24. What then? Shall we put off the man and put on the beast? shall we strip off Christ, and be clothed over and over with the garments of Satan? The very heathen sages held that pleasure was not to be esteemed honourable, lest they should seem to couple men with brutes, and can we instil the habits of animals into the human breast, and engrave on the rational mind the irrational instincts of wild beasts?
25. Yet there are many kinds of animals, who when they have lost their mate, will no longer copulate, but lead, as it were, a solitary life. Many also feed on simple herbs and only quench their thirst in the pure stream; you may also often see dogs refuse food which they have been forbidden, and, if bid to refrain, close up their hungry jaws. Do men then require to be recalled from that in which even mute animals have learnt from man’s teaching not to transgress[263]?
26. But what is more excellent than abstinence, whichmakes even the years of youth to be old, and produces an old age of conduct? For as by excess of food and drunkenness even old age is inflamed, so on the other hand, the insolence of youth is restrained by sparing food and by the flowing stream. Fire without us is quenched by the pouring on of water, no wonder then if even internal heat is allayed by draughts from the brook; for the flame is nourished or fails, according as it is fed or not. As hay, stubble, wood, oil, and the like are the fuel of fire, and feed it, and if you withdraw or do not supply them the fire is quenched, so also the warmth of the body is nourished or diminished by food; by food it is excited and by food allayed. Gluttony therefore is the mother of lust.
27. And shall we not say that temperance is accordant with nature, and with that Divine law, which in the very origin of all things, gave us to drink of the fountains and to eat of the fruit of trees? Gen. ix. 20. After the flood the just man found himself tempted by wine. Wherefore let us use the natural drink of temperance, and would that we all could do so. But since we are not all strong, the Apostle says, 1 Tim. v. 23. Use a little wine for thine often infirmities. It is to be drunk then because of infirmity not for pleasure, and therefore as a remedy, sparingly, not as a luxury, profusely.
28. Again, Elijah, when the Lord God was training him to the perfection of virtue, found 1 Kings xix. 6. a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head; Ib. 8. and in the strength of that meat he fasted forty days. Our fathers, when they passed over the sea on foot, Exod. xvii. 6. drank water, not wine. It was Dan. i. 8;xiv. 30; iii. 40. when fed on their homely food and drinking water, that Daniel repressed the rage of the lions, and the Hebrew children saw the fiery furnace playing round their limbs with harmless flames.
29. And why should I speak of men only? Judith xiii. 16. Judith, in no wise moved by the luxurious banquet of Holofernes, won a triumph which men’s arms had found desperate, by the sole merit of her temperance, delivering her country from invasion, and slaying with her own hand the captain of the host: a manifest example both that this warrior dreaded by the people had become enervated by his luxury, and that temperance in food had made this woman strongerthan men. It was not in her sex that she surpassed nature, but by her spare diet she conquered. Esther iv. 16; v. 2. Esther obtained favour from the proud king by her fasts. Anna, S. Luke ii. 37. a widow of about fourscore and four years, serving in the temple with fastings and prayers night and day, came to the knowledge of Christ, and S. Matt. iii. 4. John the Teacher of abstinence, and, as it were, a new Angel upon earth, was His herald.
30. O foolish Elisha! 2 Kings iv. 39. to feed the prophets with wild and bitter gourds;O Ezra[264] Ezra viii.2.
Neh. viii. 2. unmindful of Scripture though from memory thou dost restore Scripture! O senseless Paul, 2 Cor. xi. 27. to glory in fasting, if fasting avails nothing!
31. But how can that not profit whereby our vices are purged? And if you offer it together with humility and mercy, then, as Isaiah has said by the Divine Spirit, Is. lviii. 11. thy bones shall be made fat, and thou shalt be like a watered garden! Thy soul then is fattened, and its virtues are enriched by the spiritual fat of fasting, and thy fruits are multiplied by the richness of thy mind,that thou mayest be made drunk, as it were, with soberness[265], as is that cup whereof the Prophet speaks, Ps. xxiii. 5. Vulg. And my cup which inebriateth me, how goodly is it!
32. But not only is that temperance praiseworthy which is sparing in food, but that also which restrains desires. For it is written, Ecclus. xviii. 30, 31. Go not after thy lusts, but refrain thyself from thine appetites. If thou givest thy soul the desires that please her, she will make thee a laughing stock to thine enemies! and again, Ib. xix. 2. Wine and women will make men of understanding to fall away! 1 Cor. vii. 4. Hence Paul teaches temperance even in marriage; for he who commits excess therein is, as it were, an adulterer, and violates the Apostolical law.
33. But how can I express the greatness of the grace of virginity, which was counted worthy to be chosen by Christ, to be the bodily temple of God, wherein dwelt, as we read, Col. ii. 9. the fulness of the Godhead bodily! A virgin conceived the Saviour of the world, a virgin brought forth the Life of the universe.Ought not then virginity to be above all other states[266] which was profitable to all in Christ? A virginbore Him Whom this world cannot contain or support. He, born of the womb of Mary, preserved inviolate her chastity, and the seal of her virginity. Therefore Christ found in the Virgin what He would take for His own, what the Lord of all would assume to Himself. By the woman and the man our flesh was cast out of Paradise, by the Virgin it was re-united to God.