THE EARLY GREEK FATHERS ON FASTING

ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

The fast today is joyous and our gathering here is brighter than usual. What do we think is the reason? It is the accomplishment of the fast! I am aware of this. The fast which has not began but which we are expecting. This is what gathered us in the house of our father. That is what has brought those who were formerly lax back into the maternal arms. If the expectation of its arrival has brought us such willingness, think of how much reverence it will bring us when it appears and comes. In the same fashion, when a city expects the visitation of a fearful ruler, it puts aside every disorder and it prepares itself.

But do not be scared that I paralleled the fast with a fearful ruler. It is not fearful for you but the demon. If someone is demon-possessed, show him the face of the fast and he will remain more immovable than stones, becoming frozen out of fear, as if he were in restraints, especially when he sees that near the fast there exists its sister and inseparable companion, prayer. Because of this Christ said: “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting” (Math.17:21). Therefore, since it sends away the enemies of our salvation so much, and the enemies of our life are so terrible we should love and greet it, and not be afraid of it. If there is something we should be afraid of, it should be drunkenness and gluttoness and not fasting. Because on the one hand after they tie us with our hands bound behind our backs, to the tyrannic power of passions as a wicked master, they turn us over as slaves and captives. The fast, on the other hand, when it finds us enslaved and tied, it loosens us from the bonds, it delivers us from the tyranny and it brings back to the freedom which we had beforehand. Therefore, it fights against out enemies and delivers us from slavery and brings us back to freedom, is there any need of greater evidence to show how much it loves our race? For there is no greater evidence of friendship of one man towards another than to love and hate the same persons as he does…

ABBOT JOHN KOLOVOS

If a king wants to take over the enemy’s city, he would hold back food and water supply so that his enemies, dying of hunger, would submit to him. The same thing happens with the passions of the flesh: if man lives with fasting and hunger the enemies of his soul grow weak.”

HYMN OF THE TRIODION

“As we fast bodily, let us fast spiritually. Let us loosen all the bonds of injustice. Let us rip apart strangling violent interactions. Let us sever every injust contract.

Let us give bread to the poor and let us bring the unsheltered in houses, so that we may receive the Great Mercy.”

ABBOT DOROTHEOS

Nothing else extinguishes passions so much as compassion. On the other hand, if someone struggles as a result of vainglory or with the idea that he is applying himself to virtue, he is not struggling with knowledge. He, though, who abstains from knowledge does not think he is exercising virtue, neither does he want to be commended as an ascetic, but believes that by way of abstinence prudence is obtained and that through this, comes humility.

ABBOT JOHN KOLOVOS

Who is strong like a lion and for the sake of his stomach, falls into a trap and allows all his strength to be humiliated? Eating bread and salt, the fathers of the scete use to say, “let us not obligate ourselves to rely on salt and bread.” In that way they will be strong for the work of God.

PROVERBS 30:8-9

Two things I ask of thee: deny them not to me before I die; remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, “Who is the Lord?”

ABBOT SILOUANOS

A brother visited Abbot Silouanos on Mt Sinai, and when he saw the brothers there working, he said to the elder:” Do not labour for the food which perishes. For Mary has chosen the good portion (John 6:27; Luke 10:42). The elder said to his disciple: “Zachary, give the brother a book and put him in an empty cell.” So when the ninth hour came the visiting brother watched the door anticipating that they would send someone to invite him to eat. Because no one invited him, he got up, went before the elder and said to him: “Abba, have your brothers not eaten?”. The elder replied, “Yes”. “Why did you not call me?” The elder said to him, “Because you are a spiritual man and do not have need of this food. We though, be carnal, want to eat, and because of that we work; you choose “the good portion”’ reading all day, and do not want to eat carnal food.” And when he heard these things, he prostrated before the elder saying, “Forgive me, Father.” The elder told him, “Anyway, Mary has need of Martha because, through Martha, Mary is praised.”

