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On Fasting

Chapter VII.--Further Examples from the Old Testament in Favour of Fasting.

And thus we have already proceeded to examples, in order that, by its profitable efficacy, we may unfold the powers of this duty which reconciles God, even when angered, to man.

Israel, before their gathering together by Samuel on occasion of the drawing of water at Mizpeh, had sinned; but so immediately do they wash away the sin by a fast, that the peril of battle is dispersed by them simultaneously (with the water on the ground). At the very moment when Samuel was offering the holocaust (in no way do we learn that the clemency of God was more procured than by the abstinence of the people), and the aliens were advancing to battle, then and there "the Lord thundered with a mighty voice upon the aliens, and they were thrown into confusion, and fell in a mass in the sight of Israel; and the men of Israel went forth out of Mizpeh, and pursued the aliens, and smote them unto Bethor,"--the unfed (chasing) the fed, the unarmed the armed. Such will be the strength of them who "fast to God." ¹ For such, Heaven fights. You have (before you) a condition upon which (divine) defence will be granted, necessary even to spiritual wars.

Similarly, when the king of the Assyrians, Sennacherib, after already taking several cities, was volleying blasphemies and menaces against Israel through Rabshakeh, nothing else (but fasting) diverted him from his purpose, and sent him into the Ethiopias. After that, what else swept away by the hand of the angel an hundred eighty and four thousand from his army than Hezekiah the king's humiliation? if it is true, (as it is), that on hearing the announcement of the harshness of the foe, he rent his garment, put on sackcloth, and bade the elders of the priests, similarly habited, approach God through Isaiah--fasting being, of course, the escorting attendant of their prayers. ² For peril has no time for food, nor sackcloth any care for satiety's refinements. Hunger is ever the attendant of mourning, just as gladness is an accessory of fulness.

Through this attendant of mourning, and (this) hunger, even that sinful state, Nineveh, is freed from the predicted ruin. For repentance for sins had sufficiently commended the fast, keeping it up in a space of three days, starving out even the cattle with which God was not angry. ³ Sodom also, and Gomorrah, would have escaped if they had fasted. ⁴ This remedy even Ahab acknowledges. When, after his transgression and idolatry, and the slaughter of Naboth, slain by Jezebel on account of his vineyard, Elijah had upbraided him, "How hast thou killed, and possessed the inheritance? In the place where dogs had licked up the blood of Naboth, thine also shall they lick up,"--he "abandoned himself, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and slept in sackcloth. And then (came) the word of the Lord unto Elijah, Thou hast seen how Ahab hath shrunk in awe from my face: for that he hath shrunk in awe I will not bring the hurt upon (him) in his own days; but in the days of his son I will bring it upon (him)"--(his son), who was not to fast. ⁵ Thus a God-ward fast is a work of reverential awe: and by its means also Hannah the wife of Elkanah making suit, barren as she had been beforetime, easily obtained from God the filling of her belly, empty of food, with a son, ay, and a prophet. ⁶

Nor is it merely change of nature, or aversion of perils, or obliteration of sins, but likewise the recognition of mysteries, which fasts will merit from God. Look at Daniel's example. About the dream of the King of Babylon all the sophists are troubled: they affirm that, without external aid, it cannot be discovered by human skill. Daniel alone, trusting to God, and knowing what would tend to the deserving of God's favour, requires a space of three days, fasts with his fraternity, and--his prayers thus commended--is instructed throughout as to the order and signification of the dream; quarter is granted to the tyrant's sophists; God is glorified; Daniel is honoured; destined as he was to receive, even subsequently also, no less a favour of God in the first year, of King Darius, when, after careful and repeated meditation upon the times predicted by Jeremiah, he set his face to God in fasts, and sackcloth, and ashes. For the angel, withal, sent to him, immediately professed this to be the cause of the Divine approbation: "I am come," he said, "to demonstrate to thee, since thou art pitiable" ⁷ --by fasting, to wit. If to God he was "pitiable," to the lions in the den he was formidable, where, six days fasting, he had breakfast provided him by an angel. ⁸

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De ieiunio adversus Psychicos

VII.

