On Elijah and Fasting

A divine oracle resounded to the fathers, that when they went out to war they should sound the trumpet, at whose sound the Lord would remember his people, so as to grant the help asked, recognizing the more what moves his mercy; and that on the days of their gladness, at their new moons, they should sing together with the sound of trumpets. Hence David too says: 'Sound the trumpet at the beginning of the month, on the crowded day of your feast.' The day of our feast, then, will come, and it is already drawing near. Let us sound the trumpet as those going forth to battle; let us sound the trumpet to announce the day of the feast. At once both a contest threatens us and victory is promised us. Our victory is the cross of Christ; our trophy is the Pasch of the Lord Jesus. But he fought first, in order to conquer, not because he himself needed the contest, but to prescribe for us first the pattern of fighting and afterward to give the grace of triumph. Our contest is the fast. Indeed the Savior fasted, and so the tempter came to him. And first he aimed the dart of gluttony, saying: 'If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.' He held out food like the bait of a snare, so as to snare bodily appetite; the Lord preferred the fast, to undo the snares and the chains of the tempter. Indeed you have it written thus: 'Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.' By that snare Adam had been strangled; by this answer to the devil's question every man has been set free.

Great is the power of fasting; indeed it is so fine a warfare that it delighted even Christ to fast, so strong that it raised men to heaven. And to use human rather than divine examples: a voice sent from Elijah's fasting mouth shut heaven against the sacrilegious people of the Jews. For when King Ahab had set up an altar to an idol, at the prophet's word the dew of rain did not fall on the earth for three years and six months. A fitting punishment, to restrain intemperance suitably, that heaven should be shut to the ungodly who had polluted earthly things. Fitting too that, to the condemnation of the sacrilegious king, the prophet should be sent to the widow in Zarephath of Sidon, who, because she preferred devotion to food, deserved alone not to feel the hardship of the general drought. So the jar of meal did not fail, when the streams of the brook failed.

Why should I weave in the rest of his deeds? Fasting, he raised the widow's son from the dead; fasting, he brought down rain by his word; fasting, he brought down fire from heaven; fasting, he was snatched up to heaven in a chariot; and by a fast of forty days he gained the divine presence. Indeed he deserved more when he fasted more. With fasting mouth he stopped the streams of the Jordan and crossed the bed of the overflowing river, suddenly dried, with dusty step. Rightly the divine sentence judged him worthy of heaven, so that he was snatched up with his very body, since he lived a heavenly life in the body and showed on earth the practice of the life above.

For what is fasting but a heavenly substance and image? Fasting is the refreshment of the soul, the food of the mind; fasting is the life of angels, the death of guilt, the destruction of offenses, the remedy of salvation, the root of grace, the foundation of chastity. By this step one comes more quickly to God; by this step Elijah ascended before he did by the chariot; this inheritance of sober abstinence he left to his disciple as he went to heaven; in this virtue and spirit of Elijah came John. Indeed he too gave himself to fasts in the desert, and his food was locusts and wild honey. And therefore he who by continence had surpassed the capacity of human life was thought not a man but an angel. Of him we read: 'Even more than a prophet.' This is he of whom it is written: 'Behold, I send my angel before your face, who will prepare your way before you.' Who by human power could have mounted fiery horses and fiery chariots and steered chariots of the air, but one who had changed the nature of the human body by the power of incorruptible fasting?

But we have already set out a great deal about Elijah's deeds in frequent discussion in various books, and I think we must take care not to return to the same things, especially since he is praised in his own work. Let us imitate him, then, and seek that food by whose strength we may advance day and night to the knowledge of things above. For not all food is material, nor all nourishment bodily: there is a food of the mind, as we have said, on which souls feast, of which the Lord says: 'My food is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven.' This is the food of angels, that they serve the divine command. They have no concern with tables, no use of banquets, no stored-up dishes, no drinking of wine or strong drink, no distension of the body, no trouble of the belly.

So, lest anyone think fasting earthly or recent, the first use of the world began with fasting, when bright light shone forth. The second day was for fasting, when the firmament of heaven was made. On the third day the earth sprouted fodder, nature offered its service; yet the heavenly discipline kept the fast. On the fourth day the lights of sun and moon were made: and still a fast. On the fifth the waters brought forth creeping things of living souls and birds over the earth along the firmament of heaven, and God saw that they were good. And God blessed them, saying: 'Increase and multiply and fill the waters that are in the sea, and let the birds multiply on the earth': and still a fast. Indeed it is written that he blessed them and said: 'Increase'; he did not say: 'Eat and consume.' On the sixth day the beasts were created, and with the beasts arose the power of eating and the use of foods. Where food began, there an end was made of the world; there it began not to know its increase; there the divine works concerning it began to rest. By this sign it was declared that the world would be diminished by foods, by which it ceased to be increased. No one knew offense, no one feared punishment, no one knew death.

The Lord planted paradise for the grace of the blessed, placed man there to work and guard it, and, so that we may know that fasting is not recent, he first established there a law about fasting; for he knew that guilt would enter through food. The first punishment concerned transgression of the fast, the command of God saying: 'Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; on the day you eat of it you shall die the death.' Until then no one knew how to transgress, so much so that she who first transgressed the prohibition of abstinence had not yet been born. The law is from the Lord God, the transgression of the law from the devil; guilt through food, hiding after food; the knowledge of weakness in food, the strength of firmness in fasting. Indeed, as long as they abstained from what was forbidden, they did not know they were naked; after they ate of the forbidden tree, they knew they had been stripped. Rightly, then, the woman, when she recognized the author of the guilt, being asked, said: 'The serpent persuaded me, and I ate.' The serpent urges gluttony, the Lord decrees fasting. Indeed he himself says: 'Fast and pray, that you may not enter into temptation.' So gluttony drove the ruler out of paradise, abstinence called the wanderer back to paradise.

'And God said: Behold, Adam has become like one of us.' God says this surely in mockery, not approval; that is: Did you think you would be like us? Because you wanted to be what you were not, you ceased to be what you were. So while you aspire to be above yourself, you have begun to be beneath yourself. Indeed he first clothed him with a tunic of skin, and then said: 'Behold Adam,' as if to say: Behold your clothing, behold your fitting garment; thus clothed you are seemly. Those who aspire to divine things are held worthy of such an adornment. Behold where your guilt has brought you; behold, now in this tunic of skin, like one of us, you have opened your eyes. Look around carefully: you see yourself naked, who thought yourself clothed.

Gluttony, then, makes us naked; fasts cover even those who have been stripped. Hence the Lord says: 'I covered my soul with fasting.' A good covering, which covers the soul too, so that it is not caught by the tempter, not stripped by the tempter. A good veil, which covers guilt: abstinence covers, grace covers; for 'blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.' Grace covers when it forgives and abolishes every error; abstinence covers when it overshadows vice and hides it with a sorrowful disposition and diminishes it by repentance. For fasting and almsgiving free from sin. Adam was covered with the veil of the virtues before he transgressed. But as one stripped by transgression, he saw that he was naked, because he had lost the garment he had. 'For in the days of your fasts,' it says, 'your morning light will rise for you, and your health will rise quickly, and righteousness will go before you, and the majesty of the Lord will surround you.' Light is a good garment. For it is written: 'Surrounded with light as with a garment.' A good garment, when the Lord surrounds and covers those who fast.

