I. Dearly beloved to us, your faith admonishes us to bring forth the documents of religion. For we exhort you to fasting, which is to those who live rightly an increase of devotion, a wall of faith, the overthrow of depravity. We persuade you also that one must always abstain not only from foods, but from all vices. Be not prodigal in feastings nor arrogant in drunkenness; for it is written in Solomon: The body that is corrupted weighs down the soul (Wisd. IX, 15). And the Apostle also says: Make no provision for the flesh in your desires (Rom. XIII, 14). Abstain yourselves therefore in these days from secular cares and carnal desires. Let the body be chastened, that the soul be satisfied. For the spirit is strengthened when the flesh is made lean by frugality.
For by vices in food the present life is nourished, not the future, since luxury attends abundance of things. Take away from yourselves envyings, grudges, evil-speakings, contentions, and dissolve all the seeds of sins. Cut away the snares of violent deeds and the knotty arguments of calumnies. Offer to the needy and to the household of faith a lodging. Tear up unjust bonds, that you may celebrate, not only in body but also in spirit, the fasts pleasing to God. II. It behooves us also, by the seed of almsgiving, to hope for the fruits of our own fasting. For it is written: As water extinguishes fire, so almsgiving extinguishes sin (Ecclus. III, 33).
It must also be acted upon, that we be seen to abstain from sumptuous fare not out of zeal for avarice, but out of care for mercy. Let us give temporal things to the poor, that perpetual gifts may be furnished to us through their prayers. For by the exchange of a little bread and money, immunity from sins is conferred on us. It must also be known that, just as the Lord made many weak, so he made some poor, so that there might be a necessity of entreating the Lord — that you who have suffered none of these things may fear lest perhaps you suffer. Feed therefore, you who are sound, the weak, as an example of vicarious calamity. Feed therefore the poor man, O rich man, whose portion you have perhaps received from the Lord our God that you might feed him. Feed the hungry, lest his portion, withdrawn from you, be given to another who bestows it. Feed him who is dying of hunger;
for whosoever you were, who could have preserved a man by feeding him — if you have not fed him, you have killed him. III. Let the desires of the silent beggars be anticipated, since we read: Blessed is he who understands concerning the needy and the poor; in the evil day the Lord will deliver him (Ps. XL, 2). Let us therefore give nourishment to the needy before they ask, lest, crying out from too great necessity, they should seem to wring it from us who hesitate. Let us offer to them at least some portion of the heavenly gifts bestowed on us, lest, on account of our sloth, we render penal usuries to our creditor. Let us think of that rich man who, on account of crumbs of bread, begged a drop of water, and did not receive it. Let us call to mind that widow who, casting two mites into the treasury, offered to God the whole living that she had.
And let us also give to the brethren, even of that which is over and above for us. Nor indeed ought we to perform the divine commandments sadly and as hypocrites, but let us give thanks to God, the author of our bounty, that, praying assiduously, we may furnish to the needy the substance of temporal life, so that we may obtain eternal life, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen. I.
After that first and universal ruin of human transgression, by which through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death (Rom. V, 12), no one would now escape the dominion of the devil, no one the chains of dire captivity, nor would reconciliation unto pardon, or return unto life, lie open to anyone, unless the Son, God, coeternal and in all things coequal to God the Father, had deigned to be also the son of man, and for the redemption and salvation of all men had been hung carnally upon the cross.
For this was the cause of the redemption and salvation of the whole human race, that God himself truly suffered in man, and truly died, and truly rose again from the dead, and that he might open the gates of the heavenly kingdom to men who believe in him and who die in his will, and that he might redeem us from eternal death and punishment. For he bore for us many and diverse injuries, not as exacted by his own faults — he who never committed any sin — but only by our necessity; because we were bound with such hard chains, and rolled down into so deep an abyss of death, that, unless by his immense clemency, and by his human passion and death, we could not be absolved.
Unless he himself had redeemed us with his precious blood, unless he himself by his death had taken away from us eternal torments, unless he himself had broken the powers of the devil, and had led us with himself to the heavenly kingdoms, and had granted to us all, who are willing to remain in his will, a sweet and light way to the heavenly kingdoms. II. Wherefore, dearest brethren, what must be done by us for such great benefits of God, except that we die to the world and to its concupiscences, mortifying in ourselves carnal desires in vigils, in fasts, in chastity, in the endurance of adversity, in the perseverance of all goodness, and continually commend ourselves to God in prayers?
By repenting, by lamenting, and by confessing our sins, and by redeeming ourselves from eternal torments by almsgiving, so that, thus supported by the divine aid, we may be made worthy to remain in eternal blessedness there where the merciful Lord our God has by his death brought us back, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, to whom be honor and glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.