Fasting

Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

SUMMARY: Fasting was ordained by Christ himself; Jesus said “when you fast,” not “if you fast.” Clearly Christians ought to fast. Though their fasting observances and traditions were extra-biblical, the early Christians had good reasons for fasting or not fasting on specific days (such as the Didache, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Victorinus, and Peter of Alexandria). Nevertheless, there is evidence from Tertullian that such appointed fasting was not obligatory. Fasting on certain days was known as “stations.” These fasts were very early fixed for Wednesday and Friday (the Didache, Clement of Alexandria, Victorinus). Monday and Thursday were the common Jewish fasting days and were considered the fasts of hypocrites in the Didache. According to Second Clement, fasting is better than prayer. The Didache and Justin Martyr mention the practice of fasting for baptism. Let us persevere in fasting (Polycarp). Fast and you will obtain from the Lord what you beg (Hermas). The soul, when but ill-provided with food and drink, becomes better (Mathetes). Christians often fast two or three days in order to supply to the needy their lack of food (Aristides). Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Hermas exhort Christians to keep the true fast of God, as Isaiah says. Hermas and Clement of Alexandria also understood that fasting signifies abstinence from all evils whatsoever, in action, in word, and in thought itself. The dead have been raised when the Church has entreated the prayer request with much fasting (Irenaeus). Sixteen through eighteen. Second Clement: Almsgiving therefore is a good thing, as repentance from sin; fasting is better than prayer, but almsgiving than both; “but love covers a multitude of sins.”

THE DIDACHE: But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whatever others can; but you should order the baptized to fast one or two days before. But do not let your fasts be with the hypocrites; for they fast on the second and fifth day of the week; but do your fast on the fourth day and the Preparation.

POLYCARP: Forsaking the vanity of many, and their false doctrines, let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from the beginning; “watching unto prayer,” and persevering in fasting; beseeching in our supplications the all-seeing God “not to lead us into temptation,” as the Lord has said: “The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

HERMAS: Every prayer should be accompanied with humility: fast, therefore, and you will obtain from the Lord what you beg.

HERMAS: While fasting and sitting on a certain mountain, and giving thanks to the Lord for all His dealings with me, I see the Shepherd sitting down beside me, and saying, “Why have you come here so early in the morning?” “Because, sir,” I answered, “I have a station.” “What is a station?” he asked. “I am fasting, sir,” I replied. “What is this fasting,” he continued, “which you are observing?” “As I have been accustomed, sir,” I reply, “so I fast.” “You do not know,” he says, “how to fast unto the Lord: this useless fasting which you observe to Him is of no value.” “Why, sir,” I answered, “do you say this?” “I say to you,” he continued, “that the fasting which you think you observe is not a fasting. But I will teach you what is a full and acceptable fasting to the Lord. Listen,” he continued: “God does not desire such an empty fasting. For fasting to God in this way you will do nothing for a righteous life; but offer to God a fasting of the following kind: Do no evil in your life, and serve the Lord with a pure heart: keep His commandments, walking in His precepts, and let no evil desire arise in your heart; and believe in God. If you do these things, and fear Him, and abstain from every evil thing, you will live to God; and if you do these things, you will keep a great fast, and one acceptable before God.” . . . . I said to him, “Sir, I do not see the meaning of these similitudes, nor am I able to comprehend them, unless you explain them to me.” “I will explain them all to you,” he said, “and whatever I shall mention in the course of our conversations I will show you. Keep the commandments of the Lord, and you will be approved, and inscribed among the number of those who observe His commands. And if you do any good beyond what is commanded by God, you will gain for yourself more abundant glory, and will be more honored by God than you would otherwise be. If, therefore, in keeping the commandments of God, you do, in addition, these services, you will have joy if you observe them according to my command.” I said to him, “Sir, whatever you enjoin upon me I will observe, for I know that you are with me.” “I will be with you,” he replied, “because you have such a desire for doing good; and I will be with all those,” he added, “who have such a desire. This fasting,” he continued, “is very good, provided the commandments of the Lord be observed. Thus, then, you shall observe the fasting which you intend to keep. First of all, be on your guard against every evil word, and every evil desire, and purify your heart from all the vanities of this world. If you guard against these things, your fasting will be perfect. And you will do also as follows. Having fulfilled what is written, in the day on which you fast you will taste nothing but bread and water; and having reckoned up the price of the dishes of that day which you intended to have eaten, you will give it to a widow, or an orphan, or to some person in want, and thus you will exhibit humility of mind, so that he who has received benefit from your humility may fill his own soul, and pray for you to the Lord. If you observe fasting, as I have commanded you, your sacrifice will be acceptable to God, and this fasting will be written down; and the service thus performed is noble, and sacred, and acceptable to the Lord. These things, therefore, shall you thus observe with your children, and all your house, and in observing them you will be blessed; and as many as hear these words and observe them shall be blessed; and whatsoever they ask of the Lord they shall receive.”

