Anoint thy head, and wash thy face. The word calls you to the sacraments. Whoever anoints himself is anointed; he who washes himself is washed. Apply the law to the inner members. Wash your soul from sins. Anoint your head with holy anointing, so that you may become a partaker of Christ, and so approach the fast.

Do not darken your face, as hypocrites (Matt. 6:16). The face is darkened when the inner disposition is obscured by an external pretended mask, covered by falsehood as by a veil. He is a hypocrite who takes on someone else's face in a spectacle; being a slave, he often represents the face of his master, and being a commoner, the face of a king. In like manner, in this world, many act as in disgrace [2] of their own lives, carrying some things in their hearts, and others exposing to people. Therefore, do not darken your face. As you are in yourself, so you seem. Do not pretend to complain, seizing for yourself the glory that you are abstinent. There is no use in charity, which is trumpeted; nor is there any benefit from fasting, which is divulged to everyone. That which is done for show does not bear fruit that will be observed until the age to come, but is limited to the praise of men. Therefore, with a bright face, flow to the gift of fasting.

Fasting is an ancient gift, not decaying, not aging, but constantly renewed and blossoming in all its beauty. Do you think that I count its antiquity from the time of the origin of the law? Fasting is older than the law. If you wait a little, you will be convinced of the truth of what has been said. Do not think that the day of atonement, established for Israel in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month (Lev. 16:29), is the beginning of the fast. Delving into history and looking for the antiquity of its origin. Fasting is not a new invention, but a treasure of the fathers. Everything that is distinguished by antiquity is venerable. Respect the gray hair of fasting. It is contemporary with humanity. Fasting is legalized in paradise. Adam accepted this first commandment: "From the tree, if you understand good and evil, you shall not take away [3] (Gen. 2:17). And this, "Do not bear it," is the lawfulness of fasting and abstinence. If Eve had fasted and had not eaten from the tree, then we would not have had need of this fast now. For they do not require the health of a physician, but those who are sick (Matt. 9:12). We are damaged by sin — we will be healed by repentance; and repentance without fasting is not effective. Cursed is the earth: thorns and thistles shall grow for thee (Gen. 3:17, 18). It is commanded to be contrite in spirit, and not to indulge in luxury. By fasting be justified before God.

But the very sojourn in paradise is an image of fasting, not only because man, leading a life equal to the angels, succeeded in being content with little, but also because those who lived in paradise did not think of what was later invented by human invention [4]: neither the use of wine, nor the slaughter of animals, nor everything that makes the human mind clouded.

Since we have not fasted, we have been cast out of paradise. Therefore, let us fast in order to ascend to paradise again. Do you not see how Lazarus ascended to paradise through fasting?

Do not imitate Eve's disobedience, do not again accept as a counselor the serpent who offers food, pleasing the flesh. Do not refer to the infirmities and infirmities of the body. You do not present these pretexts to me, but to Him who comes. Tell me: you cannot fast, but you can be satiated and oppress your body with the burden of what you eat? And for the sick, as far as I know, doctors prescribe not a variety of food, but non-eating and malnutrition.

And if it has a proportionate load of goods, then it comfortably walks on the waves, and nothing prevents it from keeping high above the water. In the same way, human bodies, burdened with constant satiety, are conveniently swallowed up by infirmities; and if moderate and light food is consumed, then they avoid the evil consequences expected from illness, like the rebellion of a storm, and the attacks that have already begun are reflected from themselves like a gust of whirlwind. Consequently, in your opinion, it is more difficult not to move than to flee, and it is more difficult to remain in peace than to fight, if you assert that it is more proper for the sick to live luxuriously than to take moderate food. The vital force easily digests moderate and simple food, and transforms it into the flesh of the nourished; and having taken expensive and varied foods, and then being unable to digest them completely, produces various kinds of diseases.

But let the word turn to history and show the antiquity of fasting, show that all the saints observed fasting as some kind of paternal inheritance, handed down from father to son and successively received, so that this acquisition, in the order of succession, has been preserved to us.

In paradise there was no wine, no slaughter of animals, no meat-eating. After the flood they recognized wine; after the flood it is said: "Eat all things as a potion of grass" (Gen. 9:3). When there is no hope for perfection, then pleasure is permitted. And the proof that wine has not yet been tasted is Noah, who does not know the use of wine. It had not yet entered the world and was not familiar to people. Noah, not seeing its effect on others, not having experienced it on himself, carelessly suffered harm from wine. For Noah planted grapes, and drank of the fruit, and drank (Gen. 9:20-21), not because he was addicted to wine, but because he did not know how much to eat it. Thus, the invention of wine-drinking is much later than Paradise, and such antiquity has the dignity of fasting!

But we also know that Moses also ascended the mountain during the fast. And he would not have dared to approach the smoking peak, would not have dared to ascend into darkness, if he had not armed himself with fasting. During the fast, he accepted the commandment, inscribed with the finger of God on the tablets. And at the top of the mountain fasting provided the law, and below the insatiability of the belly brought its frenzy to idolatry. For the gray-haired people eat and drink, and arise to play (Exodus 32:6). The forty-day stay with God of His servant fasting and praying turned out to be useless from a single rapture. For those tablets inscribed by the finger of God, which the fast accepted, were crushed by drunkenness; because, according to the judgment of the prophet, the drunken people were unworthy of God's legislation. And this people, who have been taught the knowledge of God by great miracles, will be plunged into Egyptian idolatry in an instant by the insatiability of the womb. Compare the one with the other: how fasting leads to God, and how luxury becomes a betrayer of salvation!

Stretching out in the same way, descend to the following. What denigrated Esau and made him a slave to his brother? Was it not the only food for which he gave the primacy? And did not Samuel give her mother a prayer combined with fasting? What made the great warrior Sampson insurmountable? Is it not fasting, with which he was conceived in his mother's womb? Fasting made him gluttonous, fasting milked him,[5] fasting made him a man; the fast which the angel prescribed for his mother: "If he proceedeth out of the vine, let him not eat, and let him not drink wine or strong drink" (Judg. 13:14).

Fasting gives birth to prophets, strengthens the strong; Fasting makes legislators wiser. Fasting is a good guardian of the soul, a reliable cohabitant of the body, a weapon of valiant people, a school for ascetics. He repels temptations, anoints those who strive in piety; he is a cohabitant of sobriety, a worker of chastity; in battles he performs valiant deeds, in time of peace he teaches silence; He sanctifies a Nazarite [6], performs [7] a priest, for without fasting it is impossible to dare to perform a sacred service, not only in the present sacramental and true service, but also in the service under the law.

Fasting made Elijah a spectator of a great vision; for having cleansed his soul by fasting for forty days, he was vouchsafed to see the Lord in the cave of Horeb, as much as a man can see Him. The fasting Elijah returned his son to the widow, through fasting proving to be stronger than death. Out of the mouth of the fasting man came a voice that went out to shut up heaven for the wicked people for three years and six months. In order to soften the unbridled hearts of the stiff-necked, Elijah decided to condemn himself with them to misery. Therefore he said, "As the Lord lives... if there be water on the earth, it will come from my mouth [8] (1 Kings 17:1). And with the coming famine, he imposed a fast on all the people, in order to correct them from the vice of luxury and dissolute life.

And what is Eliseev's life? How did the prophet enjoy the hospitality of the Shunammite woman? How did he treat the prophets himself? Did not the potion of divia [9] and a few torments (2 Kings 4:39, 41) satisfy the love of strangers, when those who touched the food were in danger from the addition of an apple diviago [10], if the prayer of the fasting person had not destroyed the poisonousness? In a word, you will find that fasting led all the saints to live according to God.