On the three days of the week, the second, fourth, and sixth, you shall eat the nine, i.e., eat once a day (at 9 o'clock), eating six pounds of bread, three or four cups of dry food, and three or four cups of water, following the 69th canon of St. Gregory. The Apostles, to whom it is enjoined: "If any bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or reader, or singer of the Holy Forty Days before Pascha, or on Wednesday, or on Friday, does not fast, let him be expelled, except for an obstacle from bodily infirmity; but if it be a layman, let him be excommunicated." — On Monday, the fast was established after the Holy Fathers.

32) How one should eat on Tuesday and Thursday.

On two days, that is, on Tuesday and Thursdays, twice a day you should eat, eating six ounces of bread, some kind of brew abstinent, and some dry food, and drinking wine, if you drink, three or four cups dissolved with water; In the evening you shall eat three pieces of bread, some dry food, or vegetables, wine and water, and drink one cup. or many or two, when a strong thirst overcomes him.

Thirst, however, greatly helps in tears, having vigilance as a concubine, of which St. Climacus says: "Thirst and vigilance crush the heart; but tears flow from the heart of the broken" (6:13). And St. Isaac: "For God's sake, endure thirst, that He may give you His love to drink."

But if you prefer to eat once on these two days, you will do very good; for fasting and abstinence are the first virtues, the mother, root, source and foundation of all good. "And one of the external sages says: 'Choose the best life, and then the habit will make it pleasant.' And St. Basil the Great: "Where there is a will with firm determination, there are no obstacles." — And another of the God-bearing men: "The beginning of fruitfulness is the flower; and the beginning of an active life is abstinence" (Prov. Nilach. 1, p. 201).

This, as well as what follows, may seem inconvenient or even impossible to others. But whoever takes into account the offspring that flourishes from this, and keeps before the eyes of the mind the glorious state that is usually engendered from this; he acknowledges this to be not difficult, and with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ in his best efforts to do so, and in word and deed he preaches as far as it is possible to do this, in confirmation of this, as if he had applied some kind of seal with them (deeds and words). And St. Isaac says: "Scanty bread at the table of the pure cleanses the soul of the eater from all passion . . . From the table of those who fast, those who are on vigil, and those who labor in the Lord, take for yourself the medicine of life, and awaken your soul from death. For in the midst of them lies the Beloved, sanctifying their food and transforming the bitterness of their meager meal into His ineffable sweetness; but His spiritual heavenly servants overshadow them, and their holy manifestations" (Verse 8, p. 62). Again: "The stench of a fasting man is very sweet, and meeting him rejoices the hearts of the prudent . . . The behavior of the abstinent is pleasing to God." (ibid., p. 63).

(33) How to eat on the Sabbath. Also about vigils, and how it is proper to eat during them.

On every Saturday, except the Great Sabbath, it behooves you to eat twice, as is prescribed above for Tuesday and Thursday. This is both in accordance with the definition of the sacred rules, and because throughout the whole summer of the Lord's days you must perform vigils, except for the cheese vigil, and also in addition to the occasion when some great feast of the Lord occurs during the week, or the feast of any of the great saints. Then keep vigil in these days, and on the day of the Lord leave it. "But so or so it will be, on Saturday all take two meals. However, since it is useful for you always to compel yourself to perform the vigil of the night, it is much better for you, in spite of the celebration of the vigil during the week, on the occasion of the above-mentioned days, to perform it also on the Resurrection. You will soon see for yourself the great benefit of this; Thy light shall be opened, let us say by the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Thy light shall shine early, and thy healings shall soon shine" (Isaiah 58:8).

St. St. Isaac says: "For every struggle against sin and lust, the labor of vigil and fasting is the beginning, especially for him who struggles against the sin that is within us. And from this we see a sign of hatred of sin and lust in those who struggle in this invisible battle. And all almost passionate prepositions begin to diminish from fasting. After it, the night vigil especially contributes to asceticism. Throughout his life, he who loves to converse with this two, is a friend of chastity. Just as resting the belly and sleeping too much to the point of weakness, kindling the lust of fornication, is the beginning of all evils: so is the holy path of God and the foundation of all virtue fasting, vigil and vigilance in the priestly service of God." — Again: "In a soul overturned by the memory of God and by unceasing vigil night and day, — this is where the Lord builds a cloud for its strengthening and protection, which covers it with its shadow in the days, and illuminates it with the light of fire in the night" (Psalm 77:14). Again: "Choose for yourself a sweet work, an everlasting vigil at night, by which all the fathers have cast off the old man and have been vouchsafed the renewal of the mind. In these hours the soul feels this immortal life, and in its feeling it casts off the darkness of passions, and receives the Holy Spirit." Again: "Almost a vigil, that thou mayest find consolation in thy soul." Again: "Do not think, O man, that in all monastic asceticism there is any work greater than the night vigil." Again: "Do not look upon a monk who dwells in vigil with the discernment of the mind, as one who bears the flesh: for this work, as truly, is the work of the Angelic order." Again: "The soul working in this angelic work of vigil will have the eyes of the cherubim, and with them it will contemplate and see unceasingly the heavenly visions."

Spend these vigils in prayer, psalmody and reading, purely, unscrupulously and with contrite tenderness, alone, or with a kindly and like-minded companionship. After each of your vigils, for the sake of labor, from the vigil that was, do a little consolation in food and drink at supper, namely: eat three bread of Ungia, with an addition and some dry food, as much as you need, drink and wine and water three cups. But look. having a vigil on the ninth day, do not violate the vigil of the nine in any way for the sake of this. For this is fitting to do and not to forsake it. The consolation of which we speak here is due after the vigil.

34) How it is proper to eat on Sundays, and about other things, as well as about work and humility.

Likewise, on all Sundays, eat twice a day, as on Saturdays. This institution should be kept as it should be, except for infirmity. Do the same on all days in which the Holy Fathers have permitted you to do so, or it has been established by a long custom, for whatever reason. And on these days we do not eat once, and do not keep dry food, but we eat of all that is useful and not shameful, also of vegetables, which will happen, however, with abstinence, and in a certain quantity; for abstinence in all things is always a beautiful thing. With bodily infirmities, it is possible, as we have said, to eat without being ashamed of all that is necessary and permitted to us for the maintenance of the body. For the Holy Fathers taught us to be passion-killers, and not body-killers. And what is permitted we do not mean to Christians in general, but to us, according to our monastic order. Commune of all this with thanksgiving, to the glory of God, and in order to avoid arrogance, only do not allow yourself to be excessive. "The poverty of things," says St. Isaac, "involuntarily teaches a person abstinence, even if he does not want to; on the contrary, when we have plenty of them, and access to them is open, then it is difficult for us to restrain ourselves." Do not love bodily repose. For "the soul that loves God, according to the words of the Monk Isaac again, has rest in God alone." "Choose for yourselves more labor and poverty in maintenance, and humility. For "labor and humility," writes one of the saints, "gain Christ."

35) What diet should be kept and how one should live during Lent, and especially during Great Lent.

About diet and about the way of life in general during the holy fasts, I think, it is superfluous to explain in particular and in detail. For as it is ordained for you to act on those days in which you keep the nine, so you must also act on the holy fasts, except Saturdays and Sundays. But, if thou canst, behave in them even more strictly, and even more soberly, especially on the holy Great Forty Days, which is, as it were, a tithe to God from the whole year, and to the victors of Christ bestows rewards for their exploits on the radiant day of the Divine Resurrection.