Treatises on Various Subjects

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THE USEFULNESS OF FASTING Chapter 1 1mOTH Goo AND THE TIMES advise me to say something IB\'\ about the usefulness of fasting. This duty, this ~ strengthening of the soul, this cheating of the flesh and enrichment of the mind, is not offered to God by the angels. There in heaven are all abundance and everlasting freedom from anxiety; for that reason there is no deficiency, because the fullness of one's desire is centered upon God. There is the bread of angels,l and, in order that man might feed upon this bread of angels, it was made man. There, all souls bearing about their earth-born flesh fill their stomachs from the earth; there, souls endowed with reason-directing spiritual bodies fill the mind from God. Both are types of food, but the former suffers diminution as it accomplishes its purpose of refreshing and it fills the stomach in proportion as it itself is lessened; the latter, however, both fills and remains undiminished. Christ commanded us to eat this food when He said: 'Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fi11.'2 Therefore, to hunger and thirst after justice belongs to men who are passing through this mortal life; to be filled with justice, however, 1 CE. Ps. 77.25; also. St. Ambrose. De Elia lit Jejun;o 5.5.10. 2 Matt. 5.6. 403 404 SAINT AUGUSTINE belongs to another life. With this bread, with this food, the angels are satisfied. Moreover, when men are hungry, they stretch out toward something; while they are stretching, they are enlarged; while they are enlarged, they become capacious, and, when they have become capacious enough, they will be filled in due time. Then, do they who hunger and thirst after justice receive nothing here? Certainly they receive something, but it is one matter to ask about the refection of those who are making a journey and another matter to ask about the perfection of the blessed. Hear the Apostle when he was hungering and thirsting for as much justice as can be received and maintained in this life. Which of us would dare to compare himself with him, much less to prefer himself to him? Hear what he says: 'Not because I have already received, or because I am perfect.'3 See who is speaking, a vessel of election, and, in a certain way, the edge\of the fringe on the Lord's garment (that edge, nevertheless, healed of an issue of blood the woman who touched it because she believed),4 the last and least of the Apostles, as he himself says: 'I am the last of the Apostles,' and: 'I am the least of the Apostles,' and again: 'I am not worthy to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am; and his grace in me hath not been void, but I have labored more than all they: yet not I, but the grace of God with me.'6 When you hear these words you seem to hear one who is, as, it were, filled and perfected. You have heard why he speaks out; hear, now, why he hungers : 'Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect,' he says. 'Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. But one thing I do: forgetting the things II Phil. lI.12. 4 Cf. Matt. 9.20·22. 5 1 Cor. 15.8·10. THE USEFULNESS OF FASTING 405 that are behind, and stretching forth myself to those that are before, I press on according to my purpose to the goal of the supernal vocation of God in Christ Jesus.'6 He says that he is not yet perfect, because he has not yet received, because he has not yet laid hold. On the other hand, he says that he is stretching out, that he is p'lshing on to the palm of the supernal vocation. He is on the way; he is hungry; he wishes to be filled; he is anxious; he desires to arrive; he is passionately inflamed; nothing is of such great moment to him as to be dissolved and to be with Christ.7 Chapter 2 Therefore, my dearly beloved, since there is an earthly food on which the weakness of the flesh feeds, there is also a heavenly food...