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| Chapter XX. How a monk should not overstep the proper hours for taking food, if he wants to proceed to the struggle of interior conflicts.
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Chapter XX.
How a monk should not overstep the proper hours for
taking food, if he wants to proceed to the struggle of interior
conflicts.
A monk therefore who
wants to proceed to the struggle of interior conflicts should lay down
this as a precaution for himself to begin with: viz.: that he will not
in any case allow himself to be overcome by any delicacies, or take
anything to eat or drink before the fast859
| 859 Statio. This
is properly the term for the weekly fasts on Wednesday and Friday,
observed by the early Church in memory of our Lord’s betrayal and
crucifixion. See Tertullian on Prayer c. xix.; on Fasting c. i. x. In
this place the word appears to be used by Cassian for the close of the
fast; while elsewhere he uses it for fasting generally (not specially
on Wednesday and Friday,) as in c. xxiv. of the present book, and in
the Conferences, II. xxv.; XXI. xxi. The origin of the word is somewhat
uncertain (a) because the fast was observed on stated days (stasis
diebus); or (b), as S. Ambrose suggests, because “our fasts
are our encampments which protect us from the devil’s attacks: in
short, they are called stationes, because standing
(stantes) and staying in them we repel our plotting foe”
(Serm. 25). See Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. ii. p.
1928. |
is over and the proper hour for refreshment has come, outside meal
times;860
nor, when the meal is over, will he allow
himself to take a morsel however small; and likewise that he will
observe the canonical time and measure of sleep. For that
self-indulgence must be cut off in the same way that the sin of
unchastity has to be rooted out. For if a man is unable to check the
unnecessary desires of the appetite how will he be able to extinguish
the fire of carnal lust? And if a man is not able to control passions,
which are openly manifest and are but small, how will he be able with
temperate discretion to fight against those which are secret, and
excite him, when none are there to see? And therefore strength of mind
is tested in separate impulses and in any sort of passion: and if it is
overcome in the case of very small and manifest desires, how it will
endure in those that are really great and powerful and hidden, each
man’s conscience must witness for himself.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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