[...]. If, however, the status of a cleric is such, the Church shall claim these things within the space of a year; but after the year, the fiscus shall claim them, while the laws established against heretics are strictly observed. B Tit. 8, constit. 2. Jews, or Samaritans, or heretics, who are of curial condition, the constitution subjects to bodily services, in no way granting them privilege. Tit. 9, constit. 10. A heretical woman shall not use the benefit of the constitution which sanctions her hereditary rights.
OF THE MOST HOLY PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH, LORD THEODORE BALSAMON, EPISTLE CONCERNING THE FASTS WHICH OUGHT TO BE OBSERVED EACH YEAR, SENT TO THE ANTIOCHENES
1. Those who teach doctrines pleasing to God, O most God-beloved body of the once-renowned throne of the City of God [Theoupolis], have passed through the stadium of virtue by the fire of prayers and the water of fasts. But as many as have slipped—like me—into the Charybdis of gluttony, and who make their belly their god, according to the great Apostle, are unable to relate those things which accord with the truth, and which are contrary to their own deeds. B For whatever anyone does senselessly, that same thing he philosophizes and deems that others should also do. They were therefore about to […].
A reject my entreaty, and to say with Moses: "Choose another who can; for I am weak-voiced and an old man, unstable, and I have not been deemed worthy to see the throne that fell to my lot." But the prophet says: "You shall clearly recognize the souls of your flocks, and you shall set your heart towards your herds."
2. But because the bitter briar of disobedience produced sheaves of much misery for our first parents, and the sin became transmissible to the whole race; but also the prophet says: "And you, son of man, I have given you as a watchman to the house of Israel. If therefore you do not speak so that the impious may guard himself from his way, he, the lawless one, will die in his own iniquity; but his blood I will require from your hand": I have consented to draft for you an epistle lacking in ornamentation regarding the matters you ask about. Do not therefore say: "Blessed is he who teaches after he has acted"; but regarding the dregs of our conduct, which you perhaps rightly look down upon as dangerous, drink the cup mixed by the divine bowl of archiepiscopal teaching, even if it is cold and astringent, as though it were flowing nectar. For often even an impure hand pours out a honey-mixture of holiness, and Balaam, the son of a curse, becomes a laboratory of prayer. B
3. Regarding the four feasts. You have asked to learn C from us if, along with fasting, and with how much, you ought to celebrate the four joyful feasts—of the holy and all-praised Apostles, I say, of the Transfiguration of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, of the Dormition of the holy Theotokos, and of the Nativity of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. Looking therefore D at what is sung to God, and adorning it with many praises, yet he is called accursed by the wise legislator, and he is judged to curse rather than to bless, in the book *On the Migration of Abraham*, p. 405. Our things are few and brief; and to many they will appear meager, because we are accustomed to pass over what is observed by others, and it is difficult—for us especially, in such a light of letters—to produce many new things. For what shall we say in this place concerning the four fasts of the Greeks at the four feasts, after the canonists and the ecclesiastical books of the Greeks, after Morinus, Goar, and the others, after those things which we ourselves have brought forward concerning the Apostolic Constitutions, c. 253, etc.? We observe one thing. Although these four fasts are set down together in the *Jus Graeco-Romanum*, p. 50 and 388, and in Balsamon on the synod of CP under Nicholas, yet only three are numbered in the *Typicon*, in the *Horologion*, by Christopher Angelus, and by Isaac the Catholic in his *Invective against the Armenians*, cap. 14, namely with the omission of the fast of the Transfiguration; and only two in the *Tome of Union*—the Dormition of the Theotokos and the Nativity of Christ. These things of John of Citrum are cited by Allatius, *De Eccl. Occid. et Orient. consensione*, lib. III, cap. 12, n. 5: "We venerate and embrace three fasts." [...] November, and Nicholas CP in the same *Typicon*; see Allatius then [...]: regarding the consensus of both Churches [...] cap. 15, to which also [...].
of our Lord and God Jesus Christ. A Looking, therefore, as the teacher of the Church said, to the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ, we write to you that some of the more devout men—one of whom is that Anastasius called the Sinaite, who was patriarch of your great Theoupolis of Antioch—say that such feasts together with the fasts have been handed down from the apostolic canons and the traditions of the Fathers.
