thou not sinned, if thou offer rightly, but divide not rightly? For those victims of fasting, which we believe we rightly offer to the Lord when we inconsiderately wring them from ourselves by a violent wrenching of the bowels, He who loves mercy and judgment abhors, saying: I am the Lord, loving judgment, hating robbery in the holocaust. Those, too, who—presuming for themselves the chief part of their offerings, that is, of their duties and acts, for the pampering of the flesh and their own uses—bring to the Lord the remnants of them and the least portion, the divine word thus condemns as fraudulent workmen: Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord fraudulently. Not without cause, therefore, does the Lord rebuke him who thus deceives himself with an unjust examination, saying:
But truly the sons of men are vain, the sons of men are liars in the balances, that they may deceive. And therefore the blessed Apostle, that we, retaining the moderating rule of discernment, may not be enticed and lean toward either side by excess, admonishes, saying: Your reasonable service. This same thing the lawgiver likewise forbids, thus enjoining: Let there be a just balance, and let the weights be equal, a just measure and an equal quart; Solomon also pronouncing a like sentence upon this: A great weight and a little, and diverse measures, both are abominable before the Lord; and he that doeth these things shall be entangled in his own devices. Accordingly, not only in that manner of which we have spoken;
but in this manner also we must strive, that we have neither unjust weights in our hearts nor diverse measures in the granaries of our conscience—that is, lest we, presuming with a more abundant indulgence of relaxation to soften those things which pertain to the rule of strictness for ourselves, should overwhelm those to whom we preach the word of the Lord with stricter precepts and with weights heavier than we ourselves are able to bear. When we do this, what else are we doing but weighing out or measuring out the merchandise and produce of the Lord's precepts with a double weight and measure?
For if we dispense these things one way to ourselves and another way to our brethren, we are rightly rebuked by the Lord, because we have deceitful scales and diverse measures, according to that sentence of Solomon in which it is said: A double weight is an abomination to the Lord, and a deceitful balance is not good in His sight. In this manner too we manifestly incur the guilt of a deceitful weight and a double measure, if, from desire of human praise, we display before the brethren certain stricter things than we are accustomed to practice privately in our own cells—striving, that is, to appear more abstinent and more holy to human sight than to the divine. This disease is especially not only to be avoided but even to be abhorred by us.
But meanwhile, having wandered a little too far from the proposed question, let us return to the same from which we departed. Therefore the solemnity of the aforesaid days is so to be kept that the granted relaxation may profit rather than harm the cultivation of body and soul, since neither can the joy of any festivity blunt the goads of the flesh, nor does that pitiless adversary know how to be mollified by reverence for the days.
Therefore, that both the appointed solemnity of custom may be preserved on festal days and the most wholesome measure of frugality may in no way be transgressed, it suffices that we permit the indulgence of relaxation to proceed only so far that the food which was to be taken at the ninth hour of the day be taken a little earlier—that is, at the sixth hour, on account of the festivity of the season—on this condition only, that the accustomed measure or quality of the foods be not changed; lest the purity of body or integrity of mind gained by the abstinence of Lent perish through the relaxation of Pentecost, and it profit us nothing to have obtained by fasting what an incautious satiety soon compels us to lose—especially since the not unknown cunning of our enemy then chiefly assails the fortification of our purity, when he perceives its guard loosened by the celebration of some solemnity.
Wherefore it must be most vigilantly provided that the vigor of our mind be never enervated by flattering seductions, nor, as has already been said above, that we lose the purity of chastity, sought by the continual labor of Lent, through the repose and security of Pentecost.
And therefore let no addition at all be admitted in the quality or measure of foods; but from those foods, by abstaining from which on ordinary days we guarded the integrity of chastity, let us likewise refrain even on the most festal days, lest the gladness of the festivity, stirring up for us the most pernicious battle of carnal incitements, be turned into mourning, and snatch from us that more excellent festivity of the mind which exults in the joy of incorruption, and lest, after the brief vanity of carnal gladness, we begin to bewail with long mourning of penance the purity of heart we have lost. Nay rather, we must strive that not in vain be directed to us that admonition of the prophetic exhortation: Celebrate thy festivals, O Juda, and pay thy vows.
