Saint Gregory Palamas
There are certain parts of the sea which teem with huge beasts like
sea monsters. Those who sail there hang bells from their ships, so that
the creatures panic and flee at the sound. Many wild things far more
horrible breed in the sea of our life: the evil passions and the even
more evil demons who supervise them. God’s Church sails upon this sea
like a ship, and instead of bells it has spiritual teachers to ward off
the invisible beasts by the holy sound of their teaching. Prefiguring
this, Aaron’s robe had sweet-sounding bells fastened to its edge, and it
was decreed that when Aaron ministered their sound should be heard
(Exodus 27.21-35).
Turning the literal into the spiritual to good effect, let our words
ring out to you now spiritually, especially in this time of fasting when
visible and invisible beasts make terrible attacks. The visible ones
are gluttony, drunkenness, and the like. The ones that lie invisibly in
wait are vainglory, pride, self-conceit and hypocrisy. The same sound
puts such beasts to flight and safeguards those who practice fasting.
Fasting and self-indulgence are opposites, like life and death.
Fasting is a commandment of life as old as human nature, for it was
originally given by God to Adam in paradise (Genesis 2.16-17), as a
guardiand of the life and grace engendered in him by God Himself.
Self-indulgence, on the other hand, is a counsel of death for both soul
and body, craftily given by the devil to Adam in paradise by means of
Eve (Genesis 3.1-6), for banishment from life and estrangement from
God-given divine grace. God did not make death, nor does He delight in
the destruction of the living. Does anyone want to find life and grace
in God and from God? Let him flee lethal self-indulgence and run towards
fasting and prayer which make divine, that he may return to paradise
rejoicing.
When Moses fasted forty days on the mountain he soared to the height
of divine vision and received tablets of godliness (Exodus 34.28).
Meanwhile the Hebrew people down below made themselves drunk, sank into
ungodliness and cast an idol in the form of a calf, like the Egyptian
god Apis (Exodus 32.1-8). If Moses had not stood before God, having made
atonement earlier through the merciless killing of many of his people,
God would not have spared them at all (Exodus 32.9-34.27). If we too
need God’s mercy, let us not become drunk on wine or weigh ourselves
down by eating our fill, for debauchery and ungodliness accompany such
behaviour (Ephesians 5.18). Elijah also saw God, but he too was purified
by fasting (1 Kings 19.8-12). Daniel attained to divine vision and saw
one of the archangels, who granted him knowledge of things to come, but
he had stayed without food for twenty whole days beforehand (Daniel
10.1-21). Another prophet was killed by a lion because he ate against
God’s will (1 Kings 13.11-26). You all know about Esau, Isaac’s son,
who, through gluttony, lost his father’s blessing as well as his other
rights as the first born son (Genesis 25.25-34; 26.34-35; Hebrews
12.16). We should be afraid lest, by being intent on our stomachs, we
fall away from the blessings and inheritance promised to us by our
Father on high. You are also not ignorant of the three youths devoted to
fasting (Daniel 1.11-15), who, without turning their feet or bodies,
trampled on the furnace in Babylon which had been heated seven times
more on their account (Daniel 3.16-27).
If we practise true fasting we shall trample here and now on the fire
in our flesh and quench it, and in the time to come we shall pass
unharmed through the furnace when each one’s work will be tried by fire
(1 Corinthians 3.11-15). As for the Lord of the prophets, what can we
say about Him? When He took flesh and became man for our sake, He taught
us the way to defeat the devil by the fact that, while fasting, He was
completely victorious over him when he stirred up every kind of
temptation against Him. He also told His disciples, with reference to
the deaf and dumb spirit, that “This demon comes forth by nothing, but
by prayer and fasting” (Mark 9.29; Matthew 17.21).