MATHETES: The soul, when but ill-provided with food and drink, becomes better; in like manner, the Christians, though subjected day by day to punishment, increase the more in number.

ARISTIDES: And if they hear that one of their number is imprisoned or afflicted on account of the name of their Messiah, all of them anxiously minister to his necessity, and if it is possible to redeem him they set him free. And if there is among them any that is poor and needy, and if they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply to the needy their lack of food. They observe the precepts of their Messiah with much care, living justly and soberly as the Lord their God commanded them.

JUSTIN MARTYR: On baptism: I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ. ... As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, “Except you be born again, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” ... And for this rite we have learned from the apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and wicked training; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe; he who leads to the laver the person that is to be washed calling him by this name alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God; and if any one dare to say that there is a name, he raves with a hopeless madness. And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings. And in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and in the name of the Holy Ghost, who through the prophets foretold all things about Jesus, he who is illuminated is washed.

JUSTIN MARTYR: Learn, therefore, to keep the true fast of God, as Isaiah says, that you may please God. Isaiah has cried thus: “Shout vehemently, and do not spare: lift up your voice as with a trumpet, and show My people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek Me from day to day, and desire to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the judgment of God. They ask of Me now righteous judgment, and desire to draw near to God, saying, 'Why have we fasted, and You do not see? And afflicted our souls, and You have not known?' Because in the days of your fasting you find your own pleasure, and oppress all those who are subject to you. Behold, you fast for strifes and debates, and smite the humble with your fists. Why do you fast for Me, as today, so that your voice is heard aloud? This is not the fast which I have chosen, the day in which a man shall afflict his soul. And not even if you bend your neck like a ring, or clothe yourself in sackcloth and ashes, shall you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord. This is not the fast which I have chosen, says the Lord; but loose every unrighteous bond, dissolve the terms of unjust covenants, let the oppressed go free, and avoid every iniquitous contract. Deal your bread to the hungry, and lead the homeless poor under your dwelling; if you see the naked, clothe him; and do not hide yourself from your own flesh. Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your garments shall rise up quickly: and your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of God shall envelope you. Then you shall cry, and the Lord shall hear you: while you are speaking, He will say, Behold, I am here. And if you take away the yoke, and the stretching out of the hand, and the word of murmuring; and give heartily your bread to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall your light arise in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday: and your God shall be with you continually, and you shall be satisfied according as your soul desires, and your bones shall become fat, and shall be as a watered garden, and as a fountain of water, or as a land where water does not fail.” “Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart,” as the words of God in all these passages demand.

IRENAEUS: For they, the Gnostics, can neither confer sight on the blind, nor hearing on the deaf, nor chase away all sorts of demons—none, indeed, except those that are sent into others by themselves, if they can even do so much as this. Nor can they cure the weak, or the lame, or the paralytic, or those who are distressed in any other part of the body, as has often been done in regard to bodily infirmity. Nor can they furnish effective remedies for those external accidents which may occur. And so far are they from being able to raise the dead, as the Lord raised the dead, and the apostles did by means of prayer, and as has been frequently done in the brotherhood on account of some necessity—the entire Church in that particular locality entreating the request with much fasting and prayer, the spirit of the dead man has returned, and he has been bestowed in answer to the prayers of the saints.