4. But I, having made a great investigation concerning these matters, realized in the meantime that the controversy is not resolved by the canons. For the 69th canon of the holy apostles says these things: If any bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or reader, or cantor, does not fast during the holy Lenten fast of Pascha, or the Wednesday or Friday, let him be deposed, unless he is hindered by bodily infirmity. B Likewise, the 19th canon of the Synod in Gangra; the 49th, 50th, and 52nd of the Synod in Laodicea; and the 66th [numbered 52, 55, and 56 here] canon of the Trullan Council, make mention of one Lent, I mean that of the great Pascha; during which neither sacrifices, nor marriages, nor any other joyful celebration is permitted by the faithful to take place.
5. And those who edited the Jerusalem and Studite Typicon, as well as the others, set forth many magnificent things, worthy of their own virtue, regarding the Lenten fast of the great Pascha; but concerning another fast, they did not discourse at all at any length. But regarding the Lent of the holy Apostles and the feast of the Nativity of Christ, they ordained certain moderate things for the sake of diet and ecclesiastical order. In the Tome of Union, which is read in the ambo in the month of July, and was enacted under the reign of Constantine Porphyrogennetos and his father-in-law Romanus, these things are written word for word concerning those bound to third marriages: "And after he has obtained the participation of the divine mysteries, he shall be granted the privilege of enjoying them only three times in the year: once, indeed, during the saving Resurrection of Christ and our God; second, during the Dormition of our spotless Lady, the Mother of God; and third, on the day of the Nativity of Christ our God; because a fast precedes these, and the benefit [arising] thence." C
6. But the Synod in Constantinople, having been asked during the time of that most holy patriarch, lord Nicholas, whether it was necessary to observe the fast of the month of August, responded: "There was formerly a fast at this time, but it was transferred so that it would not fall at the same time as the fasts of the Gentiles occurring at this season; nevertheless, many people still observe this fast." Therefore, like a laborious bee, from all these and from other written traditions, [gathering] the more useful and true D [matters concerning the Lent of the holy Nativity of Christ].
true doctrine, I teach you—not with the persuasiveness of Greek wisdom, but in the spirit of priestly power, which perfects that which is born before its time and sanctifies aborted fetuses—that we ought to celebrate with fasts, not only the Lord’s Resurrection, which saves the world, but also the four aforementioned feasts: of the Holy Apostles, I say, the Transfiguration, the Dormition of the Theotokos, and the Nativity of our Christ and God, as will be spoken of below.
B 7. That most God-seeing Moses, following the tablets written by God, commanded the Israelite people to celebrate five feasts annually, with a corresponding number [of days] of humiliation through fasts: namely, the feast of the Lamb, the feast of Weeks, the feast of Atonement, the feast of Tabernacles—that is, the pitching of tents—and the feast of Trumpets. For it is written concerning the feast of the Lamb, in the mystical and sacred book of the Exodus of the sons of Israel from the land of the Egyptians, these things word for word: "The Lord said to Moses, speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying: On the tenth day of the first month, let each one of the families take a sheep, either a kid or a lamb; perfect, male, unblemished, yearling. And it shall be kept until the fourteenth day of this month; and C they shall slaughter it toward evening, and they shall take some of the blood and place it upon the two doorposts, and upon the lintel, and in the houses where they shall eat it. And I will pass through in this night in the land of Egypt, and I will strike every firstborn of Egypt, from man even to cattle; but among you there shall not be a plague. For I shall see the blood and I will protect you. And this day shall be for you a memorial, an everlasting ordinance. But from the first day until the seventh, you shall eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs; and the first day shall be called holy, and the seventh day shall be called holy."
8. Concerning the feast of Weeks, these things are in D Deuteronomy: "There you shall sacrifice the Pascha in the evening toward the setting of the sun, at the time when you went out of Egypt. And you shall boil, and you shall roast, and you shall eat it in the place which the Lord your God shall choose. And you shall turn in the morning and go home to your house. Six days you shall eat unleavened bread; and on the seventh day [shall be] an exit-feast to the Lord your God. You shall perform no work therein. Seven full weeks you shall number for yourself; beginning the sickle in the harvest, you shall begin
to number seven weeks. And you shall perform the feast of Weeks to the Lord your God, according to the ability of your hand. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God. B
9. Concerning the feast of Atonement, these things [are written] in the same book of Exodus: And the Lord said to Moses: Go down and bear witness to this people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow; and let them wash their clothes, and let them be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And again: And Moses went down from the mountain to the people, and sanctified them; and they washed their clothes. And he said to the people: Be ready for three days, and do not come near a woman. On the third day, as it was at dawn, there were voices and lightnings, and a dark cloud upon Mount Sinai; the voice of the trumpet sounded loudly. And all the people who were in the camp were terrified. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood under the mountain. And the whole of Mount Sinai smoked because God had descended upon it in fire.