For if the interposed solemnity of days has not changed the continuity of our continence, we shall continually enjoy spiritual holy-days, and thus, as we cease from servile work, there will be for us month out of month and sabbath out of sabbath. GERMANUS: What is the reason that Lent is celebrated for six weeks, although in certain provinces a perhaps more zealous care for religion seems to have added even a seventh week, when neither number—the Lord's Day and the Sabbath being subtracted—makes up the sum of forty days? For only six and thirty days are enclosed within those very weeks. THEONAS: Although the pious simplicity of some cuts off the question of this matter, nevertheless, because...
you desire scrupulously to search out even those things which another would have deemed unworthy of inquiry, and to know the whole truth of our observance and its mystery, receive the most evident reasoning of this matter also, that you may more manifestly approve that our forefathers handed down nothing irrational. By the Mosaic law a general precept was promulgated to the whole people: Thou shalt offer thy tithes and firstfruits to the Lord thy God. Therefore we who are commanded to offer the tithes of our substance and of all our fruits, much more must needs offer the tithes also of our very manner of life and of human use and of our works—which indeed are manifestly fulfilled in the reckoning of Lent.
For the number of all the days by which the year, revolving in its circuit, is enclosed, is tithed by the number of thirty-six and a half days. But in seven weeks, if the Lord's Days and the Sabbaths be subtracted, there remain thirty-five days assigned to fasts. Yet when that day of vigils is added, on which the fast of the Sabbath is prolonged until cockcrow as the Lord's Day dawns, not only is the number of thirty-six days fulfilled, but even for the tithe of the five days which seemed to remain, if that space of night which was added over and above be computed, nothing will be lacking to the fullness of the whole sum. But what shall I say of the firstfruits, which it is certain are daily offered by all who faithfully serve Christ?
For when, awakened from sleep and rising as it were with a revived alacrity after slumber, before they conceive in their heart the motion of any sense, or admit the memory or care of family affairs, they consecrate the risings and beginnings of their thoughts as divine holocausts—what else do they render but truly the firstfruits of their produce, through the High Priest Jesus Christ, for the use of this life and as an image of the daily resurrection? And those, too, who, roused from sleep, likewise offering to God the sacrifice of their jubilation, invoke Him with the first motion of their tongue, celebrate His name and praises, and, unbarring the first gates of their lips to sing hymns to Him, immolate to God the services of their mouth:
to whom they in like manner present the first offerings of their hands and steps, when, rising from their beds, they stand in prayer, and before they employ their members in their own affairs for the office of those members, they take nothing beforehand for themselves from their ministry, but move their step to His honor and fix it in His praise; and thus they discharge the firstfruits of all their motions by the stretching out of hands, the bowing of knees, and the prostration of the whole body. For that which is sung in the psalm we cannot otherwise fulfill: I prevented the dawning of the day, and cried; and: Mine eyes have prevented the morning watch unto Thee, that I might meditate on Thy words; and:
In the morning shall my prayer prevent Thee—except that, after the rest of sleep, being as we said above called back into this light as it were from darkness and death, we should dare to presume absolutely nothing for our own necessities out of all the offices of mind and body. For there is no other whom either the prophet has prevented in the morning, or whom we ought likewise to prevent, except either our very selves—that is, our occupations and affections and mortal cares, without which we cannot be—or the most subtle suggestions of the enemy, which he strives to introduce to us, while we still repose and are sunk in sleep, through the phantasms of empty dreams, by which he may seize and entangle us as soon as we awake, so that, plucking off the richest of our firstfruits, he himself may be the first to gather them.
Wherefore we must take heed with all caution—if indeed we wish to fulfill the force of the aforesaid verse in deed—that a skillful vigilance may so guard the first risings of our morning thoughts that no hasty presumption of the envious enemy defile any of them and cause our firstfruits to be rejected by the Lord as now vile and common. For if he be not prevented by us through the ever-watchful circumspection of the mind, he, not laying aside the habit of his most wicked anticipation, will not cease daily to forestall us with his frauds.
And therefore, if we desire to offer to God firstfruits from the fruits of our mind that are pleasing and acceptable, we ought to expend no ordinary solicitude that we may keep all the senses of our body, especially in the morning hours, as most sacred holocausts of the Lord, in all things undefiled and untouched. This kind of devotion many even of the men of the world guard with the utmost caution, who, rising before light or at dawn, in no way entangle themselves in the familiar and necessary business of this world before, hastening to the church, they zealously consecrate to the divine sight the firstfruits of all their acts and works.