Let us show you, brethren, what sort of fasting is true and pleasing
to God. You should be aware that we do not commend physical fasting for
its own sake, but because it brings about other, greater benefits for
the soul. As the divine Paul says, “Bodily exercise profiteth a little”
(1 Timothy 4.8). Speaking from experience, our God-bearing Fathers do
not approve of fasting for days on end. They consider it more acceptable
to eat once a day without satisfying your appetite. This is what they
refer to as a moderate and resonable fasting, as the Scripture says as
well: not to be led astray by a full stomach and the pleasure of eating,
but to leave your food while still feeling hungry. The type and
quantity of food should be appropriate to the strength and disposition
of the eater’s body, to preserve his health as far as possible. If a
weak person eats foods appropriate to his weakness in moderation,
without supplementing the necessities with more satisfying extras, and
if he seeks nourishment not enjoyment, something to drink not
drunkenness, and moderate consumption not excess, self-indulgence and
abuse, he will not be deprived of holiness.
This is the starting point of true fasting which is pleasing to God.
But Christianst laid it down as a rule and held it in honour on account
of its outcome, the purification of the sould. What good does it do to
abstain from bodily food and to be defeated by fleshly ways of thinking
and passions? What advantage is it to refrain from wine and be tormented
by thirst, but to be drunk without wine—as it says in the Scriptures,
“Woe unto them that are drunken, but not with wine” (Isaiah 51.21; 28.1
LXX; 29.9)—and for our souls to be stirred up with anger and ill-will?
How dow we benefit by avoiding luxurious spreads, if our soul remains
unhumbled, or by depriving our flesh of its fatness, without humbling
our soul in fasting as David did? What good does it to us if we are free
of the vapour given off by excessive food, but our mind is rendered
useless by vain cares and thoughts and our prayers to God also become of
no avail?
Fasting is beneficial when it is undertaken for quelling desire,
humbling the soul, transforming hatred, extinguishing anger, erasing
remembrance of wrongs, and for the purity of the understanding and the
practice of prayer. If you are well off, let your surplus food be a
consolation for the needy. When you fast like this you not only suffer
with Christ and are dead with Him, but you are risen with Him and reign
with Him for ever and ever. If through such a fast you have been planted
together in the likeness of His death, you shall also share in His
resurrection and inherit life in Him (Romans 6.5). Should the faster be
tempted, he overcomes his tempter. Should he not be, he preserves the
peace of his soul and body by bruising his body, according to Paul, and
bringing it into subjection, for fear of being rejected (1 Corinthians
9.27). If Paul was afraid of this, how much more should we be? The
faster brings his body into subjection and his soul is tried and tested.
On the other hand, when someone fattens up his flesh, which is soon to
perish, not eating to live, but rather living to eat, like animals we
are preparing to slaughter, and supplements necessary foods with extras
in order to make it fat and prosperous, either to rouse its evil desires
or simply for sensual, bodily pleasure, obviously all he is doing is
preparing more abundant food for the worms. David the prophet puts it
well when he sings, “What profit is there in my blood, when I go down
into the pit?” (Psalm 30.9).
When you are fasting and limiting your food, do not store up the
surplus for the following day. The Lord made us rich through becoming
poor, and you, by your voluntary hunger, should nourish those who are
starving against their will. Then your fasting will be like a dove
bearing an olive sprig which brings your soul the good tidings of
deliverance from the flood (Genesis 8.11). “If you take away from the
midst of thee”, says the great Isaiah, “the yoke, the putting forth of
the finger and speaking vanity: and if thou draw out thy soul to the
hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in
obscurity and thy darkness be as the noonday” (Isaiah 58.9-10). If you
do not wish to give what is yours, at least keep away from what belongs
to others and do not take possession of what is not yours, by unjustly
seizing and keeping things, sometimes even from people poorer than
yourselves. Otherwise you may rightly hear from the same prophet, “Is it
such a fast that I have chosen? saith the Lord, even if your bend thy
neck as a ring, thy fast will not be acceptable, but loose the bands of
wickedness, dissolve the ties of oppressive contracts, and tear up every
unjust bond. Then shall they light break forth as the morning, and
thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go
before thee; the glory of the Lord shall compass thee” (Isaiah 58.5-8
LXX).
If you do not give even what you have in excess of your needs to the
poor, at least to not acquire extra things at their expense. When
Christ, the Master of all, dispatches those on His left into the fire
and curses them, He does not condemn them for seizing what belongs to
others, but for not sharing with those in need (Matthew 25.41-45).
