Fasting And Conflict

Neque cautos, vigilantes, sobrios, diabolus perturbare suis superventionibus praevalebit; certe neque nos taliter armatos publico conflictu provocare audebit: dolis appetere non praesumet. Animus in coelesti speculo perseveret; diaboli fraudulentas et occultas deprimat et declinet insidias. Est quidem diabolus per se nequam, fit tamen nequior provocatus. Audi Apostolum dicentem: Diabolus sicut leo rugiens circuit, quaerens quem devoret. Jejunantibus nobis, diabolus esurit, qui nostris semper saturatur ex culpis. Ille cibum nostrum deducit in crapulam: potum nostrum in ebrietatem diffundit, ut mentem faciat amentem, carnem luteam reddat, corpus animi domicilium, animae vas, murum spiritus, virtutum scholam, Dei templum, in scenam criminum, in vitiorum pompam, voluptatem redigat in theatrum. Capit ille satietatem, voluptatem percipit, expletur epulis, quando nos luxus solvit, libido stimulat, pompa rapit, impellit ambitio, urget ira, furor implet, succendit invidia, cupiditas inflammat, curae sollicitant, lites vexant, lucra capiunt, usurae vinciunt, chirographa ligant, premunt sacculi, elidit aurum. Quando moriuntur virtutes, vivunt vitia, voluptas effluit, honestas perit, misericordia deficit, abundat avaritia, regnat confusio, succumbit ordo, prosternitur disciplina. Ista militant adversum militem Christi; istae sunt satanae cohortes, istae diaboli legiones, ista sunt quae mundum sepulcris obsederunt, debellaverunt populos, vastarunt gentes, orbem totum duxere captivum. Ista sunt quibus nullus per se potuit obviare mortalis: et ideo ad vincenda ista Deus venit ipse, coeli rex ipse descendit, ipse victor singularis advenit, jejunium quadragesimae statuens in procinctu, ut quaterna decade jejunii quadraturam mundi totam muro inexpugnabili communiret. Sanctus Petrus Chrysologus, Sermo XII, De Jejunio Et Tentationibus Christi Source: Migne PL 52.223b-224c

With the trouble of his coming, the devil shall not overthrow the cautious or the vigilant or the sober. Certainly he does not dare provoke us who are so armed to open conflict, but rather he seeks to seize us with trickery. Let the mind persevere in looking to heaven and it shall crush down the hidden deceits of the devil and undo his plots. Certainly the devil is wicked on his own but he is more wicked when he is summoned. Hear the Apostle saying: 'The devil is like a roaring lion that goes about in search of someone to devour.' 1 While we fast, the devil hungers, he who is always filled by our sins. He brings our eating to excess and extends our drinking to drunkenness, so that he might make the mind mindless, and fashion the flesh as good for nothing, and reduce the body, the house of the soul and its vessel, the walls of our spirit, the school of the virtues, the temple of God, to a stage of crimes, a spectacle of vice, a theatre of pleasure. He is filled to satiety when he receives pleasure, gorged with a feast when luxury undoes us, and lust excites, and extravagance seizes, and ambition drives, and anger compels, and fury possesses, and envy incenses, and desire inflames, and cares trouble, and disputes vex, and profits take hold, and usury conquers, and contracts bind, and money burdens, and gold crushes. When the virtues die, the vices live, pleasure bursts forth, uprightness perishes, mercy withers, avarice abounds, confusion reigns, order collapses, discipline is cast down. These war against the soldier of Christ, these are the companies of Satan, the legions of the devil, these have laid siege to the world with tombs, have destroyed peoples, lay waste nations, have led the whole world into captivity. Against these no mortal can stand on his own, and therefore God Himself came to conquer them, the king of heaven descended, the only conqueror approached, establishing the forty day fast as a preparation for battle, that the four decades of the days of fasting might fortify with an impregnable wall the four corners of the world. Saint Peter Chrysologus, from Sermon 12, On Fasting And The Temptations of Christ 1 1 Pet 5.8