Noah was stripped when he became drunk; the devotion of his sons covered him. But he was stripped through ignorance, not intemperance; for wine was still unknown. At the beginning of the human race drunkenness was unknown. He himself first planted a vineyard: he gave it its nature, he did not know its power. So the wine did not spare even its own author. What wonder if, when the Lord himself praised his creatures, he too admired it? So when the grace of the gift he had found delighted him, the stronger creature tempted the old man's unaccustomed limbs; the new drink disturbed him. 'They slumbered,' it says, 'who mounted horses.' He mounted the pleasures of the body: and the just man fell asleep. But his drunkenness persuades us to sobriety. For Noah was drunk once; but when he recognized the evil of drunkenness, he tempered his discovery for a remedy and did not pour it out for vice. Hence the apostle says: 'Use a little wine because of your frequent illnesses.'

Before wine was discovered, freedom remained unshaken for all; no one knew how to demand the services of slavery from a sharer of his own nature. There would be no slavery today if there had been no drunkenness. Envy at a brother's preference had indeed crept in, yet reverence for a father's dignity still remained. Piety was wounded when drunkenness was laughed at. So wine harms not only those whom it tempts, but even more those before whose eyes the drunken limbs of the drunk are bared. Hence irreverent laughter is born, hence lust is inflamed, so that wine disturbs with much greater drunkenness those whose eyes and minds it has made drunk than those whose limbs it has laid low.

We read also that Lot's daughters made their father drunk on that mountain to which they had fled in fear of the fire of Sodom, and where they lived in a cave. Age, sex, solitude, and a place fitter for the lairs of wild beasts than for human dwellings agreed and conspired with drunkenness. So drunkenness was the origin of incest, the offspring worse than its very bad mother.

But Abraham did not serve wine at his banquet: he sacrificed a calf and offered butter and milk too to his angelic guests — he recognized the Lord of heaven, the author of the world — for he could not offer wine. And rightly the material of sin was absent there, where there was the remission of sins.

Indeed John, who announced him, neither ate bread nor drank wine; for one who announces Christ ought to keep himself apart from every incitement of the vices. Drunkenness, then, overcame holy Noah and also Lot, Abraham's nephew; the one of whom, while he fasted, survived the flood, the other the fire.

We know too that Moses sweetened the bitterness of the waters for the thirsting people, not wine. He for whom the rock spewed water could also not have lacked an abundance of wine. Indeed God said: 'You shall strike the rock, and water will come out, and the people will drink'; he did not say: 'Wine will come out for the people.' For it was dangerous to supply wine, which even the stronger could scarcely bear. Indeed Moses gave a law about fasting; he gave none about wine.

Nor did the loud voices, the lightnings and the stormy cloud, or smoking Sinai terrify him while he fasted. Nor would he have entered the cloud and heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire without danger to his life, had he not been fortified with the arms of fasting. For he fasted forty days on the mountain when he received the law from the Lord our God. And on the heights of the mountain the law was being given to Moses as he fasted; below, the sacrilegious transgression of the people, who were eating, was being kindled by the luxury of the feasters. Moved by that spectacle, Moses broke the tablets, judging it unfitting that the law should be given to a drunken people.

So drunkenness caused the tablets of the law, which abstinence received, to be broken. What else shall I say? Did not abstinence from wine make fruitful the barrenness of Samson's mother and make her a mother from barren? For according to the Lord's command she did not drink wine. Did not the Lord hear Hannah when she did not eat, and fasts loosen her infertility? The two <who> were born of them, one the strongest, the other the most observant, showed themselves worthy to seem long nourished in the bosom of fasting and poured forth, as it were, from a womb of abstinence. So the same Samson, who was begotten through his mother's sobriety, was avenged through the drunkenness of the foreigners who mocked him.

The prophet Elisha, who had learned frugality from his master, when he was feeding the sons of the prophets, loaded the tables with lumps of a wild vine and fulfilled the duty of hospitable kindness with unfit wild plants. When they were offended by their bitterness and could not eat, he tempered all that bitterness by sprinkling a little flour, emptying the poison of its strength by the gift of prophetic abstinence.

There is a certain substance in nature, which they call asbestos (amiantus), not easily consumed by any fire, which, when placed on the hearth, glows with fire, but when at once taken out of the flame shines clean as if washed with water. Such were the bodies of the Hebrew youths, which, transformed by fasting into the nature of asbestos, borrowed the heat of the fire not to their loss but to their grace. Indeed, when the fires of the furnace raged, so that the flame poured out more than forty cubits all around, consuming very many of the Chaldeans whom it found, who were supplying fuel to the fires with naphtha, pitch, tow, and brushwood, when they entered with fasting, the heat of the flames was dispersed, and in the midst of the furnace they at once began to be moistened with the breath of a cooling dew, so that not one hair of their head was burned, because fasts had nourished that hair too.

Daniel, the man of desires, by a fast of three weeks taught even the lions to fast. Cast into the den, his limbs hardened to the firmness of adamant by the solidity of abstinence, he lay open to no wound. Fasts had so bound him together that there could be no place for the bites of the beasts in his body. The lions kept their mouths shut, which the holiness of prophetic abstinence restrained, so that the beasts could not open them, bound by certain bonds of merit.

So fasting extinguished the power of fire, fasting stopped the mouths of lions, fasting made the waters of the sea solid, fasting dissolved the rock into springs of water; by the power of fasting the waves stiffened and the rock flowed, changed against their own nature.

And why should I use ancient examples, when fasting abounds also in the gifts of present graces? Who has ever damaged his house by fasting, who has diminished his means? To whom is luxury not suspect, to whom is abstinence not venerable? Whose bed has frugality assailed, whose modesty has drunkenness not wounded? Fasting is the teacher of continence, the discipline of modesty, humility of mind, chastisement of the flesh, the pattern of sobriety, the rule of virtue, the purification of the soul, the funding of mercy, the training of gentleness, the allurement of love, the grace of old age, the guard of youth; fasting is the relief of weakness, the nourishment of health. No one has fallen into indigestion by fasting, no one has felt a stroke of the blood through continence; rather, no one has not repressed and driven it back. It is a good provision for the journey, good for the whole of life, good at sea: it calms shipwrecks, it preserves food.

They say fasting is burdensome: let them answer who has collapsed from fasting. Many have breathed out their soul at dinner, very many while vomiting up a feast. What animal, finally, has lamented that fasting was the cause of its death? Through food the snare is not avoided; the hook lies hidden in food; food leads into the pit, food leads into the nets, food binds even birds with birdlime, food brings the fliers down to death. What dangers are there not because of the belly? Dumb animals know no crime and in this alone are punished as for a crime. Fasting is sobriety of mind. By it the senses are vigorous; in it judgments are weighed, at the banquet cups. Fasting guards discipline; poverty follows luxury. Luxury is the mother of famine, according to the prophetic saying. Fasting loves quiet, luxury restlessness; fasting sows leisure, luxury business.

