Fasting date: 

introduction

Fasting is a human phenomenon associated with all religions. Its forms and concepts have varied with the diversity of these religions. In Christianity, fasting holds special importance. When the disciples were unable to expel the devil once, they asked the Lord Jesus after he had cast him out, “Why couldn’t we?” He answered them, “This kind can only go out by prayer and fasting.”(21)This importance is attested to in the Holy Bible in both its Testaments. We also find that there was a development in understanding the meaning of fasting and its practice, which reached its peak in the time of the New Testament, the era of grace, and was interpreted by the Eastern ascetic tradition in particular.

Our current world, especially the Western world and some Christians influenced by it, do not give fasting its true value and are ignorant of its true meaning. Therefore, although they praise moderation in food and organize controls and a special diet for it, most people have models of it, but they consider fasting to be torture for the body and harmful to health and do not see any spiritual benefit in it; and they may consider it, at best, a religious practice whose necessity they do not know except from the “legitimate” perspective, and they do not realize its benefit, so it may seem to them to be mere religious duties against the body and its pleasures required by some of the severity in religion. Of course, fasting is not just “deprivations” or “repression” or “torture” or as some consider it, seeking forgiveness! Fasting has a very deep anthropological and spiritual meaning, so it is worth understanding its true role in our lives and thus discovering its necessity, and then determining how to practice it.

Therefore, we must first define the meaning of fasting and its practice in religions in general, and in the Old Testament, and then the New Testament in particular. Then we must stop at the spiritual anthropological dimension as interpreted by the ascetics and saints in our noble tradition.

Fasting is the involvement of the body in worship, and the transcendence of some of its requirements in our desire to express spiritual meanings towards God. Since man, soul and body, are one entity, it is absurd to imagine a purely spiritual religion. In order for the soul to commit to something and express it, it needs the actions and external states of the body. Therefore, respect (a spiritual subject) is expressed, for example, through clothing, bowing or prostration, joy through colors, shapes and celebrations, and sadness through fasting and clothing, etc. The Prophet David expresses his longing for God by saying: “My soul thirsts for you, and my flesh longs greatly for you.” (22).

Fasting takes one of two forms: “intermittent” or “abstinent,” or both forms together, meaning abstaining from food and drink, and if necessary from sexual relations, for a specific period, or abstaining from certain types of food.

1. Fasting in religions

Most ancient priests were doctors, so fasting was associated with the concept of health. The Egyptians fasted for periods ranging from 6 days to 7 weeks. The Greeks always fasted before wars. The Romans fasted before the festivals of Demeter (Δήμητρα) and Dios (Δίος). Historians of religions note that fasting occupied an important place in religious practices for the purpose of asceticism, purification, mourning, supplication to God, and recognition of human baseness and divine transcendence. 

2. Fasting in the Old Testament

The Jews in the Old Testament fasted several fasts before their major holidays. They fasted one day before the Day of Atonement. (23) This is to be humble before God. (24) They fasted collectively in memory of the national disasters after the captivity. The Prophet David speaks in the Psalms of many fasts: “until my knees were weary with fasting.”

It seems that Judaism had set a weekly fast on Thursday. The Pharisees added Monday to it as well, in commemoration of Moses’ ascent to the mountain and his descent from it. This is why the Pharisee claimed before God that he fasted twice a week and not once like the common people. (25)The Gospel of Luke mentions the prophetess Anna. (26) And the disciples of John the Baptist. It is also clear that the Essenes fasted a lot and abstained completely from meat and wine. There are sacred “forty days” fasted by the great prophets such as Moses. (27), and Elijah (28)And like them, Jesus fasted. (29)Of course, this abstinence from food does not mean contempt for material things, but rather it is due to special spiritual motives. Because through fasting, a person turns towards the Lord. (30) Or ask for forgiveness (31) Or seek healing (32) Or express his sadness (33) Or to prevent a disaster (34)We can also fast to open the heart to the divine light. (35) Especially to prepare to meet God (36)Jewish fasts involved delaying meals (abstinence) until the evening and shortening them. Marriages were also forbidden during fasting.