TATIAN: When you fast, do not frown, as the hypocrites; for they make their faces austere, so that they may be seen of men that they are fasting. Verily I say to you, They have received their reward. But when you fast, wash your face and anoint your head; that you do not make an appearance before men of fasting, but to your Father which is in secret: and your Father which sees in secret shall reward you.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: In regard to fasting it is said, “For what reason do you fast to me? says the Lord. Is it such a fast that I have chosen, even a day for a man to humble his soul? Do not bend your neck like a circle, and spread sackcloth and ashes under you. Do not call this an acceptable fast.” What is a fast, then? “Lo, this is the fast which I have chosen, says the Lord. Loose every band of wickedness. Dissolve the knots of oppressive contracts. Let the oppressed go free, and tear every unjust bond. Break your bread to the hungry; and lead the houseless poor into your house. If you see the naked cover him.”

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: “Fasting with prayer is a good thing.” Now fasting signifies abstinence from all evils whatsoever, both in action and in word, and in thought itself.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: The Christian knows also the enigmas of the fasting of those days—I mean the Fourth and the Preparation. . . . He fasts in his life, in respect of covetousness and voluptuousness, from which all the vices grow. For we have already often above shown the three varieties of fornication, according to the apostle—love of pleasure, love of money, idolatry. He fasts, then, according to the law, abstaining from bad deeds, and, according to the perfection of the Gospel, from evil thoughts.

TERTULLIAN: We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord’s day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Pascha eighteen to Pentecost.

TERTULLIAN: We kneel at other times, but on the Lord’s day, and from the Paschal Feast to Pentecost we stand in prayer, nor do we count it lawful to fast on Sundays.

TERTULLIAN: Therefore Christ belonged to John, and John to Christ; while both belonged to the Creator, and both were of the law and the prophets, preachers and masters. Else Christ would have rejected the discipline of John, as of the rival god, and would also have defended the disciples, as very properly pursuing a different walk, because consecrated to the service of another and contrary deity. But as it is, while modestly giving a reason why “the children of the bridegroom are unable to fast during the time the bridegroom is with them,” but promising that “they should afterwards fast, when the bridegroom was taken away from them,” He neither defended the disciples, but rather excused them, as if they had not been blamed without some reason, nor rejected the discipline of John, but rather allowed it, referring it to the time of John, although destining it for His own time. Otherwise His purpose would have been to reject it, and to defend its opponents, if He had not Himself already belonged to it as then in force.

TERTULLIAN: Another custom has now become prevalent. Such as are fasting withhold the kiss of peace, which is the seal of prayer, after prayer made with brothers and sisters. But when is peace more to be concluded with brothers and sisters than when, at the time of some religious observance such as fasting, our prayer ascends with more acceptability; that they may themselves participate in our observance, and thereby be appeased for transacting with their brother touching their own peace? What prayer is complete if divorced from the “holy kiss?” Whom does peace impede when rendering service to his Lord? What kind of sacrifice is that from which men depart without peace? Whatever our prayer be, it will not be better than the observance of the precept by which we are bidden to conceal our fasts; for now, by abstinence from the kiss, we are known to be fasting. But even if there be some reason for this practice, still, lest you offend against this precept, you may perhaps defer your “peace” at home, where it is not possible for your fast to be entirely kept secret. But wherever else you can conceal your observance, you ought to remember the precept: thus you may satisfy the requirements of discipline abroad and of custom at home. So, too, on the day of the Passover, when the religious observance of a fast is general, and as it were public, we justly forego the holy kiss, caring nothing to conceal anything which we do in common with all. Similarly, too, touching the days of Stations, most think that they must not be present at the sacrificial prayers, on the ground that the Station must be dissolved by reception of the Lord’s Body. Does, then, the Eucharist cancel a service devoted to God, or bind it more to God? Will not your Station be more solemn if you have in addition stood at God’s altar?

TERTULLIAN: At fasts, moreover, and Stations, no prayer should be made without kneeling, and the remaining customary marks of humility; for then we are not only praying, but deprecating, and making satisfaction to God our Lord.

TERTULLIAN: It is the affliction of the flesh—a victim able to appease the Lord by means of the sacrifice of humiliation—in making a libation to the Lord of sordid raiment, together with scantiness of food, content with simple diet and the pure drink of water in conjoining fasts to all this; in conditioning herself to sackcloth and ashes. This bodily patience adds a grace to our prayers for good, a strength to our prayers against evil; this opens the ears of Christ our God, dissipates severity, elicits clemency. . . . If the “spirit is willing, but the flesh,” without patience, “weak,” where, except in patience, is the safety of the spirit, and of the flesh itself? But when the Lord says this about the flesh, pronouncing it “weak,” He shows what need there is of strengthening, it—that is by patience—to meet every preparation for subverting or punishing faith; that it may bear with all constancy stripes, fire, cross, beasts, sword; all which prophets and apostles, by enduring, conquered!