Let the cooks' and floggers' knife take a holiday at some time. Let the caterer rest, who knocks at others' doors before daylight and wakes the sleepers as though some war were threatening. You see him troubled, you notice him panting. You ask the cause of the disturbance. 'My master is feasting,' he says; he is looking for where better wine is sold, where a tougher sow's womb is prepared, where a softer liver, where a fatter pheasant, where a fresher fish. He runs about here and there, and when he has found them, he hurries with the greatest speed, disturbs his sleepy master, auctions the prices. If the price of the fish has bothered him, he asserts that better ones are found nowhere, indeed that there are none. 'Yesterday a storm,' he says, 'today a tempest; I could hardly catch this one hiding. Many are crowding the market. If you give it back, another will give more, and what will you serve at dinner? This wine is from that vintage, these oysters gathered from that lake.' Such bidding takes place over each item; a kind of auction is held between the caterer and the feeder. Troubled, he knocks down his estate, and still asks for those by whom the rights over his goods are diminished.

There is a rush to the kitchen; there is a huge din, an uproar. The whole household is in commotion; all curse because no rest is given them. Give the cook rest at last; stay the cupbearer's right hand: it is stiff with the extreme frost. He works his hands in cold water; marbles are washed for others. They clean the floors soaked with wine and covered with fish bones. How many are wounded as they walk! At the very banquet there is the shouting of the feasters and the groaning of those being beaten. If something displeased your friends, they laugh; you are indignant. Let the house be silent for once from the many disturbances of those running here and there, from the sound of slaughtered animals; let it be free of smoke and the stench of half-singed things. You would think it not a kitchen but a butchery, a battle being waged, not a dinner being prepared: so everything swims in blood.

Gluttony is a bad mistress to serve, which always demands and is never filled. For what is more insatiable than the belly? Today it receives, tomorrow it demands. When it has been filled, continence is discussed; when it has digested, virtues are bidden farewell, and it seeks luxury. Among the cups philosophy is preached; among the philosophers wines are praised. 'Sleeplessness,' it says, 'and cholera and torture for the insatiable man.' He eats, and shortly after he repents of it.

His intemperance did not delight that rich man for long, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted splendidly every day, at whose gate lay that beggar Lazarus, full of sores, longing to be filled with what fell from the rich man's table. Shortly after, when he had died, placed in hell, he began to beg that the poor man might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, which was burning in the fire. Where are those plenties, where those drinking bouts? He thirsts who was drunk; he abounds who begged. At the very banquet, while they drink, they thirst, and when they are drunk, they drink more. As if a whirlpool were opened, wine is no longer drunk but poured in; the cup is not sipped but emptied.

'Thorns,' it says, 'grow in the hand of the drunkard,' because he wounds himself with his own hands, he himself casts sores into his breast. With these thorns he tears the garment of faith which he received and will not be able to keep his treasure; for 'every drunkard and fornicator will be in want and will clothe himself in the torn garments of folly.' And therefore the powerful are forbidden to drink wine, lest when they have drunk they forget wisdom.

Indeed the powerful men who were eager to hand themselves over to Holofernes, commander of the army of the king of the Assyrians, drank wine to drunkenness; but the woman Judith did not drink, fasting all the days of her widowhood except the solemnities of the feast days. Armed with these arms she went out and outwitted the whole army of the Assyrians. By the vigor of sober counsel she took off the head of Holofernes, kept her chastity, and won back victory. For she, girded with fasting, went before them in the camp of the enemy, while he lay buried in wine, so that he could not feel the stroke of the wound. So the fasting of one woman laid low countless armies of drunkards. Esther too, made

more beautiful by fasting — for the Lord increased the grace of a sober mind — freed her whole race, that is, the whole people of the Jews, from the bitterness of persecution, so that she made the king subject to herself, not inflamed with the heat of lust but turned by heavenly mercy, so that punishment was turned back upon the ungodly man and honor restored to the sacred altars. So she who fasted three days together and washed her body with water pleased more and won vengeance. But Haman, while he boasted himself at the royal banquet, paid the penalty of his drunkenness among the very wines.

Fasting, then, is a sacrifice of reconciliation, an increase of virtue, which has made even women stronger by an increase of grace. Fasting knows no moneylender, knows no principal of a loan; the table of those who fast does not smell of interest; a father's interest of one percent a month does not strangle the son of a continent man; the mortgaged rights of a sober man who has died do not harass his widow; the hall of one who fasts, sold off for debt, does not shut out the heir.

Fasting gives grace even to banquets. Dishes become sweeter after hunger which by constant use are tiresome and grow cheap by daily continuance. Fasting is the seasoning of food: the keener the appetite, the more pleasant the food. Thirst commends the cup. He who passes whatever he has drunk on to satiety and does not suspend it at his nose for judgment does not know how to seek out the charms of wine. By use even precious things degenerate; but what is hard to possess is pleasant to enjoy. The sun itself is more welcome after the night, light itself more splendid after darkness, sleep sweeter after wakefulness, health itself more pleasant after the trials of sickness. From the very founder of the world we have learned that grace is often heaped up by alternations. Hunger, then, is the patron even of the banquet, and the table becomes more welcome through fasts.

The mystical table too is gained by fasting, that table of which David says: 'You have prepared a table before me against those who afflict me.' It is acquired at the price of hunger, and that inebriating cup of the sobriety of the heavenly sacraments is sought by thirst. For the Lord said: 'You who thirst, go to the water, and whoever has no silver, go and buy and drink and eat.' And elsewhere he says: 'Behold, those who serve me will eat, but you will be hungry; behold, those who serve me will drink, but you will thirst.' Who are 'you' but those who drank before? Of them he said above: 'You prepared a table for demons and filled a cup for fortune.' If, then, holy fasts lead us to that venerable table, if by this hunger we purchase what is eternal, why do we doubt about what is in human use, that fasting makes this too more pleasant for us?

Not every hunger, however, makes an acceptable fast, but the hunger that is undertaken in the fear of God. Consider: in Lent one fasts on all days except the sabbath and the Lord's day. The Lord's Pasch brings this fast to a close. Now comes the day of resurrection; the elect are baptized, they come to the altar, they receive the sacrament. Thirsting, they drink with all their veins. Rightly each, refreshed with spiritual food and spiritual drink, says: 'You have prepared a table before me, and how glorious is your inebriating cup!' Not hunger alone, however, is sought, but the full discipline of fasting. Indeed it is said to others: 'For in the days of your fasts you find your own wills and goad all who are subject to you. Do you fast for lawsuits and quarrels and strike with fists? Why do I want such a fast, so that your voice is heard in shouting? This is not the fast I have chosen, nor the day for a man to humble his soul; not if you bend your neck like a hoop and spread ashes and sackcloth beneath you — not even so will you call it an acceptable fast. Not such a fast have I chosen, says the Lord.' We have heard which fast is rejected; now let us hear which is approved: 'But loose every bond of your injustice, undo the obligations of violent bargains, let the broken go free, and tear up every unjust contract. Break your bread to the hungry, and bring the needy who have no roof into your house. If you see one naked, cover him, and do not despise those of your own seed.' You see what the appearance and form of fasting are, what disposition of mind: that you give yourself to prayer, that you meditate on the law of God day and night.