3. Fasting in the New Testament

Jesus fasted the “forty days” like Moses and Elijah, but it appears that he did not emphasize the observance of the Old Testament fasts and Jewish customs, and even sometimes called for going beyond them. Nevertheless, a kind of asceticism and austerity prevailed in his teachings, for he did not come to abolish but rather to fulfill. (37)And he taught us to pray and ask for just enough bread for today. (38) And “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” and then anything else. It seems that he was, as in all his teachings, renewing the spirituality of fasting, emphasizing “detachment” and elevation and avoiding some of the dangers that were associated with “fasts,” such as the danger of clinging to formalities and pride, i.e. fasting “in order to appear to men to be fasting.” He called for us to fast with secrecy and humility, i.e. to God: “So when you fast, do not look sad like the hypocrites… but to your Father who is in secret.” (39).

In the early centuries the Church preserved the Jewish fasts, but in the spirit dictated by Jesus. There is mention of fasts in the Acts of the Apostles that were required for certain celebrations and special occasions. (40)“While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ Then they fasted and prayed, laid hands on them, and sent them away.” Jesus had previously defended his disciples against the accusations of the Jews that they did not fast like the disciples of John, but he said: “As long as the bridegroom is with them, they cannot fast. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and in that day they will fast.” Until the bridegroom comes to us again, fasting will continue to hold a special place in the Church. Paul was not satisfied - it seems - with ordinary fasts, for despite thirst, hunger, and travel, he added to that many fasts. (41).

The Church received this tradition and continued the fasts of Judaism in the spirit renewed by Christ, so that fasting became an “instrument of repentance” and not a “glory of justification.” That is why the Church in its early days tended to highlight this renewal, so as not to put a new patch on an old piece. That is why the book “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” (first century) states: “Fast on Wednesday (the surrender) and Friday (the crucifixion) unlike the hypocritical Jews.” (42)The Apostolic Orders (4th century) repeat the commandment to fast. (43)We find in Saint Epiphanius that fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays is an apostolic tradition. (44)Fasts in the Church centered around the most important feast, the death and resurrection of Christ. Justin Martyr and philosopher mentions that Christians observed this fast with severity and rigor. (45).

The period of fasting before Easter was not fixed until the fourth century. When, with the Christianization of the empire, it was fixed at 40 days, in imitation of the sacred forties of Moses, Elijah, and especially Jesus. This fast is mentioned in the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325) and in the fifth canon of the local Council of Laodicea (364). This forty days came to precede Holy Week and Easter. (46)In addition to this “Great Lent,” which was called this because of its importance and length, there are preparatory fasts before all the main feasts, before the feasts of Christmas, the Dormition of the Virgin, and the Apostles. There are fasts on the eve of the major feasts and others, and on the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist, etc.

Thus, it becomes clear to us how fasting has occupied a special spiritual place in the life of the Church since the Old Testament, through Jesus Christ, the Apostles, and the Holy Tradition. Therefore, we must seek out the true spirit of fasting, in order to understand its true meaning, its necessity, and how to practice it in the end, in order to obtain its good fruits. Although fasting has a general ecclesial aspect, it also has a private aspect. If the general aspect indicates our participation with the whole Church and confirms our membership in it, then its private aspect opens the opportunity for a deep “personal experience” of life in the Spirit.

 Adam fasted in Paradise in accordance with the divine commandment and desire, before the existence of sin and the need for forgiveness or the existence of lawful and unlawful, pure and impure! This observation then leads us to question the true purpose of fasting, which it had from the beginning before the fall, no matter how new practices entered into its meanings after the fall as well. We will discuss fasting then from its deep ascetic dimensions, based on the Eastern Orthodox ascetic anthropological concept. Starting then from Adam’s fasting in Paradise, we acknowledge that fasting has a role and a necessity other than forgiveness, feasts and others, despite the necessity of these latter motives. Fasting then has an authentic positive aspect before the negative aspects that have intruded upon it after the fall and which are practiced by all religions. It was the paradisiacal way of life. (47).

Indeed, many of the holy fathers emphasize: since the fall was due to breaking the fast, the return and repentance must begin from where we fell, that is, from fasting. “The first commandment that was placed on our nature from the beginning was not to taste certain foods, and from here the first of our race fell. Therefore, those who strive for the love of God must begin from where the first blow was” (Isaac the Syrian). Fasting, then, enters into the life of the Church as a “medicine” and a “solution” for the fallen state of man. It is a method of treatment and healing, and it is much more than mere religious practices that appease divine wrath. It is, then, a spiritual exercise that touches the depths of the human being in order to reform it. Rather, it is not a duty imposed on a wrong state (sin), but rather it is the original state of human life as it was with Adam in Paradise. Fasting, then, has a very deep anthropological dimension, and we will try to treat it on the basis of this concept of the human being. Fasting is a “spiritual” movement, that is, a return of man from his “current unnatural state” to the “original human state.”