ABBOT HYPERECHIOS

“It is better to eat meat and drink wine rather than to eat the flesh of one’s brother through gossip.”

PROVERBS 15:17

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it.

ABBOT POIMEN

How can we acquire fear of God when we store barrels of cheese and containers of preserved foods (in our homes).

GREGORY OF PALAMAS

On the one hand fasting and abstinence calms the insurgence of the flesh while distancing fury, anger and desires. They bring on a clear, clean, and cloudless mind, cleaning it from the stream which comes out from the abundance of food and the melancholy it causes. With fasting and abstinence, the exterior man is washed away, and as much as this is done, so much for the inner man renewed, according to the apostle. Someone once said, “A fat stomach does not give birth to a refined mind.” A stomach which is refined by way of fasting and abstinence most surely refines the mind.

ABBOT POIMEN

Abba Joseph asked Abba Poimen how they should fast. Abba Poimen replied:

I want someone to eat a little each day so as not to fill himself”.

Abba Joseph said,

Abba, when you were younger did you not abstain from food for two or three days”.

And the elder responded:

Of course, for three and four days and for an entire week. All these things were tired by the fathers because they were strong and they found out that it is better for someone to eat daily, but a small amount. Thus they gave us the basic way which is light”.

HYMN OF THE TRIODION

Those who in secret pursue virtue are receptive to spiritual gains, not by way of their stage triumphs but rather these things which are produced remain within the heart. He who sees all things done in secret gives us the reward of sobriety. Let us carry out the fast, not by bending down our heads, but by praying, within the chambers of our souls.

SAINT SYGLETICI

Do not use illness as an excuse not to fast because those who did not fast many times became ill from the same ailments. Have you started doing good (by fasting)? Do not stop there when the enemy has cut you off because he is abolished with your patience. Surely those who start to sail first have a favourable mind. Then, when they spread their sails they encounter fierce wind from the opposite direction, but the sailors do not unload the ship because of the wind which they encountered. They simply wait for calmness or they encounter the storm, and then continue to sail. It is the same for us. When we are besetted of a storm let us hold out the Cross so that we can fearlessly complete our voyage.

GREGORY OF PALAMAS

When you fast and are nourished with abstinence, do not store the left-overs for tomorrow, but, as the Lord became poor and enriched us, feed someone who does not want to be hungry, you who hungers willingly. Then, your fast will be like the dove who brings and joyfully proclaims salvation to your soul from the flood, “If you alleviate the yoke from your waist, and do not take the law into your own hands, and do away with malevolent words”, says Prophet Isaiah, “and give to the hungry with all your heart, then your light will shine in the darkness and your darkness will be like midday”. And if you do not want to give your things, at least avoid things that are not yours and do not possess them as if they were yours sometimes grapping and becoming rich from the poor unjustly.”

ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

When many people enter the fast period they make every effort to fill the stomachs with food and drink as if their stomachs were going to endure a long siege. When the fast period ends, it is as if they went through a period of starvation and agonizing imprisonment which they barely escaped. They rush disorderly to the tables which have food and strive to forget the benefits which they gained from the fast by overindulging themselves.”

PROVERBS 32, 15

(Jacob) ate and become full…he grew sleek, he because fat, he became wide and he forsook God who make him and distanced himself from God who was his saviour.

MAXIMOS THE CONFESSOR

Many of the things men do are good by their nature but are not good because of their origin. For example, fasting, vigilance, prayer and chanting, alms-giving and hospitality are good deeds by their nature, but when they are done out of vainglory they are no longer good.

From all of our acts, God looks for their motive, in other words, if we do them for His sake or, if we do them for some other reason.

HYMN OF THE TRIODION

Let us fast an acceptable fast, pleasing unto the Lord; a true fast, the estrangement of wrong, the restraint of the tongue, the abstinence from anger, the separation from desires, slander, falsehood and oath breaking, with the impoverishment brought on by these things, fasting is true and acceptable.