10. And concerning the feast of Tabernacles, these things [are written] in the book of Exodus: And it came to pass in the first month, in the second year, as they were coming out of Egypt, on the new moon, the tabernacle was set up. And Moses set up the tabernacle of witness, and placed the capital upon it, and the covering, and the ark, and the table, and the lampstand, and the golden censer. And Moses finished all the works. And the cloud covered the tabernacle of witness; and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And in the book of Leviticus these things were written concerning these five feasts: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them: The feasts of the Lord which you shall call holy convocations, these are they: In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, the Pascha to the Lord, the feast of Unleavened Bread. And C you shall number seven full weeks, that is to say, fifty days, until the last day. And you shall call this day a holy convocation, and the feast of Weeks. And after a few things: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, saying: On the first day of the seventh month, it shall be a rest for you, a memorial of trumpets, a holy convocation to the Lord. And again: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: On the tenth day of this seventh month, it shall be a day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation to you. And you shall humble your souls, from the ninth day of the month, at evening. You shall do no work on that day. For this is a day of atonement for you: to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. Every soul, whoever shall not be humbled on that day, shall be cut off from his people. And after other things: D The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month
this is the Solemnity of Tabernacles, seven days to the Lord.
11. Therefore, since these divine words explicitly commanded these things, those descended from Jacob and the twelve patriarchs observed these five feasts in a more carnal manner, right up to the incarnate advent of the only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. For the pearl of truth was still covered as in a shell by the letter, and the sun of righteousness was obscured by the shadow of ignorance. But after the vine, so dearly loved and transplanted from Egypt to Sion—which, as the prophet said, once covered the mountains with its shade and cast its tendrils over the cedars—was grazed upon by the wild boar of ingratitude and ravaged by the wild son of idolatry, the people around it heard from God through the holy B ancestors and prophets: "I know that you are stubborn, and your neck is an iron sinew." "Take away from me the noise of your songs; for I will not hear the melody of your harps." "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of goats." "If you bring me fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination unto me." "Your new moons and your sabbaths, and the great days of your feasts, my soul hates; for your hands are full of blood."
12. But by the fire of the tri-hypostatic divinity, the shell of the letter was burned away, and the pearl of piety, having been caught in the nets of the fishermen, was spread abroad to the C four corners of the inhabited world. And the sun of salvation has risen, without shadow or veil. "All things have become new." For, he says, the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And let no one say to me that these things are kept to this day through the impure trifles which are performed by the Jews in commemoration, as they think, of those venerable celebrations. For these things are a kind of lawlessness and transgression, and a struggle and war of men against God. For although God, through Moses, commanded the Israelite people that the lamb should be sacrificed in one place, namely Jerusalem, as has been said D above, they themselves, in their dispersion into places which the Lord does not visit, just as—like brambles—they have been scattered, and as dogs...
driven to the edges of cities, they dare—while not possessing the city—to act against the decrees prescribed by the prophets, fasting in appearance and guise, but in truth indulging their appetites and making a display; not reflecting upon their righteous abandonment by God, and how today they have been diminished beyond all nations, and have become the most abject throughout the whole world.