1. Processimus itaque iam ad exempla, uti reuoluamus utilitatis efficacia potestates istius officii, quod etiam iratum deum homini reconciliat. Deliquerat Israel in aquatione apud Maspha congregatus a Samuele, sed ita statim delictum ieiunio diluit, ut periculum proelii simul fugerit. Cum maxime Samuel offerebat holocaustum (in nullo magis procuratam audimus dei clementiam quam in abstinentia populi) et allophyli proelio admouebant, ibidem dominus intonuit uoce magna super allophylos, et confusi sunt et corruerunt in conspectu Israelis, et processerunt uiri Israel ex Maspha et persecuti sunt allophylos et usque Bethor ceciderunt, pastos impasti, armatos inermes. 2. Hae erunt uires ieiunantium deo. Caelum pro eiusmodi militat. Habes formam praesidii etiam spiritalibus bellis necessariam. Perinde cum rex Assyriorum Sennacherib compluribus iam ciuitatibus captis Israeli per Rapsacen blasphemias et minas intentaret, nihil aliud illum a proposito in Aethiopias auertit. 3. Dehinc quid aliud centum et octoginta quatuor milia de exercitu eius per angelum absumpsit quam Ezechiae regis humiliatio? Siquidem duritia hostis adnuntiata uestem scidit, saccum induit eodemque habitu seniores sacerdotum ad deum per Esaiam adire iussit utique ieiunio preces prosequente. Neque enim cibi tempus in periculo nec saturitatis cultis in sacco. 4. Semper inedia maeroris sequela est sicut laetitia accessio saginae. Per hanc maeroris sequelam et inediam etiam ciuitas illa peccatrix Niniue de exitio praedicato liberatur. Satis enim paenitentia scelerum commendauerat ieiunium triduo functam, etiam pecudibus enectis, quibus iratus deus non erat. Sodoma quoque et Gomorra euasissent, si ieiunassent. Hoc remedium agnoscit et Achab. 5. Cum illi post transgressionem et idololatriam et necem Nabuthae propter uineam interempti a Iezabel exprobrasset Helias: qualiter occidisti et hereditatem possedisti: in loco quo sanguinem Nabuthae canes delinxerant, tuum quoque delinguent, destituit semetipsum et saccum carni suae imposuit et ieiunauit et dormiuit in sacco. Et tunc sermo domini ad Heliam: uidisti ut reueritus sit Achab a facie mea: pro eo, quod reueritus est, non superducam laesuram in diebus ipsius, sed in diebus filii eius superducam eam, qui non erat ieiunaturus. 6. Ita ieiunium in deum reuerentiae opus est, per quod Anna quoque ambiens uxor Helcanae retro sterilis impetrauit facile a deo inanem cibo uentrem filio implere et quidem propheta. Sed non modo naturae mutationem aut periculorum auersionem aut delictorum obliterationem, uerum etiam sacramentorum agnitionem ieiunia de deo merebuntur. 7. Aspice Danielis exemplum. Circa somnium regis Babylonis omnes turbantur sophistae, negant ultra de praestantia humana posse cognosci. Solus Daniel deo fidens et sciens, quid ad demerendam dei gratiam faceret, spatium tridui postulat, cum sua fraternitate ieiunat, atque ita orationibus commendatis et ordinem et significationem somnii per omnia instruitur, tyranni sophistis parcitur, deus glorificatur, Daniel honoratur, non minorem dei gratiam et postea quoque relaturus anno primo regis Darii, cum ex recogitatu praedicatorum temporum ab Hieremia dedit faciem suam deo in ieiuniis et sacco et cinere. 8. Nam et angelus missus ad eum hanc statim professus est causam diuinae dignationis: ueni, inquit, demonstrare tibi, quatenus miserabilis es, ieiunando scilicet. Si deo miserabilis, leonibus in lacu fuerat horribilis, ubi quidem illi sex diebus ieiunanti prandium angelus procurauit.