Saint Maximus, Bishop of Turin in Italy – Sermon on the Fasts of Quadragesima.

Sermon 36. A Sequel: That There Should Be No Wantonness during the Time of the Fast{1}.

1. Last Sunday we said that this was the first work of our faith – to fast most devoutly during the course of these 40 days – and that it was the cause of our salvation if at this time we would devote our attention to abstinence. Therefore, beloved brethren, we ought to consider what kind of fasting this is so as to be aware of how useful it is. For sometimes there exists a useless and empty fast which, although it empties the stomach and all the inner organs of their fulness, is nonetheless unacceptable to God because it does not empty the mind and the inmost senses of the fetters of wickedness. For what use is it to fast in the stomach while acting wantonly at the hunt, to abstain from food while wandering in sin, to subdue the body by not eating while exercising the mind in wickedness, to refrain from strong wine while getting drunk with thoughts of evil, except that it is easier to excuse someone who is full or drunk than someone who is both wicked and fasting? The former occasionally ceases from sinning since, being drunk, he sometimes falls asleep, but the latter does not cease from his error since, practiced in evil deeds and hungry, he is ever watchful. Hence such a fast is empty and useless: this abstention from food weakens the body and does not free the soul from perdition. About this fast the holy prophet, speaking in the person of the Lord, says: Why do you fast for me? I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord (Isa. 58.5-6).

2. Do you think that a person fasts, brethren, who is not keeping watch in church at the first light of dawn, who does not seek out the holy places of the blessed martyrs{2} but, upon arising, gathers his slaves together, gets his nets in order, leads out his dogs, and goes all through the woodlands and forests? The slaves, I say, who were perhaps hastening to church he drags out, adding others’ sins to his own pleasures and not knowing that he will be guilty both of his own crime and of his slaves’ damnation. He whiles away the whole day, then, at the hunt – at one time raising an unseemly clamor and at another stealthily demanding silence, happy if he should catch anything but angry if he has lost what he did not have. And he acts with great zeal, as if hunting were the publicly appointed fast. Among these excesses, then, brethren, tell me what worship there is of God, what devotion of spirit there can be in one who fasts not so as to have leisure for God and prayer but so as to spend the whole day, idle and unoccupied, in the exercise of his own pleasures. Although you who behave like that, brother, return home in the evening and eat while the sun is setting{3}, you may seem to have eaten at a rather late hour, yet you have not fasted for the Lord, nor may it be thought that, while exercising your own will, you have done the will of the Lord. For this is the Lord’s will, that we fast both from food and from sins, that we impose abstinence on the body in order that we may be able to make the soul abstain more from its vices, for a worn-out body is a kind of brake on the wanton soul. For whoever fasts and sins may seem to have made a profit with respect to food but he has not with respect to salvation. By acting sparingly he may seem to have stuffed his pantry with supplies but he has not filled his mind with virtues.

3. Some people, however, who are heedless of the divine precepts, exercise such an absolute power over their slaves and those subject to them that they do not hesitate these days to cut them to pieces with scourges, to fasten them with fetters, and, if perchance the waiter is a little bit late when mealtime has come, to lacerate him at once with blows and to satiate themselves with the slave’s blood before doing so with the pleasures of the table. Such is the fast of these people that they fast not in order to call forth the divine mercy but to pour out the cry of their groaning household. But whoever wishes to deserve mercy from God must first himself be merciful, for it is written: By the same measure that you have meted out it will be meted out to you (Luke 6. 38).

And, what is still more tragic, these days a Christian master does not spare his Christian slave and does not consider that, even though he is a slave by condition, nonetheless he is a brother by grace, for he has also put on Christ{4}, participates in the sacraments and, just as you do, has God for his Father. Why would he not have you as his brother? For there are many who, on returning from the hunt, pay more attention to their hounds than to their slaves. Not caring if their slaves die of hunger, they have their hounds recline or sleep next to them while they themselves feed them a daily portion. And, what is worse, if the food has not been well prepared for them, a slave is slain for the sake of a dog. In some homes you may see sleek and fat dogs running around, but human beings going about wan and faltering. Will such persons ever take pity on the poor when they are without mercy for their own households?{5}

4. We ought to know, then, brethren, that this is the fast acceptable to God, not only that we chastise our bodies with abstinence but also that we clothe our souls with humility. Let us be gentle to our slaves, amenable to those not of our household, and merciful to the poor. Rising at the first light of dawn, let us hasten to church, offer thanks to God, and beg pardon for our sins, asking for indulgence concerning past crimes and for vigilance concerning future ones. Let us spend the whole day in constant prayer and reading{6}. If someone does not know how to read, let him look for a holy man and be nourished by his conversation. Let no worldly deeds hinder sacred deeds, let no gaming tables distract the mind, no pleasure in hounds lead the senses astray, no success in business pervert the soul with avarice. For whatever you do other than God’s commandment, although you may abstain you do not fast. This is the saving fast, that just as the body abstains from feasting, so the soul should refrain from wickedness. This also, brethren, should not go unsaid with respect to the perfection of fasting: we who abstain and do not eat during this time should give our meals to the poor{7}. For this is true justice, that while you go hungry someone else is satisfied with your food, and that you who are fasting should beseech the Lord because of your sins and the one who has been filled should pray on your behalf{8}. Both profit you – your hunger and the beggars’ fulness. But the person who fasts in such a way that he gives nothing of his food to the poor seems to have turned his fast to his own advantage and, by scrimping, to have acted in a businesslike way. For he has abstained to this end – not to please God but so that he not have to spend much. And therefore almsgiving is good with fasting, so that it not be a kind of business whereby one may live sparingly or like that abstinence which monks and clerics flaunt: they do this for no other reason than for gain, whereas we do it for our salvation; they weaken their souls in order to make money, but we chastise our bodies for our souls’ profit{9}.

 

The Sermons of St. Maximus of Turin, trans. by B. Ramsey, New York 1989, p. 86-89.

 

1 The present sermon seems to follow on the preceding one. On the observance of Quadragesima in Turin, cf. Sermon 35 n. 1. On the penitential aspect of the sermon cf. Fitzgerald 471-2.

2 Keeping vigil and visiting the martyrs’ graves were customs associated with fasting: cf. Jerome, Ep. 22.17.

3 On the days when fasting was observed it was the custom to abstain from food until late afternoon or sunset: cf. RAC 7.506-7.

4 Cf. Gal. 3.27.

5 On the rich treating their animals better than they do their fellow human beings cf. also Ambrose, De Nabuthae 13.56; Gaudentius, Sermon 13; Chrysostom, In ep. ad Heb. 11.3.

6 The meditative reading of Scripture was another custom associated with fasting: cf. Jerome, Ep. 22.17, where the implication is that fasting sharpens one’s mental faculties. In the following sentence the possibility of illiteracy is supposed, and a conversation with a holy person on a religious topic is offered as a substitute. On the practice of meditative Scripture reading cf. B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (3rd ed. Oxford 1983) 26-36; DS 9.470-81. Cf. also Sermon 66.4 ad fin.

7 The alternative was to fast without giving to the poor what one had not eaten, a possibility that is spoken of in §2 ad fin. and §4 ad fin. of the present sermon. The custom of fasting to which Maximus refers is first mentioned in Christian literature in Pastor Herm., sim. 5.3.7.

8 On the mutual dependence of rich and poor cf. Sermon 27 n. 5.

9 On the false fasting of monks cf. Jerome, Ep. 22.34.3.

24.03.2024