Extortioners and unjust men will not be resurrected to appear and be
judged, but only for an immediate greater judgment and condemnation.
Even here such people appear never to have stood before God with their
whole souls. “They eat up my people”, it says, “as they eat bread, and
call not upon the Lord” (Psalm 14.4). That rich man whose ground brought
forth plentifully (Luke 12.16-21), and that other one who was clothed
in purple and fine linen (Luke 16.19-21) were justly condemned, not for
wronging anyone, but for not sharing what was theirs. Treasures are
common to all, as they come from the common storehouses of God’s
creation. Anyone who appropriates what is common as his own is greedy,
though not perhaps to the same extent as someone who openly takes
possession of other people’s belongings. The first, as an evil servant,
will, alas, undergo the terrible punishment of being cut off. The second
will be submitted to things even more dreadful and terrifying. Neither
will ever be able to escape these penalties, unless they receive the
poor with hospitality, the one making good use of the things entrusted
to him by God, the other distributing what he has accumulated by evil
means.
The great Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, your ancestors in fact,
says, “As touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you:
for ye yourselve are taught of God to love one another” (1 Thessalonians
4.9).
The Lord said to certain people, “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye
would do the works of Abraham” (John 8.39). We should be afraid lest we
hear these words, not addressed to us now, but, perish the thought,
pronounced on that terrible day, when kinship will be judged rather by
similarity of deeds. On that day all those who have loved poverty in
Christ, or at very least have loved the poor, all who have despised
glory, eagerly desired self-control, not just listened to but put into
action the divine decrees in the Gospels, wil, according to the prayer
of the Father of us all by grace, be one in a way surpassing nature.
“Grant them”, He says, “that they all may be one; as we are one” (John
17.21-22). On that day the all-discerning sword of the Spirit will
divide a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and
will make those whose ways are different strangers to one another
(Matthew 10.34-37). If this happens here, how much more there, where the
All-knowing declares to those who were not like Him in virtue, “I know
you not” (Matthew 25.1-12; Luke 13.25-27). It seems that they did not
possess the heavenly likeness, and were not merciful as our Father is
merciful. They did not share their possessions with the needy, as He
freely shared His good things with everyone. They were not kind to their
neighbours, nor did they make those far away their neighbours through
their good works. Because of this dissimilarity with Himself, He who is
good neither knew them nor brought them into His dwelling. If He acts in
this way, those who lived here according to His will and are going to
reign with Him there, will presumably say the same to those related to
them by blood who do not resemble them in virtue.
If someone says he is their brother, he will hear, alas, that no man
can ransom his brother. If someone says he was their father, he will
hear that God is the only father. And if someone says he is their child,
he will hear the words, “If you were my child, you would imitate me,
but as it is, you are the child of that father whose desires you
accomplish. Away with you and dwell with him for ever. I do not know
you. Everything that is God’s is mine, but you are not God’s. What was
mine and yours has now gone. We hated it ever in that fading world, and
so we became heirs of this kingdom.” The holy Fathers referred to “mine”
and “yours” as cold words, and wherever they are found, the bond of
love is absent and Christ has departed. Even in those days this passion
of possessiveness produced love of self, love of money, hatred of one’s
fellow man, and every kind of evl in those it had overcome, and it still
disgraces them now.
Brethren, please let us be afraid of these truly dreadful evils. Let
us organize our lives as it pleasing to God. Let us forgive that we may
be forgiven, let us be merciful to those in need that we may receive
mercy many time more abundantly. He who impoverished Himself to the
uttermost for our sakes, Himself receives our alms, and in His
munificence He will multiply the reward. We must either be poor as He
was, and so live with Him, or share what we have with those who are poor
for His sake, and so be saved through them. Let us acquire merciful
hearts and give positive proof of brotherly love and of devotion towards
the Father and Master of all. You will never find a more acceptable
time to do this than these days of the fast. If you join almsgiving to
fasting you will blot out every sin, venerate the saving passion with
boldness, join in the rejoicing at Christ’s resurrection and gain
eternal redemption.
May we all attain to this in Christ Himself our God, to whom belong
all glory, honour and worship, with His Father without beginning and the
all-holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and for ever and unto the
ages of ages. Amen.
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