On Elijah and Fasting

Contents

Reading pages: 1–40 · 41–78 · 79–85

1. 1As Lent approaches, Ambrose calls the faithful to the contest of fasting, in which Christ, tempted with bread, first won the victory.
2. 2Elijah, fasting, shut heaven against Ahab's idolatrous people, while the widow of Zarephath, who preferred devotion to food, was fed.
3. 3Elijah's miracles and his ascension were the fruit of fasting, by which he lived a heavenly life on earth.
4. 4Fasting is the life of angels and the step to God, by which Elijah ascended and John the Baptist lived like an angel.
5. 5Let us imitate Elijah by seeking the food of the mind, doing God's will, which is the food of angels.
6. 6Fasting is as old as creation: the first five days were a fast, and eating began only on the sixth, when the work of creation ceased.
7. 7The first law in paradise was a law of fasting, and the first sin came through eating; gluttony expelled man from paradise, abstinence recalls him.
8. 8God's words 'Adam has become like one of us' are spoken in irony: aspiring to be divine, Adam fell beneath himself and was clothed in skin.
9. 9Fasting covers the soul that sin has stripped, as grace and repentance cover sin and the Lord clothes those who fast with light.
10. 10Noah was drunk through ignorance of wine, which he had just discovered; his example teaches sobriety and wine's use as a remedy.
11. 11Slavery began with Noah's drunkenness and Ham's mockery; wine harms the onlookers even more than the drinker.
12. 12Lot's drunkenness led to incest with his daughters.
13. 13Abraham served no wine to his heavenly guests, since there was no place for sin where the Lord was present.
14. 14John the Baptist abstained from wine; drunkenness overcame Noah and Lot, who had survived flood and fire while they fasted.
15. 15Moses gave the people water, not wine, and legislated about fasting, not about wine.
16. 16Moses received the law while fasting forty days, while below the people feasted and sinned, so that he broke the tablets.
17. 17Samson's mother and Hannah were made fruitful through abstinence; Samson, born of sobriety, was avenged on the drunken Philistines.
18. 18Elisha healed the poisoned stew of the sons of the prophets with flour, by the power of prophetic abstinence.
19. 19The three young men in the furnace, made like asbestos by fasting, were untouched by the flames.
20. 20Daniel, strengthened by fasting, taught the lions to fast and was not harmed.
21. 21Fasting quenched fire, shut the lions' mouths, made the sea solid, and opened springs from the rock.
22. 22Fasting harms no household and brings every benefit to soul and body, a provision for the whole of life.
23. 23Fasting never killed anyone, while food is the bait of every snare; fasting brings sobriety and quiet, luxury poverty and restlessness.
24. 24Ambrose satirizes the rich man's caterer, who runs about at dawn bidding up the prices of rare foods until his master squanders his estate.
25. 25The rich man's kitchen is a scene of uproar and beatings, more a slaughterhouse than a place of dinner.
26. 26Gluttony is an insatiable mistress, praising virtue when full and abandoning it when hungry, and bringing sickness.
27. 27The rich man of the parable, who feasted daily while Lazarus starved, now thirsts in hell; drinkers drink without ever being satisfied.
28. 28Drunkenness wounds the drinker, tears the garment of faith, and brings want; rulers are forbidden wine lest they forget wisdom.
29. 29Judith, fasting, overcame the drunken Holofernes and his army.
30. 30Esther, made more beautiful by fasting, saved her people, while Haman perished at the banquet.
31. 31Fasting reconciles with God and, by frugality, keeps households free from debt and usury.
32. 32Fasting makes food and drink more pleasant, as alternations of light and dark, sickness and health enhance their enjoyment.
33. 33Fasting prepares us for the mystical table of the sacraments, to which hunger and thirst lead.
34. 34Lent ends in Easter baptism and the eucharist; but true fasting, as Isaiah says, means justice, release of debts, and care for the poor, not mere hunger.
35. 35The one who fasts shows gravity and modesty, not the affected sadness of hypocrites who fast to be seen.
36. 36Anointing the head in fasting means the oil of gladness and the anointing of the sacraments, not feigned sadness or luxurious perfume.
37. 37Mystically, we anoint Christ's head and feet by confessing his divinity and passion, and wash our face by cleansing our conscience, so that the inner and outer self agree.
38. 38As bitter medicine kills worms in the body, the bitterness of fasting kills hidden sin in the soul.
39. 39Esau lost his birthright for sweet food, while Jacob's abstinence won him lordship; Samson's riddle shows sweetness coming from bitterness.
40. 40Fasting should be done without boasting, in secret, as by Elijah, Elisha, and John in the desert, to whom God sent food.
41. 41Ambrose, hearing feasting, recalls Israel eating and playing while Moses fasted; drunkenness is the mother of faithlessness.
42. 42Drunkards in taverns imagine themselves rulers and benefactors, but when sober find themselves beggars.
43. 43Drunkenness leads to violence and self-delusion, then to maudlin tears, softening even proud hearts.
44. 44In wine all feel equal, but Sirach teaches that wine, created for gladness, must be drunk in moderation.