Spiritual reading for fasting:

introduction

“Adam broke the fast and fell”! These words conceal deep meanings that go far beyond the judicial meaning of transgressing the commandment. It is the fact of exchanging one life for another. God (and this is good) commanded Adam to fast as a way of life: “Of every tree of the garden you may eat except from this tree.” But Adam chose a second, different way of life, he acted not according to the commandment but according to “everything that is pleasant to the sight.” This tree (the knowledge of good and evil) did not have a nature of its own or bear fruit that brought death! It was a tree “for” the knowledge of good and evil, it was a crossroads between two directions of two different ways of life, that of fasting and that of everything that is pleasant to the sight.

Adam’s decision to prefer the life of the senses to the revival of the relationship with God! He turned his inner movements (his love and interest) from God to matter. After matter was given to him as a divine gift, the world and everything in it, he wanted to take it for himself as an end, so it no longer satisfied his needs only, but by his decision it became “appetizing to the sight” that possessed his passions, inclinations and desires. The fall was a wrong choice in using the world. This is what the “resolution of fasting” or the commandment means. While the commandment was an indication of the way to use the world in its reality as a connection and joint work between God and man. The world was destined to bring man into fellowship with God - and this is the case of its fasting use - but Adam’s collapse before the senses made the world an instrument of separation between him and God. The fall was an attempt to deify before its time and out of its way. It was a path to deification based on the deification of the senses, but the senses bring us back to the world and do not raise us to God. Creation became a satanic hook that caught man, and thus his inclinations deviated from original desires to mere material things. Satan replaced man’s ideals and priorities, and the world, after being a divine gift that man would return as an offering, became a tool for satanic seduction and deception. Man’s life became attached to material things and the spirit was defeated by matter. Human concerns focused on the senses and the divine presence was lost. Even when Adam returned and heard the steps of God, after he had been inclined to satisfy his desires, he hid. Because this presence that had previously been his entire life had become disturbing and annoying to the fruit of this tree, lust!

When man went astray, his fellowship with God was replaced by his fellowship with material and worldly things. That is why our holy fathers consider that the fall of man led to the dominance of “three mighty passions” from which all problems branch out and in which all the causes of whims and errors are summarized. These passions are ignorance (due to deception), forgetfulness (due to preoccupation with material things), and finally laziness (because matter without fasting does not give spirit).

Man's longing for God, after he replaced it with a desire for sensual things, was no longer sufficient for his pursuit of his true goal. Man's energies became distributed between God and the world, while man was supposed to love God only and take what he needed from the world without temptation, that is, with chastity.

Adam wanted to become deified without fasting, that is, he tried to achieve his goals without striving and toiling, as if the matter were magical, merely desiring the world (eating the fruit and desiring it) to become knowers of good and evil - gods. He replaced the toils of the spiritual life (the commandment of fasting) with magic (lust), and magic does not achieve truth. The matter is to determine the purpose of our life: Is it God or is it matter? This answers the question: Are we fasting or not? Adam removed God from his life and brought in sensuality, and we fast in order to live the authentic human paradise life of Adam, so we bring God into our lives and do not let food and sensuality take our attention. Even when we partake of the world, we do not take any matter from it before we spiritualize it, that is, we use it as a tool of connection with God and thanks to Him. Fasting, then, is a movement to make the spirit prevail over matter, it is an effort towards spiritual resurrection.

Man cannot realize the extent of the dominance of these three passions (ignorance, forgetfulness, and laziness) without “confession,” that is, returning to the self and God. The latter uses the world as a tool to remind oneself of God, not as a distraction from Him. Fasting is a way to transform matter into this machine after it had been a temptation. Fasting does not mean abandoning matter, but rather rising above and abstaining from its temptation. That is a blessing, and this is foolishness.