13. And because of their wickedness, the Lord God said: And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by many nations; and there shall not remain a stone upon a stone in its places. And again: With the ear you shall hear, and you shall not understand, and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive. For the heart of this people has been hardened, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and they have closed their eyes, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart. Wherefore, after the light had shone, as we have said, through the advent of the true Christ and our God, who by His own blood bound together and solidified the foundations of the Church of the Gentiles, we, the holy nation, the elect people of Christ, not walking like them in the day as if in the night, but walking in the light of truth, do in no way receive the Lord who snatched us from the jaws of the dragon by means of herds of oxen and flocks of sheep; but by fasting and prayer we celebrate the regeneration of our nature. For sacrifice, He says, and offering Thou didst not desire; wherefore Thou hast sanctified and perfected this body of mine; neither did burnt offerings for sin please Thee: wherefore I said, Lo, I come. C
14. And instead of the feast of the Lamb which was ordained, as we have said, to take place because of the passage of the Israelite people from Egypt to the land of Canaan, we celebrate a great and holy Pascha. For we celebrate the feast in the Spirit, not in their manner by slaughtering kids and sheep, and smearing the doorposts with blood, and dreaming of the firstborn; but by the blood and body of Him who was voluntarily slaughtered by them, Christ our God, the true Lamb of God, the Son of the Father, who takes away the sin of the world, we anoint and sanctify the entryways of our senses, and we exterminate the exterminator, Satan. Moreover, we sustain a fast not of seven days, but of forty; because our Lord Jesus Christ fasted for the same number of days, and celebrated the Pascha, when He willed to become both the priest and the victim. Thus, and because of this, the true feast of the Lamb having been completed, let us say especially how we celebrate the feast of weeks. D
15. It was ordained by God through Moses, as it has been said further back, that after the feast of the Lamb the people should pass seven weeks in quiet, and thus accomplish the celebration of the weeks with fasting and humility.
A For any soul, it says, that is not humbled by fasting before the feast shall be destroyed. It was fitting, therefore, that we also, having been deemed worthy to see the coming of the most holy Spirit after seven weeks, should straightway keep the feast with fasting in place of the typical feast of weeks, [that is,] the holy Pentecost. But a certain most divine tradition, magnifying the world-saving resurrection of the Lord and as it were rendering the joy arising from it perpetual, and also commanding that this fifty-day course be reckoned as one day, and that one should neither bend the knee nor do any other work in a way that would disparage the magnitude of such joy, prevented the rite of the weeks from being completed according to this joyous feast.
16. B That it has been ordained in the Apostolic Acts that, after the arrival of the holy Spirit to us, the people of the Lord should feast for one week, after which a fast is proclaimed, has been established so that the feast of weeks might end in the universal divine celebration of the holy and chief apostles, the heralds of God, which is observed everywhere and is received with fasting and holiness. And in this way, the celebration of the Paschal fifty days is kept whole and unimpaired, and the feast is also conducted with humility. For I do not accept those who contend that the Acts of the holy apostles do not ordain [a fast] concerning this [specific] fast, but rather concerning the general one, namely of the Wednesdays and Fridays, and who wish the feast to be celebrated without fasting, C as they contradict the divinely-written tablets.
17. Since after the feast of weeks it was ordained by God that the feast of Atonement should be celebrated, and how and whence this was legislated was explained more fully above, it has been ordained that after the illumination of the blameless faith of the orthodox Christians, the feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ should take the place of that feast. For God, who once spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai through whirlwind and fire, He Himself on Mount Tabor, having been transfigured with Moses and Elias, was seen, and His face shone as the sun, and His garments became whiter than the light. And the brilliant appearance of the cloud and the fire, and D every Wednesday and Friday we command you to fast, and that which is rendered from your fasting, to bestow upon the poor; for the divine Fathers of ours, in traversing these fifty days, have said that they are one day. For indeed, concerning the Wednesday and Friday of the whole year, the all-laudable apostles, in their Constitutions, after having legislated the fast that follows Pentecost, which we call the [fast] of the holy Apostles, clearly legislated, using these words: "But after this fast, we command you to fast on all Wednesdays and Fridays, and that which is left over from your fasting, to bestow upon the poor."
A hearing of sounds and the trembling stupor of the bystanders as they saw the Lord in the mountain and fire, what other celebration shall claim this for itself, if not the divine feast of the Transfiguration? For on Mount Tabor, the fire, apprehended by the intelligence, illuminating and not burning, just as it did then, shone forth: for he says, "God is a consuming fire." And through a cloud, the divine voice, hiding the echo of the following sound, struck the hearers, saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him." But even the disciples of Christ who saw and heard were rendered thunderstruck; for, it says, having heard, they fell on their face, and feared greatly.