The very appearance of the body is full of gravity. No flush of drunkenness spreads over the cheeks to offend the eyes of those who look, but the face shines venerable with a chaste pallor. Speech is graver, the eye more modest, the step steadier and more measured; for the motion of souls is often betrayed by a more agitated gait. The face is more intent, a kind of judge of its own thought and a silent interpreter of the heart, so that it neither puts on a show of sadness nor dissolves in uncontrolled laughter. Do not think this a superfluous part of our admonition, since Wisdom says in the gospel: 'But when you fast, do not become like the hypocrites, sad.' He said 'hypocrites' because by pretense they put on another's person, as on the stage those who sing tragedies stir up their emotions to fit the words of those whose persons they bear, so as to be angry, grieve, or exult. For these affect to seem to be fasting, wishing to be approved by men rather than by God, as the Jews used to do.

And therefore it is said to us: 'But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so as not to appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.' What is 'anoint your head'? The luxurious too say: 'Let us fill ourselves with wine and ointments.' For those who seek the charm of bodily fragrance anoint themselves with ointment; but those ointments usually stir the enticement of lust. The ointment of sobriety is another, of which the church says to the bridegroom: 'Your name is ointment poured out'; another is the oil by which the limbs and certain members of the soul grow rich. Hence David too says: 'You have anointed my head with oil'; this is the oil of gladness, with which Jesus Christ was anointed by God the Father, so as to excel above all his companions. With this he bids our head be anointed, so that every feigned sadness may be covered with the oil of gladness, lest you seem to sell your fast to men, lest you seem to be saddened in the salvation of your soul; for no one sad is crowned, no one gloomy triumphs. Anoint, then, your head, where the senses of the wise man are; for the eyes of the wise man are in his head. You are called to the mysteries and do not know; you will learn when you come. But remember this: 'Like ointment on the head that runs down on the beard': then you will know what it is to anoint your head, how you have pleased God, so that he opened his sacraments to you and gave you spiritual grace.

There is also another, mystical head. Which? Hear: 'The head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ.' Pour ointment on Christ, pour ointment also on his head; his head is God. That woman, bearing the type of the church, who poured ointment on his head, confessed his divinity; and she who poured it on his feet confessed his passion. Both are praised: you too do what you may be praised for, so that you may receive the remission of sins. Wash your face, cleanse your sinful soul, wash your conscience. For the face is often the index of the conscience and a kind of silent speech of the mind, when we are either pricked by sin or rejoice in integrity. Do not disfigure this face; wash it and rinse away all the filth of your conscience. He disfigures his face who bears one thing in his heart and shows another outside. Let us not cover ourselves as with a kind of curtain: let what is within shine outside, let what is outside work within. Let no one shut guilt up in his fast; let him bear innocence purely; for fasting is the slayer of guilt.

Let no one prefer sweet things to bitter ones. Pleasure seems sweet, fasting bitter. Let the sweet be removed by this bitter. Bitter things usually do even our bodies more good. For just as, when worms are born in the inmost bowels of children from undigested food, they cannot be killed unless a more bitter drink is poured in or the harsher force of medicines takes effect, by whose smell they die, so the power of fasting, entering the depth of the soul, kills hidden guilt.

What made Esau his brother's servant? Was it not food sweet for the moment, bitter afterward? What gave Jacob lordship over his brother? Was it not contempt of food, more bitter for the time, but healthful for the rest? The very bodies are often puffed up by sweet things, and the liver is distended by honey, yet it is tempered by the bitterness of food. Therefore the riddle is not a mean one but a famous one: 'Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.' Others have: 'and out of the sad, sweetness' — the Greek manuscripts especially.

But perhaps the strong is also the laborious; for sweetness comes out of sadness or labor. Do not, then, boast when you fast. Do not glory, lest your fast profit you nothing; for things done for display do not extend their fruit to the future but consume the reward of the present. Elijah was in the desert, so that no one would see him fasting except the ravens alone, when they fed him. Elisha was in the desert, where no food was found except bitter. John was in the desert, where he found only locusts or wild honey. To those who fasted, meals were brought by the devoted ministry of angels. Daniel dined among fasting lions. He dined on another's dinner; the beasts did not touch their own. For those who fast, meals fly to them; for those who dine, the feet totter. For those who fast, manna came down from heaven; for those who feast, the guilt of transgression rises up.

But what is this? While I discuss fasting, I hear the din of banquets. Unless I am mistaken, my sermon smelled of dinner. The sound of the readings, then, invites us; examples of impatience do not frighten us. For the people that could not bear to wait for him who was fasting and bringing the things of the law 'sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.' We see that sacrilege was joined to drunkenness. For as continence is the mother of faith, so drunkenness is the mother of faithlessness. Into what crime does it not hurl men?

Men sit at the doors of taverns who have no tunic and no money for the following day. They judge emperors and authorities; indeed they think they reign and command armies. Those who are poor in truth become rich through drunkenness. They give gold, distribute money to the people, build cities, who have nothing with which to pay the innkeeper for their drink <except> their own bodies. For the wine boils in them; they do not know what they are saying. They are rich while they are drunk; soon, when they have digested the wine, they see that they are beggars. In one day they drink the labors of many days.

From drunkenness men rise to arms; weapons succeed cups. Blood is poured out instead of wine, and wine has shed blood itself. How strong men seem to themselves in wine, how wise, how eloquent! How handsome too and comely, when they cannot stand! The mind must totter, the tongue stammer, a bloodless pallor overspread the face, so that the stench of drunkenness is horrible. Barbarians rush to the sword, the common people to brawls. If one of them has been struck with a fist, you may see the wounded man shed tears of wine from his face and chant pitiable laments. Drunkenness has this one thing: it softens and loosens the hearts of the drunk; for as fire tests hard iron, so the heat of wine melts even the hearts of proud men.

All seem equal to themselves in wine; no one is inferior. The poor man does not yield to the rich, since he does not know he is poor; the weak not to the strong, since all his strength is in drinking; the beggar not to the wealthy, the low-born not to the honored, since the drinkers count as king the one who has surpassed the men in drinking. And rightly it is written: 'Wine in drunkenness is equal life to men.' But would that you heard what follows too: 'Drink it moderately, so that you may be sober.' You have nothing to accuse wine of. It was created for gladness, not for drunkenness, from the beginning. It is the exultation of soul and heart, if you drink moderately; but immoderate drinking rouses to anger and causes many ruins.

But perhaps they may say these are the drinking bouts of common and very light people. Let us come, then, to the banquets of these powerful and very strong men. I will not bring forward here perfumed youths or those crowned with roses, such as they say was that one who, dripping with perfumes, wreathed with flowers, leaning on harlots, drunk from drinking before dawn and accompanied by the daylight of candles, entered the lecture hall of a philosopher who was discoursing; and having heard him, they say, he gradually took off his garlands, wiped off the perfumes, said farewell to the prostitutes, and afterward turned out so great a philosopher that he who had before been the laughingstock of drunkenness became an example of sobriety. For I do not grudge them one reformed man, so as to show that the kind of luxury I describe is not invented by me. Certainly, if he came to his senses from wine, he was still always drunk with sacrilege.