45. 45Ambrose recalls the story of the drunken youth converted by a philosopher, but turns to the banquets of the powerful.
46. 46Ambrose describes the lavish banquets of military commanders, with gilded attendants and a horn of wine that rouses them to drinking contests.
47. 47Ambrose describes the drinking bouts of the powerful, which begin with small cups like skirmishers and grow into contests of who can drink most.
48. 48After the meal the drinking begins in earnest, with large bowls and judged contests, until the servants tire but the drinkers do not.
49. 49Unlike war or wrestling, the drinking contest allows no surrender; all end drunk, to the host's glory.
50. 50The drunken soldiers, brave in the morning, end the evening carried out by slaves, mocked even by children.
51. 51The host who forces drink on his guests is as guilty as they; wine taken to excess is poison.
52. 52Moses compared wine to the incurable venom of dragons and asps, and the wine of Sodom to the poison of faithlessness.
53. 53Isaiah, Proverbs, and the Greek Esdras pronounce woe on drunkards, who fall into lawsuits, brawls, and bloodshed they do not remember.
54. 54Banquets add music and women to drink to rouse lust; Romans encourage barbarians to drink so that they may be conquered; all intoxicating drink is called 'strong drink.'
55. 55Instead of rising early to pray, the drunkard rises to drink, preferring music and wine to hymns and psalms.
56. 56Babylon, the golden cup that made the nations drunk, has been broken; it entices by its precious appearance.
57. 57The golden cup of the world holds the poison of death and lust, while the apostles carry Christ's treasure in earthen vessels.
58. 58Drunkenness brings the trembling of Cain in the land of Nod, 'commotion,' and of those who shook their heads at the cross.
59. 59Drunkenness inflames lust, turns men into neighing horses, and brings disease and vomiting, as Jeremiah says.
60. 60Drunkards suffer illusions, vertigo, and irrational fears and cannot be roused until they sober up.
61. 61Jeremiah mourns the drunkard as a superfluous creature, while Paul commends the drunkenness of the Spirit, natural to those made in God's image.
62. 62Drinkers make toasts to emperors and armies into duties of loyalty, and some drink at martyrs' tombs, as if drunkenness honored those who learned to suffer by fasting.
63. 63Drunken boasts have led men to torture and death; wine extracts secrets that torture cannot.
64. 64Some drink wine poured down their throats through pipes and horns, though such floods destroy the body as water wears rock.
65. 65Even elephants drink only to quench thirst, holding nothing superfluous.
66. 66Ambrose deplores women who, drunk, dance immodestly in the streets before young men, against the apostle's teaching on modesty.
67. 67Wine and women each lead men from God, and still more together; Sirach calls a drunken woman a great wrath.
68. 68Israel was strong while drinking water and eating manna, but when it craved the meat of Egypt it perished in the desert.
69. 69Isaiah's oracle on Tyre, a luxurious city, shows luxury as the root of vices and the mother of avarice.
70. 70The Phoenician merchants' restless seafaring for gain is condemned; the sea was made for beauty, not trade, as Jonah's flight by sea shows.
71. 71The sea was given for food, not for the restless trade that greed drives, so that the sea itself cries, 'Be ashamed, Sidon.'
72. 72Carthage, founded by Tyre, inherits its luxury; the merchants sow and reap on water, never on solid ground, unlike those who sow for heaven.
73. 73Isaiah calls Tyre a harlot's song, using plain words to make sinners blush, which fits the shameful dances of Ambrose's day.
74. 74The harlot's song may also be taken in a good sense, of Rahab and of the converted nations, the 'harlots' who enter the kingdom first.
75. 75Since the Lord is merciful, we should renounce the devil, as the demons themselves disowned Christ, and trust the great physician to heal great sins.
76. 76We can redeem our sins by almsgiving, turning money, the instrument of greed, into an aid to mercy.
77. 77Isaiah's announcement that the Lord comes to lay waste the world shows the coming judgment as present, to call us to conversion.
78. 78The world's end is not loss but rest, as an emptied stadium after the games brings rest to athletes and spectators.
79. 79Christians, enrolled for Christ's contest, must train like athletes in sobriety and chastity, watched by angels, to win the crown.
80. 80Ambrose prays for Christ's coming, which will free creation from vanity and bring the new heaven where the faithful see his glory.
81. 81Like athletes watched by angels, we should fast and avoid revelry, separating ourselves, as the Levites did at Moses' call, from those who sin by feasting.
82. 82The church must separate the unrepentant from the altar, so that by correction they may return to the sacraments.
83. 83The unbaptized should come to baptism, which, like the fire on Elijah's water-drenched altar, consumes sin and enlightens.
84. 84No one should postpone baptism, which, prefigured by Elijah's opening of heaven, opens the kingdom through water and the Spirit.
85. 85Delaying baptism is folly; like Cain's offering of what came after, giving God the remainder of life is rejected, while Abel's first-fruits were accepted.