18. Furthermore, regarding the feast of Scenopegia, who could say that it is not a proclamation of the world-saving feast of the Dormition of our most holy Lady, the Theotokos? Certainly no one. For her divine womb became a tabernacle of height equal to the heavens and a palace capable of containing God. In her, God stored the manna of regeneration as a treasure; in her, he hid the table that bears the heavenly bread; and indeed also the lamp of the thrice-hypostatic divinity, and the golden censer of true knowledge of God. When, therefore, as has been explained, the Lord said to Moses: "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, a solemnity of the Tabernacle for seven days to the Lord," the nations called by God also celebrate the feast on the fifteenth of the same month, B instead of the legal Scenopegia, the hymn of the departure of the Mother of God and the deposition of her divine body into the sepulcher; wondering how her departure did not pass over even the interval of the day itself, but that the only-begotten Son of God, and her son according to the flesh, equalized it by his own advent. Lift up your eyes in a circle, and you will discern the Lord, who calls his divine heralds from heaven, and institutes the maternal Scenopegia, and softens their mourning; and you will confess that the Scripture speaks concerning this feast: "And the cloud covered the tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord filled it." C
19. But someone will object, in error, that we say things incompatible with the divine words: for the feast of Scenopegia is set to occur on the fifteenth of the seventh month; but the Dormition of the Theotokos is celebrated on the fifteenth of the sixth month, that is to say, of August. He shall hear, by all means: "The Lord swore truth to David, and he will not repent." For the month of August, even if it has obtained the number of the sixth according to the Roman division of hours and indictions, nevertheless according to the lunar constitution and cycle (for from the word which signifies the moon, that is, *men*, we properly name the months), it is and is called the seventh. Let, therefore, the deceitful lips be made mute, which assert that the light of truth D under the darkness of ignorance
A is hidden; and let the elect people of God, instead of the legal Scenopegia, celebrate on the fifteenth day of the seventh month—August, I say—the Dormition of the holy Theotokos, just as God ordained.
20. This being the state of things, it must also be said regarding the legal feast of Trumpets what was ordained first, and what has been fulfilled in the second place. The celebration of Trumpets was performed by the Jews in various times, just as God commanded Moses: "Make for thyself," he says, "silver beaten-work trumpets, and you shall sound them over your whole burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings." But with us, it is celebrated once through the whole year. For looking upon the extraordinary gleams of the star that shone B above the place of the animals and announced the birth of the Lord, we believe that it is that silver-mouthed trumpet proclaiming the very birth of Christ; and thence, detesting the fighting of shadows, we embrace the truth. O astronomers and Magi, and princes of the Medes and Saba, how many voices of silver trumpets incited your leaving from the East for Bethlehem? Who was that broad-voiced and Stentor-voiced one who sounded your summons? What was that light which stayed your long pilgrimage at the cave? You will surely answer, even if unwillingly, that it was that most shining star which rose in Bethlehem and stood over the manger in which the C King and Creator of all lay in the state of an infant. But you, shepherds and herdsmen, what and how many trumpets did you hear, that you neglected the care of the flocks and came to the manger and the cave? You will surely say that you saw angels having set out to Bethlehem, and flying excitedly about the cave, and with a clear voice sounding and saying: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men."
21. See, beloved children in the Lord, how by manifest demonstrations and proofs clearer than the sun its own self we have fully persuaded the pious that the five feasts of the letter are images and indications of the five brilliant festivities D which are celebrated by us and of which we have spoken. Do not, therefore, opposing us, say as many are accustomed: "Whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are in the Law; but we are saved by faith alone." Hear the great Paul teaching: "Not the hearers of the Law are righteous before God; but the doers of the Law shall be justified." Is God the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also. Likewise also the Lord, commanding the leper who had been cured by Him: "Go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony." And again: "Amen I say to you, one jot or one tittle shall not pass from the Law, until all these things be done."
For I have not come to destroy the Law or the prophets, but to fulfill them. But as for those things which, by the voice of the Lord, or of the apostles, or even by the holy Fathers, have been declared idle—namely, the sacrifices of animals, circumcision, the Sabbaths, and certain other things—cast these away as pernicious. But as for those things which have pleased the holy Fathers, and which have been grafted from the wild olive into the good olive tree, embrace and cherish them; being taught, and teaching with Paul, the herald of God, that there has indeed been a A translation of the Law following the change of the priesthood, but that the cessation of the Law has neither occurred, nor is it to be preached.