Away, then, with slippery youths; we come to the banquets of warriors. Dinner must be taken among arms. Here are military attendants who serve, girded with gold, their loins supported by Babylonian belts; their necks shine with golden collars, they cover their girdles with golden studs, they sheathe their knives in golden scabbards, with which they fight when the food is to be divided. Boys stand by with gleaming hair, from a barbarian race, chosen for these uses, differing in the succession of their ages. You would see ranks of various peoples, you would think it a battle line drawn up; the silver vessels set out, you would think it a procession; a horn in the middle full of wine, an instrument not of battle but of banqueting, a trumpet to rouse those reclining to a contest.

First the battle is opened with smaller cups, as by skirmishers. But this is not a form of sobriety; it is a discipline of drinking. For just as tragic actors first raise their voice gradually until they open the passage of a moistened voice, so that afterward they can resound with great shouts, so these too at the beginning exercise themselves with preliminary cups, to provoke thirst, lest perhaps they quench it and, sated, be unable to drink afterward. So when things begin to grow warm, they call for larger cups; a martial fervor blazes up; thirst boils with the food, and when it seems lessened it is restored with stronger, less-mixed drink. The cups compete with the courses and are often sent back between bites. Then, as the drinking goes on further and more intensely, there are various great contests over who excels in drinking. It is a grave mark against anyone if he excuses himself, if he perhaps thinks the wine should be mixed with water. And this goes on until they reach the second tables.

But when the meal is finished, you would think it is time to rise: then they renew their drinking from the start; when they have finished, then they say they are beginning; then shallow bowls are brought, then the largest mixing bowls, like instruments of war. And lest you think this unmeasured, a measure is set out, they compete before a judge, the decision is made by law. Fury is their president of the games, weakness their pay, guilt the prize of victory. The doubtful outcome of the war hangs long in the balance; for that fury is warlike. The hands of the cupbearers pouring the wine give out, and the labors of the cooks serving hot dishes, and those who weigh out the very measures with careful scale so as to spill nothing; the drinkers do not give out.

These alone are contests without excuse. In war, if one sees himself inferior, he turns his arms away and earns pardon; here, if one turns his cup over, he is pressed to drink. In the wrestling pit, if one raises his hand, he has no share in the palm but is free from injury; at banquets, even if he withdraws his hand from the wine, it is poured into his mouth. All are made drunk; victors and vanquished all lie drunk, most asleep. Nor may they be carried to burial before the host sees himself avenged on all, so as to avenge his loss. But the one who does not feel the losses thinks this the glory of his table, if all go out from it wounded and injured as if from the arena.

A sad spectacle for Christian eyes and of a pitiable appearance! You may see young men, terrible in strength to their enemies, carried out of the banquet and carried back to the banquet, filled so that they may empty, and emptied so that they may drink. If anyone is more modest, so that he blushes to rise when he can no longer hold the immoderate drink, he pants more violently, groans, sweats, and betrays by signs what he is ashamed to confess. There each one relates his battles, there they proclaim their brave deeds, soaked in wine they tell of their trophies, and, loosened by sleep, they do not know in their minds what their tongues utter. Each one snores and drinks, sleeps and fights; and when at last they rise, the warriors cannot stand; they totter as they go out. The slaves laugh at their masters' disgrace; they carry the fighting soldier in their hands and put him on his horse. So they drift this way and that like ships without a helmsman and, as if struck by a wound, slide to the ground unless they are caught by the slaves. Others are carried back on shields; it becomes a procession of mockery. Those whom in the morning you had seen distinguished in arms, threatening in face, in the evening you may see laughed at with impunity even by little boys, wounded without iron, killed without battle, routed without an enemy, trembling without old age, wilting in the very flower of youth.

Who mixed such a cup of fury, who poured so much poison into minds? Man risks being mud from his body, and he himself is guilty of voluntary madness, of self-chosen corruption. Yet you too are not excused, who invite them as friends and send them out as enemies. How much better if you had poured your wine on the ground! But even the earth makes drunk, and makes even the wild beasts fiercer if the smell of wine has touched them. Indeed, if they enter a vineyard at vintage time, they are usually inflamed with drunkenness. Why do losses without grace delight you? You invite to gladness, you compel to death; you invite to dinner, you wish to carry out to the tomb; you promise food, you inflict torments; you offer wines, you pour in poisons. For everything that harms is poison. It takes away the senses, burns the inner organs, troubles sleep, afflicts the head.

Indeed the power of wine is greater than that of poison. Poison is driven out by wine, not wine by poison. Rightly God, through Moses, compared wine not only to poison but even to the poison of dragons, saying: 'Their wine is the fury of dragons and the incurable wrath of asps.' And he added well 'incurable'; for many are cured of the rest of serpents' poison, no one of drunkenness. Certainly by poison the flesh is wounded, the mind is unharmed; drunkenness adds to the death of the body the crime of the mind as well. Notice too that the poison of faithlessness is declared under the name of wine. For he says above of the foreigners who did not know God: 'For their wine is of the vine of Sodom, and their vine is the vine of Gomorrah; their grape is a grape of gall, a cluster of bitterness in them.'

You think that, as if drunk with wine, I have intemperately mixed this discourse into my preaching on fasting: yet how much I have passed over on account of these very strong men, how much less have I said than the Lord has spoken! You have heard what he said through Moses; hear what is written in the book of the words of Isaiah. For the Lord inveighs against men of this kind and says: 'Woe to those who rise in the morning and pursue strong drink, who are drunk in the evening; for wine will burn them. For with cithara and psaltery and drums they drink wine, but they do not regard the works of God and do not consider the works of his hands.' 'To whom woe,' it says, 'to whom judgments, to whom tumult?' Different things to each, all things to drunkards. For woe to those who are drunk in the evening! What, then, of those who are soaked even before evening and often until daylight? So contests have their due woe. They join lawsuits, leap into slaughter, come to judgment or are summoned. So they also have judgments as defendants. Sometimes a more serious tumult arises, because the drunkard's mind is perverted by wine: 'and he does not remember king or magistrate,' as it is written, 'and makes everything speak in talents.' 'And when they have drunk they do not remember friendship or brotherly kinship. But after the tumult they take up swords, and when they have been drowned by wine and have risen, they themselves do not remember what they have done.' So they have a fitting reward for the tumult too.

I had certainly passed over the cithara, psalteries, and drums, which we know are often brought into banquets of this kind, so that lusts may be roused by wine and song. Many even, in the Persian manner, order women fit for the company of drunkards to be brought in, and receive the bowls from them and lie down beneath them as they sit. And they hold this rite as a sacred observance, the service of drunkenness. The barbarians, then, have wine too: the Romans gladly indulge them in it, so that they themselves may be loosened in drink and, enervated by drunkenness, be conquered. Nor does wine alone cause drunkenness, but strong drink too. Indeed the Hebrews call every drink that intoxicates by the name sicera.

Not without reason, then, is there woe to those who seek the drink of drunkenness in the morning, who ought to give praises to God, anticipate the light, and meet with prayer the sun of righteousness, who visits his own and rises for us, if we rise for Christ, not for wine and strong drink. Hymns are being sung by the devout, and you hold a cithara? Psalms are being sung, and you take up a psaltery or a drum? Rightly woe, because you abandon salvation and choose death. It is scarcely dawn, and already they are running through the taverns. Wine is sought, carpets are shaken out; they hurry to spread the couch, they set out silver flagons and gilded cups.

