Nor can anyone easily drive out unclean spirits from himself except through abstinence from gluttony. For then the enemies who are outside us are more strongly overcome by us, when first the vices that are within us are extinguished. For in vain does he wage war outside who has danger within. Not the quality of foods, but the concupiscence of them is to be guarded against. For often more carefully prepared foods are tasted without the concupiscence of gluttony, and often abject and cheap ones are taken with the desire of eating. And so it comes to pass that the quality of foods is not at fault, but that is reckoned a vice which is tasted with desire. There are four kinds of distinctions in the appetite of gluttony, that is, what, when, how much, and how it is desired.
'What' pertains to the very thing that is desired. 'When,' if something is desired before the lawful time. 'How much,' indeed, refers to immoderation. 'How' is ascribed to the impatience of haste. No exactor is so importunate to a man as the belly, which fulfills its daily refreshment by the daily exaction of hunger. For with the other vices, although we are sometimes born, yet we sometimes do not die with them; but with this one we are both born, and with this one we die. Very often the pleasure of eating creeps in under the pretext of necessity, so that while it is thought to serve necessity, one serves the desire of pleasure; nor is it easily discerned whether what is taken is to be attributed to gluttony or to need. Concerning drunkenness.
Food begets surfeit, drink begets drunkenness. Drunkenness, moreover, begets the perturbation of the mind, the frenzy of the heart, the flame of lust. Drunkenness so alienates the mind that it knows not where it is. Whence even the evil which is committed through drunkenness is not felt. It is true that, according to the prophet, fornication and drunkenness take away the heart. For fornication, as Solomon says, infatuates the wise man. Drunkenness, as in the case of Lot, takes reason captive of its senses. Whence also in Proverbs it says: 'Let the powerful, who are prone to wrath, not drink wine, lest, when they have drunk, they forget wisdom.' To many it is a matter of praise to drink much and not be made drunk. Let these hear the prophet speaking against them:
'Woe to you who are mighty to drink wine, and strong men to mingle drunkenness.' Those given to much wine and living luxuriously, Isaiah thus reproves, saying: 'Woe to you who rise up early in the morning to pursue drunkenness and to drink until evening, that you may be inflamed with wine.' Of such it is said in another place: 'Woe to you, O city whose king is a boy, and whose princes eat in the morning.' For many, from morning until the setting of the sun, serve the pleasures of drunkenness and gluttony, and do not understand why they were born; but held by a beastly habit, they give themselves over the whole day only to luxury and feasting. The prophet Joel cries out to those who serve drunkenness, saying:
'Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and howl, all you who drink wine in sweetness.' By which testimony he does not merely say, 'Weep, all you who drink wine,' as though it were altogether unlawful to drink, but he added, 'in sweetness,' which pertains to voluptuous and prodigal outpouring. For as much as suffices for necessity, the apostle teaches Timothy to drink, saying: 'Use a little wine.' Men are made drunk not only by wine, but also by the other kinds of drink, which are prepared in various ways. Whence also to the Nazarites, who sanctified themselves to the Lord, it was commanded not to drink wine and strong drink. For both overturn the state of the mind and make men drunk; both likewise equally beget the luxury of the flesh.
Certain continent men, just as they eat bread by weight, so also take water by measure, asserting that even abstinence from water befits the chastity of the flesh. Concerning abstinence. This is the perfect and reasonable fast: when our outer man fasts, the inner man prays. More easily does prayer penetrate heaven through fasting. For then a man, made spiritual, is joined to the angels and more freely united to God. Through fasting also the hidden things of the heavenly mysteries are revealed, and the secrets of the divine sacrament are laid open. For thus Daniel, by the angel's revealing, deserved to know the mysteries of the sacraments. For this virtue displays both the manifestations of the angels and their announcements.
Fasts are strong weapons against the temptations of the demons. For quickly they are vanquished through abstinence. Whence also our Lord and Savior forewarns us to overcome their assaults by fastings and prayers, saying: 'This kind is not cast out except by prayer and fasting.' For unclean spirits cast themselves in the more where they see more food and drink. The saints, as long as they dwell in the life of this age, carry their body dry with a longing for the heavenly dew. Whence also the psalm says: 'My soul has thirsted for you, and how manifoldly my flesh also.' For the flesh then thirsts for God when through fasting it abstains and grows dry. Abstinence both gives life and slays; it gives life to the soul, it kills the body.
Often abstinence is feigned, and fasts are performed through hypocrisy. For some men rend their own bodies with astonishing starvation, disfiguring their faces—as the Gospel says—that they may appear to men to be fasting. Their mouths grow pale, their bodies are worn away, they draw deep sighs from the heart, and even before death they hand themselves over to deadly torments; yet this wretched exercise of toil they pursue not for the love of God, but solely for the admiration of human praise. (44.6) Some abstain to an incredible degree, that they may appear holy to inquisitive men; but in such men this good of abstinence is to be reckoned not a virtue but a vice, because they make an evil use of what is good. (44.7)
Fasting and almsgiving love to be hidden, so that God alone, who beholds all things, may repay the merit of good works. For those who perform them for public display are in no way justified by God, because, according to the word of the Gospel, they have received their reward from men. Fasts, together with good works, are acceptable to God. But those who abstain from foods and yet act wickedly imitate the demons, who take no food and yet are ever engaged in evil. For that man abstains rightly from foods who also fasts from deeds of malice and from the ambitions of the world. Those who withdraw themselves from eating flesh out of a zeal for cursing it rather than by a vow of abstinence, these are the more to be cursed, because they reject a creature of God granted for human use.
For to the faithful nothing is judged defiled and nothing unclean, as the apostle Paul bears witness: To the pure all things are pure; but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are polluted. That fast is despised which at evening is restored by a filling with foods. For no abstinence is to be counted where a glutting of the belly has followed after. That fast is despised which at evening is compensated by delicacies, as the prophet Isaiah says: Behold, on the day of your fasting your own pleasure is found. For by pleasure delicacies are understood. For just as the exacting of a debt, and quarrels, and strife, and blows, so also delicacies are disapproved by the prophet in a fast.
For he ruminates upon feasting in his thoughts the whole day long, who prepares delicacies for himself at evening to satisfy his gluttony. Immoderate abstinence must not be applied to the body, lest, while the flesh is more heavily burdened by the weight of fasting, it should afterward neither do evil nor begin to do good, and that which is bound over that it may lack the practice of evil should at the same time, while it is pressed too hard, lose also the service of good. Therefore the substance of the flesh must be governed with careful discretion, namely that it be neither utterly extinguished nor immoderately relaxed. When too great a weakness of the flesh prevails, no one can attain to perfection; for however much love of holiness a man may have, he is nevertheless unable to carry out the merit of the work to whose intention he strives to devote himself with his heart.
Too great a debility of the body also breaks the powers of the soul, and makes the mind's faculty grow feeble, nor is it able to accomplish any good through its infirmity. "Nothing in excess"; for whatever is done with measure and moderation is wholesome, but whatever is beyond measure and excessive becomes ruinous and turns its own zeal into its opposite. In every work, therefore, one must keep measure and moderation. For everything that goes to excess is dangerous, just as water which, if it supplies too great rains, not only affords no use but even presents a danger. Here ends the Second Book.