From the distance of centuries there appears, for example, the image of the wondrous Enoch, who by abstinence was changed from earth to heaven [58]. The beautiful Joseph avoided confusion with the lawless wife of Pentephrius by fasting and received the kingdom [59]. Gideon, by abstinence and prayer with only three hundred men, defeats the Midianites [60]. Lent revealed the prophet Samuel to blossom spiritually, brought up the great brave Samson, perfected the Old Testament priests and prophets [61].

The divine Moses, cleansed by fasting, worked many miracles, parted the Red Sea with a rod and fed people for 40 years in an impassable desert [62]. On Mount Sinai, with the eyes of his fasting soul, he beheld God, was the interlocutor of the Creator, was vouchsafed to speak with Him face to face and receive with his ears the voice of the Invisible Most-Pure God. After fasting, Moses received the tablets of the Covenant from God and was the Scribe of the Law [63].

Joshua sanctified the Jewish people by abstinence, crossed the Jordan with them, and inherited the Promised Land. The king and prophet David defeated the foreigner Goliath by fasting and gained the kingdom.

The Prophet Elijah, having fasted, opened the heavens and watered the thirsty earth with clouds. Fasting enlightened Elijah and cleansed him to the Horeb vision of God in a quiet wind. Fasting kept him zealous for drawing all people to the true God, made him a fiery chariot in the fiery chariot he had found, and lifted him up to the heights of heaven [65].

The prophet Elisha, fasting, resurrected the dead child of Shunammite's wife [66].

The fiery Seraphim touched the lips of the wise prophet Isaiah with a mysterious coal from the altar of the Lord [67].

The prophet Daniel, who had once fasted, tamed and stopped the mouths of the roaring lions [68], the three keepers of the fast, the youths in the Babylonian furnace, trampled down the burning flame without being scorched by the fire [69].

Holy fasting saved the Prophet Jonah in the whale from destruction [70] and the ancient Ninevites from the wrath of God [71].

By fasting, the Apostles of Christ pleased God and appeared on earth as lamps of abstinence and teachers of fasting for the pagans [72]. Fasting made the Apostle Paul the Heavenly Worker [73].

Thus wondrous in salvation is fasting combined with prayer [74]; whoever among the Christians, regardless of the time of his life on earth, does not accept the divinely inspired testament of fasting, will receive mercy and salvation from Christ the Savior.

The liturgical judgments on fasting set forth are precious for their extraordinary clarity, vitality, and depth of analysis of the penitential mood of the fasters. In the words of the stichera and the Great Lenten canons, the moments of the combination of God's grace with the volitional freedom of the fasting in their prayerful and humble appeal to God and mercy to their neighbors are surprisingly clearly shaded.

Also excellent are the images of the biblical zealots of fasting, emerging from the depths of centuries in their majestic heavenly beauty.

We will devote the next chapter of our book to the depiction of the significance of fasting in the matter of the grace-filled transfiguration of human nature according to the Triodion.

THE MORAL GRACE-FILLED MEANING OF FASTING