'Woe,' it says, 'to those who seek these things!' 'Babylon is a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, making all the earth drunk. All the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore they have been shaken. And suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken.' The golden cup, then, has been broken, because Babylon, which is the golden cup, has been broken. But though she boasts of gold and value, she too is in the Lord's power. Indeed she is broken by divine indignation. Why a golden cup? Because one who lacks truth seeks enticement, so that at least a precious appearance may entice some to drink.

Set before your eyes the pomp of this world: you see a fine-looking enticement, but an empty charm. Let not vessels of gold and silver lead you on; we too have a treasure in earthen vessels. The apostolic vessel is earthen, but in it is the treasure of Christ. Woe to those who pursue strong drink in the morning! This vessel is golden, it is a cup: in that cup is the poison of death, the poison of lust, the poison of drunkenness. Whoever drinks it is shaken and falls. He is shaken not only in body but also with a troubled heart; for to be shaken belongs to sin.

Indeed Cain, going out from the sight of God, dwelt in the land of Nod, which by interpretation signifies 'commotion.' So one who is made drunk by the golden cup is moved by sin. Why do you place yourself under the curse of that fratricide Cain, so that you tremble and are moved? But the persecutors of the Lord too, passing by, shook their heads; for an evil spirit drove them, which is accustomed to move the bodies it has filled. And that trembling stops when the spirit departs, but drunkenness gives a perpetual trembling. The bodies of drunkards sweat wine; if you touch them lightly, you squeeze out wine.

Drunkenness is the fuel of lust, the incitement of madness, the poison of folly. It changes men's senses and forms. Through it men become neighing horses, since, inflamed by the natural heat of a warm body and, beyond nature, by the heat of wine, they cannot restrain themselves and are roused to bestial lusts, so that they keep no prescribed time at which it is fitting to indulge in intercourse. They lose their voice, change color, their eyes burn, they pant with their mouths, they snort through their nostrils, they blaze into fury, they lose their senses. Hence dangerous frenzy, hence the heavy punishment of the stone, hence deadly indigestion, hence frequent vomiting of those who pour out half-eaten food with blood from their inner organs. I am lying if the Lord did not say the same things through Jeremiah, saying: 'Drink and be drunk and vomit, and you will fall and not rise.'

Hence too vain images, uncertain sight, unsteady gait. They often jump over shadows as if they were ditches. The earth sways for them; it seems suddenly to rise and tilt as if it were turning over. In fear they fall on their faces and grasp the ground with their hands, or they think themselves shut in by mountains coming together. There is a murmur in their ears like the crash of a tossing sea and shores resounding with the waves. If they see dogs, they think them lions and flee. Some dissolve in senseless laughter, others weep in inconsolable grief, others see irrational terrors. Awake they dream, asleep they quarrel. Life to them is a dream, and their sleep is long. They cannot be roused by any voices; however hard you think they must be goaded, unless they have come to their senses they cannot wake.

Hence Jeremiah rightly thinks such a man should be mourned as a superfluous creature. For what is a drunken man but a superfluous creature? So he says: 'As with the weeping of Jazer I will weep for you, O vine, because the city of Jazer is deserted,' and further on: 'There was wine in your presses: in the morning they did not tread, and at noon they did not make it.' Jazer means 'superfluous making' — for moderation is natural, whatever is beyond measure is reckoned superfluous — so is drunkenness, which is lamented with prophetic weeping. Hence the apostle says: 'Do not be drunk with wine, in which is luxury, but be filled with the Spirit.' There is, then, a drunkenness of guilt, and there is also one of grace. And perhaps this latter is more of nature than of grace, because, made in the image and likeness of God, we ought to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

What shall I say of the oaths of drinkers? Why mention the pledges which they think it wicked to violate? 'Let us drink,' they say, 'to the health of the emperors,' so that whoever does not drink is guilty of disloyalty; for he seems not to love the emperor who has not drunk to his health. O the homage of pious devotion! 'Let us drink to the health of the army, to the valor of the counts, to the health of our sons.' And they judge that these vows reach God, like those who bring cups to the tombs of the martyrs and drink there until evening; they do not believe they can be heard otherwise. O the folly of men, who think drunkenness a sacrifice, who suppose that drunkenness pleases those who learned by fasting to endure their passion!

How many we know who have come from an intemperate banquet to torture! While in drunkenness they contend over their command and promise themselves kingdoms and pledge honors to others, the unhappy men, who did not know what they were saying, were led to punishment. Hence many good judges did not think that what was said in drunkenness should be held as a crime. Many also use wine like the rack, and those from whom tortures do not extract the word of betrayal they test with drinking, so that they may betray the state of their country, the safety of the citizens, the plans of their defense; for courage often overcomes pain, but drink drives out faithfulness. I have known many, ulcerated by the cords, who denied their own name: who among the cups has hidden what he wished to keep secret?

Why should I recount what I have heard of a kind not of cup but of flood, by which wines are poured into men's mouths as through pipes or channels? Should I rather reckon these men or wineskins? Yet wineskins themselves, unless the pouring is moderate, often burst. Wines also run down into men's throats flowing through a horn, and if anyone takes a breath, a crime has been committed, the battle line broken: he is held to have been moved from his post. Water running down from Lebanon dissolves rocky cliffs; how do they think the force of streams of wine does no harm to the soft inner organs of drunkards?

They say too that elephants draw up a great deal of water with their trunk, yet are content with moderate drinking to quench their thirst; but if they have been cheated of their wage by some innkeeper, in indignation they fill the hollow of their trunk not to drink but to pour it out, and in sudden floods they drench the tavern of the man on whom they thought they should take revenge. Lakes are suddenly dried for drinking and suddenly poured out; everything swims. Who would not marvel that such huge bodies of beasts hold nothing superfluous?

But why do we speak of men, when even women, who ought to apply a more careful guard of sobriety to their chastity, drink to drunkenness? Then, getting up — women for whom it is not fitting even within the privacy of the house to be heard or seen by strangers — they go out in public with uncovered head and wanton face! The apostle bids women be silent even in church and instructs them to ask their husbands at home. These women in the streets lead shameless dances even in the sight of men, under the gaze of intemperate young men, tossing their hair, trailing their tunics, their cloaks torn, their arms bare, clapping their hands, leaping with their feet, shouting with their voices, rousing the young men's lusts toward themselves with an actor's movements, a wanton eye, a disgraceful jest. A ring of young men looks on, and a pitiable theater is made. Amid the falls of the dancers and the lapses of the onlookers, heaven is defiled by an impure sight, and the earth is polluted by a shameful dance, beaten by most obscene leaps.

How shall I speak patiently, pass over piously, lament fittingly? Wine has brought us the loss of so many souls. For if wine and women make men depart from God, because drunkenness and lust are both enticements to transgression, if they <do so> singly and separately, what will they do <united>? Hence not without reason a certain wise man before us said: 'A drunken woman is a great wrath.'

