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| From Fasts Absolute Tertullian Comes to Partial Ones and Xerophagies. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter IX.—From
Fasts Absolute Tertullian Comes to Partial Ones and
Xerophagies.
This principal species in the category of dietary
restriction may already afford a prejudgment concerning the inferior
operations of abstinence also, as being themselves too, in proportion
to their measure, useful or necessary. For the exception of
certain kinds from use of food is a partial fast. Let us
therefore look into the question of the novelty or vanity of
xerophagies, to see whether in them too we do not find an operation
alike of most ancient as of most efficacious religion. I return
to Daniel and his brethren, preferring as they did a diet of vegetables
and the beverage of water to the royal dishes and decanters, and being
found as they were therefore “more handsome” (lest any be
apprehensive on the score of his paltry body, to boot!), besides being
spiritually cultured into the bargain.1067 For God gave to the young men
knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature, and to Daniel
in every word, and in dreams, and in every kind of wisdom; which
(wisdom) was to make him wise in this very thing also,—namely, by
what means the recognition of mysteries was to be obtained from
God. Finally, in the third year of Cyrus king of the Persians,
when he had fallen into careful and repeated meditation on a vision, he
provided another form of humiliation. “In those
days,” he says, “I Daniel was mourning during three
weeks: pleasant bread I ate not; flesh and wine entered not into
my mouth; with oil I was not anointed; until three weeks were
consummated:” which being elapsed, an angel was sent out
(from God), addressing him on this wise: “Daniel, thou art
a man pitiable; fear not: since, from the first day on which thou
gavest thy soul to recogitation and to humiliation before God, thy word
hath been heard, and I am entered at thy word.”1068
1068 See Dan. x. 1-3, 5, 12" id="iii.ix.ix-p4.1" parsed="|Dan|10|1|10|3;|Dan|10|5|0|0;|Dan|10|12|0|0" osisRef="Bible:Dan.10.1-Dan.10.3 Bible:Dan.10.5 Bible:Dan.10.12">Dan. x. 1–3, 5, 12. | Thus the “pitiable”
spectacle and the humiliation of xerophagies expel fear, and attract
the ears of God, and make men masters of secrets.
I return likewise to Elijah. When the ravens had
been wont to satisfy him with “bread and flesh,”1069 why was it that afterwards, at Beersheba of
Judea, that certain angel, after rousing him from sleep, offered him,
beyond doubt, bread alone, and water?1070 Had ravens been wanting, to feed him
more liberally? or had it been difficult to the “angel” to
carry away from some pan of the banquet-room of the king some attendant
with his amply-furnished waiter, and transfer him to Elijah, just as
the breakfast of the reapers was carried into the den of lions and
presented to Daniel in his hunger? But it behoved that an example
should be set, teaching us that, at a time of pressure and persecution
and whatsoever difficulty, we must live on xerophagies. With such
food did David express his own exomologesis; “eating ashes indeed
as it were bread,” that is, bread dry and foul like ashes:
“mingling, moreover, his drink with weeping”—of
course, instead of wine.1071 For
abstinence from wine withal has honourable badges of its
own: (an abstinence) which had dedicated Samuel, and consecrated
Aaron, to God. For of Samuel his mother said: “And
wine and that which is intoxicating shall he not drink:”1072 for such was her condition withal when
praying to God.1073 And the Lord
said to Aaron: “Wine and spirituous liquor shall ye not
drink, thou and thy son after thee, whenever ye shall enter the
tabernacle, or ascend unto the sacrificial altar; and ye shall not
die.”1074 So true is
it, that such as shall have ministered in the Church, being not sober,
shall “die.” Thus, too, in recent times He upbraids
Israel: “And ye used to give my sanctified ones wine to
drink.” And, moreover, this limitation upon drink is the
portion of xerophagy. Anyhow, wherever abstinence from wine is
either exacted by God or vowed by man, there let there be understood
likewise a restriction of food fore-furnishing a formal type to
drink. For the quality of the drink is correspondent to
that of the eating. It is not probable that a man should
sacrifice to God half his appetite; temperate in waters, and
intemperate in meats. Whether, moreover, the apostle had any
acquaintance with xerophagies—(the apostle) who had repeatedly
practised greater rigours, “hunger, and thirst, and fasts
many,” who had forbidden “drunkennesses and
revellings”1075 —we have a
sufficient evidence even from the case of his disciple Timotheus; whom
when he admonishes, “for the sake of his stomach and constant
weaknesses,” to use “a little wine,”1076 from which he was abstaining not from rule,
but from devotion—else the custom would rather have been
beneficial to his stomach—by this very fact he has advised
abstinence from wine as “worthy of God,” which, on a ground
of necessity, he has dissuaded.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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