1. Healing ignorance

 “You fool!” With this word Jesus described those who wanted to “be rich for themselves and not for God.” (48)Adam made a mistake in choosing between two paths in life, and became ignorant! When he persisted in submitting to the senses, they made his mind darker and more “stupid.” Therefore, the monk Bemen says: “Had it not been for the fact that Nebuzaradan, the chief cook of the Babylonians, had not gone to Jerusalem, the temple would not have burned down,” indicating the extent of the impact of the rush to satisfy the pleasure of the stomach on spiritual purity and inner freedom: “Thus, a person does not burn if the desire for food does not control him.” Monastic literature speaks of very delicate and sensitive cases. One of the monks once visited Father Isaiah during a time of fasting, and this father offered him some lentils. When the monk tasted the food, he said to Father Isaiah: “He needed some chard too.” The father replied: “Thank God, my son, that we offered you a Passover meal today, that is enough for us.” Yes, monastic asceticism scrutinizes the existence of this passion even in cases like these. Fasting means giving up “lust” and not food itself, even though that desire does not leave us before we are stripped of food in type and quantity. But giving up food and maintaining its desire is an incomplete fast, or one that is not fully mature.

It is said that a monk father took his disciple with him to a feast day in a neighboring monastery. It was customary on feast days for the monks to spread out a table of food immediately after the solemn mass, that is, at noon. And that is exactly what happened. But the disciple hesitated to eat because their fast usually continued until sunset, as in the monasteries. So he decided to eat from the table only if his teacher, the father, ate from it. Of course, everyone sat at the table with the father and ate the feast food, and the monk did the same to the disciple. Then, on the way back with his teacher, they reached a spring of water. He was very thirsty, so the disciple asked his teacher for permission to wait for him until he had a drink. The teacher said to him: Are we not fasting? The disciple said: We ate at noon! The father answered: Yes, my son, there we broke our fast for the sake of love, but here you are breaking it for the sake of lust!

The first role of fasting is to shift the mind from the world to God. (49), and this is not necessarily by leaving the world, except as a dispensation when it is necessary. Therefore, monastic literature acknowledges that the monk does not burn his passion but transforms it, “exchanging one passion for another.” Through fasting, man comes to know the true desire—the divine passion. Fasting corrects “discipline” and “taste.” The fall was a deviation in taste, and fasting comes to correct this deceived human taste. Through fasting, man confirms to himself that he “does not live by bread alone, but rather by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Fasting forms this wisdom. And such wisdom does not come without such engagement with the world. Fasting of the body strengthens the mind. (50)Fasting frees man from ignorance and creates “prophethood” in him. (51).

Fasting defines for us “our essential bread” and arranges the priorities of our concerns, the limits of each concern, and its space in our life. That is why, through fasting, the Church arranged for the faithful to increase their frequency of visiting the Holy Chalice and introduced the “Presanctified Mass.” Perhaps austerity and simplicity in fasting are what we need most to respond to the dominance of the obsession with “luxury” in people’s lives today. Fasting restores the end of the “race” to its true purpose. People today compete to secure “luxuries” in life, and luxuries have become essentials, even if they force us to sacrifice everything essential in our lives, such as comfort and necessary social relationships. The idol of “luxuries” and the pursuit of “easy” has become the god of this age, and nothing can destroy it except the simplicity of life and the austerity of living during fasting. Fasting has become more necessary today than at any previous time, due to the dominance of lust and the pleasant for the eyes and senses in our societies and our concepts. People run, but in “misguided” directions, and compete to acquire “luxuries,” while fasting takes us back to striving to acquire the essential bread and competing in the paths of virtue. The wisdom of people in the age of luxuries is “eat as much as you can,” that is, to the greatest extent possible naturally or not harmful to health. But the wisdom of man in fasting is “fast as much as you can,” that is, do not eat as much as your human body can handle. In fasting, the view of life changes in its goals and sources. “In a belly full of food, there is no place to know the secrets of God” (Isaac the Syrian).

 Therefore, fasting is accompanied by prayer (essential bread) and acts of charity. The soul’s energies, faculties and possessions are transformed towards their proper goals, towards God and the neighbor, towards building a relationship and not building possessions. Fasting opens man to the world of the other, God and the neighbor. “The value of fasting is not in abstaining from food as much as it is in abstaining from sins… What good is it to us to refrain from eating pork and fish when we eat the flesh of our brother man,” says Saint Basil the Great. The absence of fasting closes man in on his insatiable self, making his neighbor a hell and God absent.

During fasting, man experiences the Christian saying, “Lord, you created us inclined to you, and we will find no rest except in you.” Isn’t this wisdom essential in life? Or isn’t its absence a terrible ignorance and injustice to human life?