What wonder, then, if the souls of women are deceived by wine, when all those tribes of the fathers, when they drank water from the rock, ate manna, conquered the strongest nations, and there was not one weak among them? But when they began to desire meat and in their desires turned back toward Egypt, of so many thousands of men none but two deserved to reach the land of promise. So we may gather from this what good sobriety is and what evil intemperance is: when they murmured, seeking the delicacies of Egypt, they died by serpents; when they passed over the path of the Red Sea, they drank water. Do we not, then, fear the example, do we not flee delicacies, lest they cheat us of gaining the good things to come?

And why should I use the sayings of others? Let us hear what the well-fed and luxurious themselves hope for. For the prophet Isaiah brings them in saying: 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die,' and rightly he cries out: 'Howl, ships of Carthage, for they have perished and will be no more.' This is said of the vision of Tyre, which we know was a luxurious city. And therefore it is the ninth vision, not the seventh or eighth, because it keeps neither the law nor the grace of the gospel, since on the lawful sabbath it is forbidden to kindle the fires of lust, and in the course of the gospel the eighth day of the resurrection shines; and the same day is first and eighth, because the Lord's day recurs on itself. Luxury, then, has neither faith nor observance of discipline; luxury is the seedbed and origin of vices. And do not think I have spoken against the apostle, because he says that avarice is the root of all evils; for luxury is the mother of avarice. For when one has exhausted his own means by luxurious living, he afterward seeks greedy gains. You have heard what was read today.

'Merchants of the Phoenicians,' it says, 'crossing the sea; on many waters the seed of the merchants, like a harvest that is carried away.' These cities are neighbors, Tyre of Phoenicia and Sidon, neighbors in place as in vices, merchants seeking little profits from trade by dangerous crossing of the sea. Anxious is the life of men, restless their way of life and always in a kind of whirlwind, more changeable than the very winds by which it is rolled and often tossed this way and that. Surely you complain of frequent shipwrecks: who compels you to sail? As if you did not, by your envy of wealth, make even the lands unsafe and rouse very many to robbery! God did not make the sea for sailing, but for the beauty of the element. He spread out the broad surfaces of the sea, surely, to enclose the lands with its strait, so that you would not wander farther as a vagrant and exile. But the sea is tossed by storm: you ought, then, to fear it, not to presume on it. The innocent element has done no wrong; human rashness is its own danger. Indeed he who does not sail does not know how to fear shipwreck. The Lord said: 'Have dominion over the fish of the sea'; he did not say: 'Sail out on the waves.' Indeed the prophet Jonah too, who was sent to Nineveh to preach repentance, because he wished to sail to flee from the face of God, was troubled by a storm, picked out by lot, thrown into the sea, and taken in by the whale.

The prophet David too says, when he recounts God's grace toward man: 'You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts <of the field, the birds of heaven, and the fish of the sea, which pass along the paths of the sea>.' He granted to the fish, not to men, to pass along the path of the sea. The sea was given you for food, not for danger: use it for food, not for trade. Why do you create danger for yourself from pleasure? Why do you probe the depths of a separate element? Why do you disturb the higher secrets of the world? Why, finally, do you, an impatient sailor, strive to furrow and plow the waves so often? Why do you so often try the harmless seas and provoke storms? O insatiable avarice of merchants! Even the sea yields to you, and the ocean cannot bear your restlessness. Indeed, plowed by merchants returning so often, the sea said: 'Be ashamed, Sidon.' This is as the voice of a weary element saying: 'Be ashamed, Sidon,' that is: you trader accuse my waves, when you are yourself more restless than the waves. Be ashamed at least with shame, since you are not moved by danger. The winds are more modest than your desires. They have their times of rest; your pursuits of gain never take a holiday. And when the storm is at rest, your ships are never at rest. The wave is hunted under the oar when it rests from the wind.

'I have not been in labor,' it says, 'nor given birth, nor reared young men.' Why do they disturb me whom I do not know, whom I do not recognize? 'Go to Carthage; howl, you who inhabit the islands!' Above he said: 'Howl, ships of Carthage!' For the Tyrians founded Carthage, and therefore the Carthaginians follow the luxury of their founders, a discolored succession of wickedness poured into them, worse heirs of the worst vices. And he rightly called the luxurious 'ships.' As those are tossed by the wind, so these by food and wine. Bodies filled with drink inhabit the islands, resound with shipwrecks, are beaten by the waves of drunkenness, and rest neither by day nor by night. Of these merchants, then, the seed is in the water, <in the water> is the harvest's fruit. For they sow their labors in the water, so as to reap dangers; in the water their crop sprouts, in the water the harvest abounds, the fruit itself is in the water, never safe and solid. Hence he rightly says: 'He who sowed on land did not enter into trade' — rather, he who sowed in heaven. But there is also a good land, in which whoever has sown, heavenly fruits will spring up for him.

'Howl,' he says — he says it again — 'ships of Carthage, for your stronghold has perished. And it will be in that day, Tyre will be left,' and further on: 'And after seventy years Tyre will be like a harlot's song.' See what words the prophet uses, and he does not shrink from the cheapness of such words. We sometimes shrink from them, not because our tongue is chaster than theirs, but because our authority is less. For there is a greater force of things in the expression of such words, so that those who do not blush at offenses may blush at least at the names of offenses. 'Tyre,' he says, 'will be like a harlot's song.' See that, when someone sees those dances led and shameful words sung, he does not say: 'Behold, Tyre has become like a harlot's song.'

The oracle of the prophetic announcement has been fulfilled. And he added: 'Take a cithara, wander about, forgotten harlot city; play the cithara well, sing many songs, that you may be remembered. And after seventy years Tyre will be like a harlot's song, and God will visit Tyre.' Hence we can also take in a good sense the song of that harlot Rahab, who received Joshua's spies with a faithful mind. For the Lord too says: 'We sang to you, and you did not dance,' and David says: 'Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth'; that is, the harlot's song, which that former harlot, the earth in Adam and Eve, sang, the harlot in the people of the nations. This harlot made very many good harlots, of whom the Lord Jesus said to that chosen and elder people of God: 'Tax collectors and harlots go before you into the kingdom of God.'

Since, then, we have so merciful a Lord, who pardons even grave error, let us turn from vices, let us not depart from the law, let us carry out the Lord's command with the diligent zeal of servants. What have we to do with impurities and immodesties, what with the works of the devil? You heard today in the reading that has been gone through what the legion said: 'What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of God?' You too say, if perhaps you see the devil's temptations fighting against you: 'What have I to do with you, Belial? I am a servant of Christ, redeemed by his blood; I have given myself wholly into his ownership. What have I to do with you? I do not know your works, I seek nothing of yours, I possess nothing of yours, I desire nothing of yours.' How much more ought we to separate ourselves from the devil, if he distinguishes himself from Christ? And if we were liable to him in anything, now we are not. We have fled to the physician. He has healed our former wounds, and if any bitterness remains, the remedy will not be lacking. Even if we have done some wrong, he who once forgave will not remember it. Even if we have offended gravely, we have found a great physician, we have received the great medicine of his grace; for great medicine takes away great sins.

We also have many things at hand by which we may redeem our sins. You have money: redeem your sin. The Lord is not for sale, but you yourself are for sale. You have been sold by your sins: redeem yourself by your works, redeem yourself by your money. Money is cheap, but mercy is precious. For 'almsgiving frees from sin,' and elsewhere: 'The ransom of a man's life is his riches,' and in the gospel: 'Make friends for yourselves by the mammon of iniquity.' Poison too is often tempered by an antidote, that is, poison is driven out by poison, death repelled by poison, life preserved. Do you too, as a good steward, make from the instrument of avarice the support of mercy, from the enticement of corruption the grace of sincerity.

