We are taught by Gennadius that Saint Maximus delivered a discourse on the special fast of Lent, and that during it there ought to be no jesting. Not the same title, but one very close to it, we found in two most celebrated codices, 90 and 99, of Holy Cross in Jerusalem, prefixed to the sermon which we are now about to bring forth. For they read: Likewise the following, and that in the time of fasting one must not indulge in luxury. In the older codex, 90, it is sermon 38, and in the other, 99, sermon 36. For no one is ignorant that the word luxuriare means the same as to be at leisure for delights and jests. But the Turin codex, whose testimony we bring forward in confirmation, uses this heading: Likewise also on Lent, Sermon 10. The Benedictine monks of the congregation of Saint Maur reported this sermon in the appendix to sermon §.
They reported it under Augustine, number 146, in the Antwerp edition of 1700, page 181, remarking that in a certain Remigian codex, and in the editions, it is attributed to Ambrose, and that it seems to them to smack of Caesarius, since he inveighed rather sharply against hunters. But although we have often professed to hold the opinion of most learned critics in high esteem, nevertheless the consensus of the most excellent codices and of Gennadius seems to us preferable to these. And we make no difficulty over what they say of Caesarius; for it is well enough known and understood that many writers have treated of the same matter.
We said last Sunday that this is the first work of our faith, that in the course of these forty days we should fast most devoutly, and that this is the cause of our salvation, if at this time we lend our labour to abstinence; and therefore, most beloved brethren, we ought to examine what is the form of this fast, that we may consider how great is its usefulness. For there is sometimes a fast useless and empty, which, though it exhaust the belly and all the inward parts of the juice of satiety, is nevertheless not acceptable to God, because it in no way empties the mind and the innermost senses of the bond of iniquity. For what does it profit to fast in food and to run riot in hunting; to abstain from meats, and to stray into sins?
To chastise the body with fasting, not to drink strong wine, and yet to go about drunk with the thought of malice? Except that the case of the sated or the drunken is easier than that of one who is at once unjust and fasting. For he who sometimes falls asleep drunk at least sometimes ceases to sin; but this man ceases not to stray, who, exercised in evil, is ever wakeful for his fasts. Whence such a fast is useless and empty, which weakens the members' strength and does not free the soul from perdition; concerning which fast the holy prophet says in the person of the Lord: Do you fast thus for me? Not such a fast have I chosen, says the Lord (Isaiah 58).
Do you think, brethren, that he fasts who at first dawn keeps vigil not at the church, seeks not out the holy places of the blessed martyrs, but rising gathers his servants, sets out the nets, brings forth the dogs, ranges over glades and woods; drags with him, I say, his servants, who perhaps rather desire to come to the church, and heaps up upon his own pleasures the sins of others, not knowing that he will be guilty both of his own offence and of the ruin of his servants? He lingers therefore the whole day at the hunt; now uttering an immoderate shout, now silently enjoining silence; glad if he has caught something, angry if he has lost what he did not have: and he carries on with such zeal, as if the fast had been enjoined for this very purpose, that he might hunt.
In such luxuries, then, brethren, tell me, what worship of God can there be, what devotion of mind, in him who fasts for this purpose, not that he may be at leisure for God and for prayers, but that all day, idle and free, he may exercise his own pleasures? Although, therefore, you who are of such a sort, brother, return home in the evening, although you eat only when the sun is already declining, you may seem to have refreshed yourself rather late, yet not to have fasted for the Lord. For you cannot be seen to have done the Lord's will while exercising your own pleasure. For this is the will of the Lord, that we fast from foods and from sins alike. We enjoin abstinence upon the body, that we may the more be able to withhold the soul from vices. For an exhausted body is a kind of bridle upon a luxuriating soul.
For whoever fasts and sins is seen to have made a gain of food, not of salvation; and by sparing his supplies to have filled his storeroom, not to have fattened his mind with virtues. But some, forgetful of the precepts, so exercise the power of domination over their servants and those subject to them, that in these days they do not hesitate to beat them with scourges, to afflict them with punishments, to fetter them with shackles; and if perchance, when the time for refreshment comes, the servant is too slow in attending, at once they mangle him with blows, and sate themselves with the servant's blood before the pleasure of the banquet. Such is the fast of these men: it is a fast undertaken not that it might call forth the mercy of the Godhead, but that it might pour out the outcry of the groaning household.
But whoever desires to deserve mercy from God ought himself first to be merciful. For it is written: With what measure you have measured, with the same measure shall it be measured back to you (Luke 6). And, what is more to be lamented, a Christian master in these days does not spare his Christian servant, in no wise regarding that, though the man be a servant by condition, yet by grace he is a brother. For he likewise brings in Christ, he shares in the same sacraments;
he uses the same God as Father whom you too use; why does he not use you as a brother? For there are very many who, returning from the hunt, take more care of their dogs than of their servants, and make them recline or sleep beside themselves, ministering to them their daily food by their own presence, while they know not whether their servants are dying of hunger: and, what is graver, unless food has been diligently prepared for these dogs, the servant is treated worse than a dog. For you see in the houses of some sleek and fat dogs running about, while men go about wretched and staggering. Will these men, then, ever have mercy on the poor, who have no mercy upon their own household servants?
We ought therefore to know, brethren, that this is the fast acceptable to God, if we not only chastise the body with abstinence, but also clothe the soul with humility. Let us be gentle to our servants, kindly to strangers, merciful to the poor; rising at first dawn let us hasten to the church, let us render thanks to God, let us ask pardon for our sins, entreating indulgence for past offences and caution for those to come; the whole day long let there be for us assiduous prayer or reading. Let him who knows not letters, seeking out a holy man, be fed by his conversation. Let no acts of the world hinder the acts of the Godhead; let no game of dice call away the mind, let no delight in dogs cloud the senses, let no gain of business pervert the soul with greed.
For whatever you do contrary to the commandment of God, though you abstain, you do not fast. For this is the saving fast, that as the body abstains from feasts, so also the soul is restrained from vices. This too, brethren, must not be passed over in silence for the perfection of the fast: that we who abstain, and eat no midday meal at this time, should give our meals beforehand to the brethren and the poor. For this is true justice, if, while you hunger, the poor man is filled from your food, and you, fasting, entreat the Lord for your offences, and he, filled, prays for you. Both will profit you: both your hunger and the satiety of the beggars.
For the rest, he who so abstains that he bestows nothing on the poor from his own meals is seen to have made his fast a gain for himself and to have carried on a business by sparing. For to this end he abstained, not that he might please God, but that he might not spend more; and therefore good almsgiving joined with fasting is, as it were, a certain kind of trade, so that a man lives so sparingly that in his abstinence he outdoes monks and clergy. Except that there is this difference: that they do this for the sake of gain, we for salvation; they waste away their souls for the profit of money, we chastise our bodies for the gain of our souls. It is finished.