Furthermore, as to what you say—that in a different manner, that is, with six or seven weeks throughout several provinces, Lent is celebrated—one and the same reasoning and one and the same measure of the fasts is concluded by a differing observance of weeks. For those have prescribed for themselves the observance of six weeks who think that one must fast on the Sabbath day also. Therefore they discharge six fasts in a week, which, six times revolved, complete those same thirty-six days. There is therefore, as we have said, one reasoning and the same measure of the fasts, although they may seem to differ in the number of weeks.
But assuredly, since human carelessness had obliterated the reason of this matter, this season—in which, as has been said, the annual tithe is offered to God in thirty-six and a half fasts—received the name of Quadragesima (Lent). Perhaps it seemed that it ought to be reckoned by this term for this reason too, because Moses, or Elias, or our Lord Jesus Christ Himself are recorded to have fasted for forty days. To the sacrament of this number those forty years also, during which Israel abode in the wilderness, and likewise the forty stations by which it is described to have mystically passed through it, are not inaptly fitted. Or perhaps that very tithing rightly received the name of Quadragesima as it were from the usage of the toll-booth?
For thus is that public exaction commonly called, from which so great a portion of gain is assigned to the interests of the king, as the lawful tribute of Quadragesima is exacted from us also by the King of all ages for the use of our life.
Indeed, although it does not pertain to the proposed question, nevertheless, because the occasion of the narrative has presented itself, I do not think even this ought to be passed over: that our elders very frequently testified that on those days especially the whole race of monks is assailed, according to the ancient custom of the hostile nation, and is more sharply driven to migrate from their abodes—because, according to that likeness by which the Egyptians then oppressed the children of Israel with violent afflictions, now too the intellectual Egyptians strive to bow down the true Israel, that is, the people of the monks, with hard and miry works, lest, forsaking the land of Egypt through the quiet dear to God, we should wholesomely pass over to the wilderness of virtues; so that Pharaoh, raging against us, may say:
They are idle, and therefore they cry out, saying: Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord our God. Let them be oppressed with labors, and let them be busy about their works, and let them not be busy about vain words. For assuredly their vanity—the holy sacrifice of the Lord, which is offered only in the wilderness of a free heart—builds up the highest vanity: for religion is an abomination to the sinner.
By this law of Lent, therefore, he who is just and perfect is not bound, nor is he content with subjection to this slight canon, which the rulers of the churches assuredly established for those who throughout the whole space of the year are entangled in worldly delights or business, so that, being constrained by this in a sense legal necessity, they might be compelled to be free for the Lord at least on these days, and might dedicate to the Lord at least the tithes of the days of their life—all of which they had been about to devour as though they were certain fruits.
But the just, for whom the law is not laid down, and who expend on spiritual offices not that slight portion—that is, the tithe—but the whole time of their life, because they are free from the discharge of legal tithes, therefore, if an honorable and holy necessity supervening should constrain them, dare to relax that station of fasting without any dispute. For the scantiness of tithes is not diminished by those who have offered all their goods to the Lord together with themselves. This indeed he could not do without the utmost guilt of fraud, who, offering nothing voluntarily to God, is inexcusably compelled by the necessity of the law to pay his tithes.
Wherefore it is clearly proved that he cannot be perfect who serves the law—who either avoids those things that are forbidden or performs those things that are commanded—but that those are truly perfect who do not use even those things that are permitted by the law. And by this reasoning, whereas it is said of the Mosaic law: For the law brought nothing to perfection, we read that some of the saints in the Old Testament were nevertheless perfect, because, transcending the command of the law, they lived under evangelical perfection, knowing that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the unjust and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the wicked and defiled, and so forth.
It should indeed be known that this observance of Lent did not exist at all so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate. For they were not bound by the necessity of this precept nor, as though constrained by any legal sanction, shut in within the narrowest limits of fasting, they who enclosed the whole span of the year within one equal fast.
But when the multitude of believers, falling away from that apostolic devotion, began daily to brood over their own wealth, and no longer distributed it for the use of all the faithful according to the ordinances of the apostles, but, providing privately for their own expenses, strove not only to keep it but even to increase it—not content to follow the example of Ananias and Sapphira—then it seemed good to all the priests of that time to recall to the holy work, by a canonical injunction of fasting, those men who were entangled in worldly cares and, so to speak, almost ignorant of continence or of compunction, and, as it were,