2. Healing forgetfulness

 The Genesis account mentions with deliberate precision the tree of knowledge of good and evil, from which Adam was forbidden, and says that it was in the “middle” of Paradise: “And God placed the tree in the midst of Paradise.” This means exactly that its role was to “remind” of the divine commandment and the paradise covenant. Thus the tree was in the “middle” of Adam’s life, wherever he turned or moved, tempting him and giving him the choice, to look at it lustfully or to remember the commandment and the Lord.

In this sense, the Bible is full of verses and events that seek to show God’s desire to be in the “middle of life”: “I will be in their midst, and they shall be my people.” The readings of the week of Cheese Fare (the week before Lent) are full of these meanings. Fasting is an instrument that makes God the center of our lives. “Hunger” is the taste of the table at which we dine with the Lord: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens to me, I will come in to him and eat with him.” (52)Hunger is the taste of the Eucharistic Supper with God. In other words, the experience of hunger, or a little hunger, makes every food have a Eucharistic taste and is mediated by the Lord.

Most Christian virtues, such as prayer, charity, and prostrations, require a special corner and a special time to practice them, especially for beginners; except for fasting, which can be the center of our lives without all of the above. For example, we cannot study, do charity, or pray at the same time! But we can do any work while fasting. Fasting is a prayer in the body, indeed it is the prayer of the body. Fasting is a constant alarm inside us, hidden and invisible, accompanying us every moment and saying, “God is here,” or rather, “God is with us.” He feeds us this food with a new taste—through fasting.

And when God mediates our lives through this wonderful practice, then we are awake! “Watch and be alert, your adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (53)This vigilance saves us from “forgetting.”

Most Christians believe in God and also love Him. They love to apply the commandments, pray and do virtuous deeds. But if we ask ourselves why we do not do everything we love and plan to do, we will find that the answer is “we forgot”. This is the enemy of the believer, “forgetfulness”. The monastic proverb says that the devil does not tell anyone not to do a good or virtuous deed because that is against the conscience, but he tells him “put it off until tomorrow”. He does not tell us: do not pray, but pray later, he does not tell us not to help, but help at another time… and so on! The easiest and most deadly weapon that the devil uses to nullify human virtue is “forgetfulness”. If the devil told us not to pray, he would awaken in us the necessity of prayer. But he tells us to pray tomorrow, and he takes us by forgetfulness and not by ignorance, because there is no believer who is ignorant of the importance of prayer. However, the believers who are ignorant of the trick of forgetfulness are very many. Much of what we lack in our spiritual struggle is not due to our negative convictions about it, but often due to the passage of time without us dedicating it its due share. It is forgetfulness, the enemy of faith today. Forgetfulness is a habit that becomes more severe the more we repeat it, and fasting kills this habit. Fasting is an easy practice that puts us in a state of “vigilance.” Fasting qualifies us for the words of the Prophet David, “I have set the Lord always before me.” This is sometimes possible through prayer and is always possible as long as fasting is practiced.

Nothing hides God from us and removes Him from our lives like forgetfulness. Forgetfulness has its causes, the most important of which is our attachment to worldly things first, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Second, our excessive preoccupation with non-essential bread at the expense of essential bread, so that the bread of our sufficiency becomes our goal and we forget the bread of life. Fasting brings us back to this presence before God, or makes God’s presence accompany us in a little hunger. “As soon as a person begins to fast, the mind longs for God’s company” (Isaac the Syrian).

Isaac the Syrian advises constant fasting and self-control in one place (not being distracted by many interests), and from this, he says, the following things result: subjugation and control of the senses, alertness of the mind and remembrance of God, gentleness of thoughts and domestication of fierce passions, enlightenment of the movements of the mind, sublime contemplations, flowing tears, remembrance of death, and chastity.

The opposite of forgetfulness, that is, expelling God from the midst of life, is fasting, which makes us “see God.” The order of fasts in religions was originally a preparation for man’s encounter with God. This is emphasized by the events of the Holy Bible. Moses ascended to meet God, and for this reason he fasted before that, and so did Elijah. Fasting is directly linked to the encounter with God, as a preparation for Him. “When Elijah had purified himself by fasting, he saw God clearly on Mount Horeb. Let us also purify our hearts by fasting, and we will see Christ our God.” Thus, through fasting, we enter into the vision of God, that is, into “our life hidden in God.”