TERTULLIAN: They think that fasting is to be indifferently observed, by the new discipline, of choice, not of command, according to the times and needs of each individual: that this, additionally, had been the observance of the apostles, imposing as they did no other yoke of definite fasts to be observed by all generally, nor similarly of Stations either, which have, besides, days of their own, but yet take a wide range according to individual judgment, neither subject to the law of a given precept, nor to be protracted beyond the last hour of the day, since even prayers the ninth hour generally concludes, after Peter’s example, which is recorded in the Acts. . . . Meantime they huff in our teeth the fact that Isaiah has authoritatively declared, “Not such a fast has the Lord elected,” that is, not abstinence from food, but the works of righteousness.

TERTULLIAN: They say that this duty of the stations ought to be observed of free choice, and not continued beyond the ninth hour—deriving their rule, of course, from their own practice. As to that which pertains to the question of injunction, I will once for all give a reply to suit all causes. Now, turning to the point which is proper to this particular cause—concerning the limit of time, I mean—I must first demand from themselves from where they derive this prescriptive law for concluding stations at the ninth hour. If it is from the fact that we read that Peter and he who was with him entered the temple “at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer,” who will prove to me that they had that day been performing a station, so as to interpret the ninth hour as the hour for the conclusion and discharge of the station?

TERTULLIAN: It is a customary practice for the bishops to issue mandates for fasts to the universal commonalty of the Church; I do not mean for the special purpose of collecting contributions of alms, as your beggarly fashion has it, but sometimes too from some particular cause of ecclesiastical care.

TERTULLIAN: If the Apostle has erased all devotion absolutely “of seasons, and days, and months, and years,” why do we celebrate the Passover by an annual rotation in the first month? Why in the fifty ensuing days do we spend our time in all exultation? Why do we devote to stations the fourth and sixth days of the week, and to fasts the Preparation day? Anyhow, you sometimes continue your station even over the Sabbath, a day never to be kept as a fast except at the Passover season.

VICTORINUS: Now is manifested the reason of the truth why the fourth day is called the Tetras, why we fast even to the ninth hour, or even to the evening, or why there should be a passing over even to the next day. Therefore this world of ours is composed of four elements—fire, water, heaven, earth. These four elements, therefore, form the quaternion of times or seasons. The sun, also, and the moon constitute throughout the space of the year four seasons—of spring, summer, autumn, winter; and these seasons make a quaternion. And to proceed further still from that principle, lo, there are four living creatures before God’s throne, four Gospels, four rivers flowing in paradise; four generations of people from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Christ the Lord, the Son of God; and four living creatures, namely, a man, a calf, a lion, an eagle; and four rivers, the Pison, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. The man Christ Jesus, the originator of these things whereof we have above spoken, was taken prisoner by wicked hands, by a quaternion of soldiers. Therefore on account of His captivity by a quaternion, on account of the majesty of His works,—that the seasons also, wholesome to humanity, joyful for the harvests, tranquil for the tempests, may roll on,—therefore we make the fourth day a station or a supplementary fast. On this day also, the sixth day, on account of the passion of the Lord Jesus Christ, we make either a station to God, or a fast. On the seventh day, Saturday, He rested from all His works, and blessed it, and sanctified it. On the former day we are accustomed to fast rigorously, that on the Lord’s day we may go forth to our bread with giving of thanks. And let the parasceve become a rigorous fast, lest we should appear to observe any Sabbath with the Jews, which Christ Himself, the Lord of the Sabbath, says by His prophets that “His soul hates;” which Sabbath He in His body abolished.

PETER OF ALEXANDRIA: No one shall find fault with us for observing the fourth day of the week, and the Preparation, on which it is reasonably enjoined us to fast according to the tradition. On the fourth day, indeed, because on it the Jews took counsel for the betrayal of the Lord; and on the sixth, because on it he himself suffered for us. But the Lord’s day we celebrate as a day of joy, because on it he rose again, on which day we have received it for a custom not even to bow the knee.