In the Turin codex this sermon follows the preceding, and in the codex it is inscribed: Likewise also on Lent, Sermon XXIX. And it is noted in the same codex that Sermons 30, 31, 32, 33, and 34 have been lost. Now this one, which we next give, was relegated to the appendix to volume V of the works of Saint Augustine under number 144 by the Benedictine monks of the congregation of Saint Maur. These think it is to be attributed neither to Ambrose, nor to Jerome, nor to Augustine; nor, however, do they teach to whom at last it ought to be referred. But to ascribe it to Maximus we are moved by the authority of the Turin codex, of which we made mention a little before. Although this too may be added, that it seems to have been composed by the same author by whom the fourth On Lent was written.
But we have shown that the fourth On Lent published by us is to be adjudged to Maximus. There is present to us the venerable and healing time of Lent, dearly beloved, through which, fasting, we ought to cure the wounds of our sins. How great a good fasting is, then, let us set forth with examples added. Moses, when he had first fasted forty days and nights, deserved to receive the law of the Lord: for the fasts of one man obtained what the satiety of the whole people had despaired of. Let us therefore observe how great is the distance between fasting and satiety. Moses, who fasted, saw the Lord. The people, who ate and drank, fashioned idols (Exodus XXIV). But why do I speak of Moses and the multitude of Israel?
That prince of the human race, Adam (Genesis III), as long as he fasted, keeping the command of the Lord, was in paradise. But when he ate, he was cast out of paradise; and he who in the paradise of God had been a virgin, cast out of paradise, knew his wife. For lust is always joined to satiety. Food, therefore, cast us out of paradise; let hunger lead us back, let fasting lead us back. We have said what Saint Moses merited by fasting; then let us behold all the rest as well. Even the elements served Saint Elijah as he fasted. He, in short, for three years and six months shut up the heaven (IV Kings I). At his word, fire from above also descended.
And when Queen Jezebel wished to kill him, and, weary, he lay under a leafy tree in the solitude, an angel is sent to him, and says to him: Take a little bread and water (III Kings XIX). See how great is the clemency of God toward those who fast, dearly beloved. It was not enough that the Lord had sent an angel to the faster to bid him take food, but He also commanded that he flee farther from his pursuer. He says, therefore: Take a little bread and water. For he was about to journey through the desert as far as Mount Sinai on a fast of forty days. For could not the Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, whose is all creation, have sent a meal by an angel in the wilderness, as He sent one to Daniel in the lions' den by Habakkuk?
But God knew that His prophet could not otherwise overcome the tempting devil, unless, instructed by fasting, he should repel the temptations of the plotting enemy. Daniel too (Daniel XIV), that man acquainted with things to come, and conscious of the coming of the Lord, and the most manifest preacher of the overthrow of Jerusalem, was for this reason called a man of desires: because he ate not the bread of desire and drank not the drink of concupiscence, since he desired Christ more than feasts. John also, the forerunner of the Lord, is nourished in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey, is fed not on the flesh of animals, not on the sweetness of fowl.
He could indeed, being stationed beside the Jordan, have provided himself the delicacies of fish; but, about to preach penitence, he ought rather to show the rigor of fasting by his own example and by his deeds than by his voice. In the Gospel too (Matthew XVII), when a certain man full of a demon had been offered to the Lord, whom the apostles had been unable to cure, those who asked hear from the Lord that this kind cannot be cast out except by prayers and fastings. See therefore, brethren, how great is the power of fastings, that fastings can do what the apostles could not. I pass over the rest;
but let each one consider how great is the distance between fasting and satiety: between an empty belly and a stuffed one, between a ruddy face and pale features, between a fasting mouth and lips loosened with surfeit, between one weighed down with feasts and one kept watchful by the thinness of hunger. I do not speak of weeks, nor of doubled, nor of multiplied fasts, but let us pass even single days without an excess of foods. Let baths, wines, or meats cease—not that we judge the creature of God to be condemned; but let us, who have lived the whole year for ourselves, live at least a few days also for the Lord. But let our fasts, that they may be full and complete, be fattened with the richness of mercy. Let us give our bread to the hungry.
And let us not think that fasts alone suffice to heal the wounds of sins, unless they are restored by the medicine of almsgiving. Let your fasting therefore chasten you, but let it gladden another; and so your straits will be fruitful, if they afford breadth to another. Fast in such a way that you may rejoice to have dined in another who is eating: For God loves a cheerful giver (I Corinthians IX). For when the poor man eats of your goods, Christ dines, who testifies that He hungers in the poor man. Here it ends.