According to Gregory the Theologian, the tree was the vision of God, that is, God prepared for Adam in the midst of Paradise (the midst of life) to be concerned in his mind with searching for God and glorifying Him, and this is true bliss. The readings of the Cheese Fare Week (the week before Lent) emphasize the vision of God and link it to fasting as a method (reading of the sixth hour - Friday): “Behold, I will save my people… and I will lead them and dwell in their midst, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God…” (54)And the prophecy of Friday evening: “These words speak the Lord Almighty, the fourth is a fast… Let us go on our way to seek the face of the Lord Almighty, and seek his face in Jerusalem…” (55).

Fasting, then, leads us to the divine presence and to standing before Him, and it becomes prayer. Fasting is linked to prayer, and it is like the embers in the censer, just as prayer is like the grains of incense. When they come together, a sweet, fragrant scent is raised to God, a worship of praise. Fasting thus saves us from forgetfulness when life becomes a pause in the presence of God, that is, a prayer.

3. Healing laziness

 Fasting is firewood for the fire of the spirit, “give blood and take spirit.” The practice of fasting makes us always upright and ready. It is these labors that keep us receptive to the outpouring of divine grace. If we look at this spiritual struggle (fasting) negatively, it may appear to us as a war against the flesh, and this is how some understand it. But if we know its positive meaning as a striving for light and an attempt to receive grace, then fasting becomes a beloved spiritual practice.

Our Eastern spiritual literature emphasizes the necessity of toil, in compliance with the Lord’s commandment: “The kingdom of God suffers violence” and “Enter through the narrow gate.” Laziness is the opposite of arrogance. Arrogance is a manifestation of selfishness in disguise. Arrogance is a kind of denial of one’s own comfort. This happens when we know that comfort does not come from rest. In response to the Jews’ announcement that God rested (ceased working) on the seventh day (the day of rest), Jesus said: “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” Isaac the Syrian says, “I love toil” and “the smell of the sweat of prostrations is more pleasant to God than the smell of incense.” Surrendering to any desire deprives us of willpower, and the absence of struggle deprives us of grace.

Of course, fasting has a face, which is to strengthen the will. Many have practiced fasting for this purpose, but Christian fasting does not only seek a strong will, but also a good one. Fasting, therefore, refines the will so that it seizes what it wants instead of doing what it does not want. The Kingdom of God is being usurped.” (56)“When the body is degraded by fasting, the soul is strengthened spiritually in prayer” (Isaac the Syrian). That is why Paul says, describing his struggles and fastings: “For if our outer man (the body) dies, our inner man (the spirit) is renewed.” (57)But this “rape” of the body is not a war on the body, but rather a discipline for it. Because we kill the passions, not the bodies. (58).

(21) Mark 9:29.

(22) Psalm 62, 2.

(23) Acts 27, 9.

(24) Leviticus 16, 29-31.

(25) Mark 2:18.

(26) 2, 37.

(27) Exodus 34, 28.

(28) 1 Kings 19, 28.

(29) Matthew 4:1-4.

(30) Daniel 9, 3.

(31) 1 Kings 21, 27.

(32) 2 Samuel 12, 16-22.

(33) Judith 8, 5.

(34) Joel 2, 12-17.

(35) Daniel 10, 12.

(36) Exodus 34, 28; Daniel 9, 3.

(37) Matthew 5:17-20.

(38) Matthew 6, 11.

(39) Matthew 6:17-18.

(40) Acts 13:2-4; 14:23.

(41) 2 Cor 6:5; 11:27.

(42) 1, 8.

(43) 5, 15.

(44) “Against Heretics,” 76, 6.

(45) “Defensive Essay,” 1, 61.

(46) Anastasius of Sinai (7th century).

(47) Basil the Great, [PG 31, 165]. Fasting was before the Law: Basil the Great, “Sermon 1”, [PG 31, 164-184]; “Sermon 2”, [PG 31, 185-196].

(48) Luke 12, 20.

(49) Basil the Great, [PG 31, 172].

(50) Basil the Great, [PG 31, 180].

(51) Basil the Great, [PG 31, 172].

(52) Revelation 3, 20.

(53) 1 Peter 5, 8.

(54) Zechariah 8, 8.

(55) Zechariah 8, 19.

(56) Matthew 11, 12.

(57) 2 Cor 4:16.

(58) Basil the Great, [PG 31, 181].