22. Therefore, you who are believers, celebrate the four aforementioned feasts (for regarding the feast of the great Pascha and the forty-day fast which precedes it, what need is there for words, since it responds to the profession of orthodox Christians with fasting and prayer?) with a fast and prayer corresponding to the profession of orthodox Christians. And because, in the royal city, the monks and the majority of the inhabitants, after the feast of All Saints, observe a continuous fast until the feast of the most laudable holy apostles—even if it is not always forty days, due to the solar revolution, whereby it is sometimes extended and sometimes narrowed—but also fast for forty days before the Nativity of Christ our God, following the aforementioned B typica; and since they advance through the grace of God into a holier state of the churches of God, you also ought to fast in this way. As for the other two feasts, namely the Transfiguration and the Dormition of the holy Theotokos, you must celebrate them, whether you wish to or not, with a seven-day fast.
23. Regarding such fasts, however, we offer this exhortation again; not out of talkativeness or a lack of decorum, but because we see some who are negligent, who keep only the forty-day Paschal C fast unshaken, while they not only corrupt the others but hold them as though they were practically non-existent. For if they honor the feast of the Nativity of Christ and the feast of the holy and chief apostles with a four-day fast, they seem to themselves to be doing evil rather than honoring the feasts; because they do things for the love of God which were not simply handed down by the holy Fathers through the canons. But as for the two annual feasts, Christ’s Transfiguration and the Mother of God’s Dormition, they will not even endure to hear of honoring them with any D absolute fast. For they ask: "What canon has defined these as illustrious in its writing? What scriptural tradition has decreed them?" And hence they argue that the August fast is heedlessly practiced by pusillanimous men, on account of the illnesses that sometimes tend to spread toward the end of the month of July and in the month of August, when the middle of Sirius stands over the heads of humans subject to death, and it traverses the zone of Leo.
A 24. Others, wiser than these, seek refuge as a fortress in the synodical response written at the time of that most holy patriarch, Lord Nicholas, which teaches, as has already been set forth, that the fast of the month of August had been transferred; and they call those who fast in this way inexperienced and childish. But if anyone stops their mouths by saying that the stadium of fasting lies open at all times, and that the reward destined for it does not admit of mediation or exception: "Go," they respond, "to those who sell beef, mutton, and poultry, and thence you will discern the fulfillment of this fast." For, they say, if the items provided and exchanged by them cease, it is a time of fasting; but if the meat offered for sale is commonly called for in the census, do not corrupt the solemnity, nor, out of mere hypocrisy, dangerously renew the now-defunct fasts of the Jews. Let us not, therefore, like these people, finding excuses for sins, abolish the holiness of the aforementioned fasts; nor, like that most wicked servant, bury the most blessed talent of fasting in the earth of gluttony and despair; nor say to the Lord and our God: B "You have what is yours; for we fasted the quadragesimal fast, which even you yourself fasted as God-man"; but rather, like the good servant, let us multiply it, by applying our minds through fasting and prayer to the business of salvation.
25. Furthermore, since it is legislated by the holy apostles in the 69th canon that divine and handed-down fasts may be relaxed on account of bodily infirmity—and these are the Wednesdays and Fridays of the whole year—I charge you that, seven days before each of the aforementioned feasts, you must fast and live abstinently without plea, as also during the great quadragesimal fast handed down by God, and do not relax the fast at all on account of any bodily necessity. But on the other remaining days of fasting, as has been said, of the two illustrious solemnities, I mean of the holy Apostles and of the Nativity of Christ and God, during the C days handed down that precede those mentioned seven days of absolutely necessary fasting, if it happens that one must relax the fast, perhaps because of bodily necessity, you should do this also with the permission of the bishop. In any other way, to violate any one of the days by breaking the fast is dangerous and destructive.
26. While we are fasting, let us not fast for the sake of judgment, disputes, and whisperings, nor let us strike the humble and the stranger with our fists. Rather, let us loose every bond of wickedness and tear up the chirographs of violent contracts; breaking bread and food for the hungry, and opening our houses to the homeless and the poor, according to the prophet's command. For thus the light of our life will shine at dawn, as it is written, and of the cry