You have heard what was read today: 'Behold, the Lord comes to lay waste the world.' As if the holy prophet were pointing with his hand, as if he saw with his eyes the coming day of judgment, so he says: 'Behold, the Lord comes to lay waste the world.' Rather, since in the Spirit even things to come are revealed to the prophets as present, therefore he wished to show us too what he saw, so as to call us back from error to conversion.

Yet no one ought to be broken when he hears that the Lord will lay waste the world, lest perhaps he say: 'Granted, we have committed grave sins: what wrong has heaven done, what the earth, what the sea, that he should lay them waste too? Why does such fair adornment perish?' Such an opinion belongs to a narrow mind. But if you look more deeply, you will find that what you think is against us is for us; you will judge that what you consider against the world is for the world. The stadium is not always full of spectators, not always busy with contests, not always thick with dust; but when there are contests, then there are people at the show, wrestlers in the pit, dust in the stadium. When the contests are run, the gathering breaks up; each goes away either a victor to favor or vanquished to disgrace. The crown exalts the victor; shame weighs on the vanquished, injury torments him. If anyone, then, enters the stadium afterward, sees it empty of crowds, and asks the president of the games why the stadium is empty, why the contests are silent, why the festival is on holiday, the one who presides over the games will answer: 'The athletes must rest, the spectators must rest.' For what is the fruit of labor but rest after labor? Likewise the world too must at some time be dissolved, so that there may be rest for the weary.

We are athletes; we compete in a kind of spiritual stadium. Indeed the good athlete said: 'We have become a spectacle to this world,' and elsewhere: 'So I run, not as uncertainly; so I strive, not as beating the air, but I chastise my body,' and elsewhere: 'Forgetting what lies behind and reaching for what lies ahead, I press toward the goal, toward the prize.' We are athletes, then; we must contend lawfully. There are many bouts, and he who is defeated today recovers himself tomorrow. First one strives for the prize, afterward for the crown. Does an athlete take leisure once he has given his name for the contest? He trains daily, is anointed daily. A competitor's diet is given him, discipline is required, chastity is kept. You too have given your name for the contest of Christ, you have enrolled for the competition for the crown: practice, train, be anointed with the oil of gladness, with ointment poured out. Let your food be the food of sobriety, having nothing of intemperance, nothing of luxury; let your drink be more sparing, lest any drunkenness creep in; guard the chastity of your body, so that you may be fit for the crown, lest your reputation offend the affection of the spectator, lest your supporters see you negligent and desert you. The archangels watch you, and the powers and dominions, and those ten thousand times ten thousand angels. Consider how shameful it is to blush before so many. When you have entered the stadium, rouse the vigor of your soul, shake out your arms. When you have advanced into the pit, you must take the dust and endure the burning of the summer sun. Heavy is the heat, but sweet the victory; troublesome the cloud of dust, but beautiful the endurance. No one enters the stadium dusty, but the contests make him dusty: dust is gathered where the palm is set forth. No one, again, is crowned clean; victory befits the dusty.

Come, then, Lord Jesus; let your crown come forth; send the victors to rest, the vanquished to compunction. Even if you lay waste the world, your invisible works are more than those we have seen. One of narrower mind does not see them and grieves that you lay waste the world; but one who knows how to look at what is invisible rejoices that you come and free all. The athletes rejoice who can say: 'Your kingdom come, your will be done, as in heaven so on earth.' The creation of the world will rejoice to be freed from the vanity of this world, which now groans and is in labor, because that creation too was subjected to vanity until the adoption of sons is multiplied and the redemption of the whole body is completed. For good, then, he will lay waste the world. For there will be a new heaven, and there will be no more night. Indeed, it says, he will unveil its face, so that with unveiled face we may behold the glory of Christ.

We notice, then, set in the stadium, how great a delight or grief we shall be to those who now support us, lest they begin to blush for us. For as there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, so there will be sorrow over one who has finished the course of this life without obtaining pardon. Let us chastise our body, then, with fasts; let us flee unseemly revels. Let us beware lest it be said to us: 'Howl from wine,' lest Moses come and call the Levites. Let whoever is ready for the Lord bear an armed right hand and separate himself from those who by eating and drinking have contracted grave sins. And today Moses comes, when the law is read; Moses calls, when the law commands.

The apostle teaches that we should separate ourselves from every brother who walks disorderly. Let us strike him with the spiritual sword, which is the word of God. Let us not respect the person of brother or kinsman, but let us separate every unclean person from the altars of Christ, so that he may cleanse and correct his lapses and deserve to return to the sacraments of Christ.

But if anyone is not baptized, let him be converted with more confidence, receiving the remission of sins … like a kind of fire it consumes sins, because Christ baptizes with fire and the Spirit. Indeed you read this type in the books of Kingdoms, where Elijah put wood on the altar and told them to pour water on it from jars. And he said: 'Do it again,' and they did it again. And he said: 'Do it a third time,' and they did it a third time; and when the water was flowing, Elijah prayed, and fire came down from heaven. You are the man on the altar, who are washed with water, whose guilt is burned up so that life may be renewed; for fire consumes wood and stubble. Do not fear the fire by which you are enlightened. Therefore it is said to you: 'Come to him and be enlightened.' Take up the yoke of Christ. Do not fear because it is a yoke: hasten, because it is light. It does not crush necks but honors them. Why do you hesitate, why do you put off? It does not bind the neck with chains but joins the mind with grace; it does not constrain by necessity,

… Why do you say there is still time? Every time is fit for pardon. If I offered you gold, you would not say to me: 'I will come tomorrow,' but you would demand it at once. No one delays, no one excuses himself; the redemption of the soul is promised, and no one hastens. John baptized for repentance, and all Judea gathered; Christ baptizes in the Spirit, Christ dispenses grace, and people come with reluctance. Elijah showed a type of baptism and opened heaven, which had been shut three years and six months. How much greater are the gifts of the truth! It opened heaven, surely, not by rain coming down, but by grace going up; for no one goes up into the kingdom of heaven except through water and the Spirit. Faithlessness had shut heaven to men, but faith opened it.

This heaven was open to men before too: indeed Enoch was caught up to heaven. Again it was shut, but Elijah, who was caught up in a chariot, opened it. You too can ascend, if you obtain the grace of the sacrament. How long delights, how long revels? The day of judgment presses; while you put off grace, death draws near. Who would say: 'I have no time now, I am busy; do not show me the light; I do not want you to redeem me so soon; I do not yet need the heavenly kingdom'? Does not one who excuses himself from baptism say this? And with how great a grace you are renewed, O man! You are <purified> and not burned, healed and not pained, re-formed and not dissolved; you do not receive the stroke of death, and you rise again. And still you dissemble, still you wait to live for the world and keep yourself for God afterward? Do you not know that Cain's sacrifice displeased because he did not offer the first-fruits, but, having himself used the first-fruits, tried to offer God a gift from what came after; while Abel, preferred for his offering of first-fruits, deserved the mark of piety?