ADMONITION
Savile believes that this sermon is the offspring of someone more recent, who wrote after the Second Council of Nicaea. This is entirely persuaded by those things read at the end of the discourse concerning the restoration of the veneration of holy images. But this final part of the homily does not cohere with the preceding parts, so that it appears to belong to another discourse, as we note in that same place. A Indeed, the whole preceding oration is that of an orator who seems to study elegance, and [produces an abundance of excessive flowery language] so that one might truly call the eloquence iron-willed. However, those things which he says concerning frugality and concerning the utility of fasting are not inept. In this age, the scriptural five days of fasting around the feast of the holy Cross are observed.
ON THE VENERABLE CROSS
B The feast of the Cross is set before us today; let the choir of angels exult; the spectacle of the Cross arrives, let the people of mortals adore; the divine power of the Cross is exalted, let the ranks of demons flee. But, O divine Cross, ineffable spectacle of angels, glory of mortals, royal scepter! For I shall address you as if you were animate, who bring the joy and victory of our salvation; through you the gates C of paradise are reopened; through you the power of death is broken; through you hell is despoiled; through you the dead are deemed worthy of life; through you the thief dances and exults in paradise; through you things celestial are joined with things earthly; through you the knowledge of truth is approached; through you the holy baptism of regeneration is given; through you the remission of sins is granted to men; through you the gift of the Holy Spirit D is sealed; through you the Churches are called the houses of God; through you we enjoy the body and blood of Christ; through you we are deemed worthy to become children of God and heirs of the kingdom of heaven; through you celebrations and feasts are gladdened and shine forth. What tongue could recount how many and how great are the things Christ God has lavished upon the human race through you? Because, however, these things, O holy and celebration-loving populace, are known to us, with a bright heart and pure mouth let us embrace the venerable and life-giving wood, in which Christ our God was fixed, and whose divine hands were pierced with nails, in which murderers pierced his side with a lance, and gave him vinegar mixed with gall. Those passing by were wagging their heads, mocking, and saying, "Fie! He saved others, he cannot save himself: if he is the Son of God, let him descend now from the cross, and we will believe in him" (Matt. 27:42), who had received divine prodigies as a favor. But let us adore the life-giving passions of Christ, the torment of the cross, the burial, the three-day resurrection from the dead; so that we may rise again and be glorified together, if indeed we suffer together, as the divine Paul, the vessel of election, prefigured (Rom. 8:17). To these things the most holy Cross summons us today, which we celebrate, and it offers these incorruptible and ever-living foods equally to all—at home, in the market, by night, by day, in cities, in wildernesses. Therefore, let us receive with joy that which lavishes so many good things upon us, according to the word of the Lord; not sad like the hypocrites (Matt. 6:16), but showing cheerfulness of mind without pretense. Do you think I must labor only to persuade you of fasting, and not rather to turn you today away from the vice of drunkenness? For the multitude serves the fast both by custom and by mutual shame; but I fear drunkenness, which wine lovers regard as their own, as if it were some paternal inheritance. For just as those who prepare themselves for a long journey [do so], so do some madmen today drink wine for the five days of the fast. Who is so senseless that, before he begins to drink, he raves like those who are drunk? Do you not know that the belly does not keep a deposit? The belly is most unfaithful in a loan; it does not receive a store with many deposits; holding onto the loss, it does not keep the deposits. Beware, lest, having returned from drunkenness tomorrow, those things which are now read be said to you: "I have not chosen this fast," says the Lord (Is. 58:5). Why do you mix those things which are not to be mixed? What fellowship has fasting with drunkenness? What communion has temulency with temperance? What agreement has the temple of God with idols (2 Cor. 6:16)? They are the temple of God, in whom the Spirit of God dwells; but they are the temple of idols who, on account of the filth of drunkenness, admit the satiety of intemperance. Today is the vestibule of the fasts: he who is defiled in the vestibule is not worthy to enter the holy sanctuary. No servant who wishes to appease his master uses his enemy as a patron or reconciler. Drunkenness is enmity against God; fasting, however, is the beginning of repentance. If therefore you wish to return to God through confession, flee from drunkenness, lest it prepare a more grave alienation for you. Nor does the mere abstinence from foods alone suffice for a praised fast, but let us fast with a fast that is acceptable, pleasing to God. The true fast is abstinence from vices, temperance of the tongue, abstinence from anger, separation from desires, from curses, from lying, from perjury: abstinence from things of this kind is the true fast. In these, fasting is good. Let us enjoy the Lord with delights in the meditation of the oracles of the Spirit, and in the assumption of legal salutary precepts, and in all the dogmas which direct our soul. Let us flee from the fast practiced secretly: concerning which the protesting prophet says: "The Lord will not slay the soul of the righteous with famine" (Prov. 10:3); and, "I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread" (Ps. 36:25). For he does not speak concerning sensible bread, he who knew that the sons of the patriarch Jacob had descended into Egypt for the sake of seeking bread, but he speaks words concerning the spiritual food, by which the interior man is perfected. Let that fast not happen to us which God threatens to the Jews: "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will send a famine upon the earth: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord" (Amos 8:11). Which the just Judge therefore brought upon them, because he saw their mind being oppressed by a shortage in the dogmas of truth, while the exterior man was fat according to the flesh. The Holy Spirit, therefore, will lavishly refresh you in the following time with morning and evening foods. Let no one be absent from the spiritual feast of his own accord: let us all be partakers of the fast, by which there is abstinence from cooked foods. Let the house finally rest from a thousand tumults, from smoke and odor, from those who run about everywhere, and serve the belly as if it were an inevitable master. Debt collectors certainly grant some liberty to their subjects at times. Let the belly give some holidays to the mouth: let it grant this, and let it strike a bargain with us for a five-day truce, [the belly] which always hungers, and never ceases; which receives today, and tomorrow forgets what was received. When it is full, it philosophizes about temperance; when empty, it forgets the teaching. Fasting knows not the nature of usury, the table of the one fasting does not smell of usury, the children of the one fasting do not oppress an orphan, nor do they entwine him like serpents.
a cool drink; and just as hunger, preceding it, prepares a sweet table, so fasting brightens the enjoyment of meals. For by placing itself in between and breaking the continuity of indulgence, it will make the receiving of food appear desirable to you, as if to a stranger. B 2. Wherefore, if you wish to prepare a desirable table for yourself, accept this change from fasting. You are unaware that through being excessively held by luxury you are dimming the food for yourself, and through love of pleasure you are causing the enjoyment to vanish. For nothing is so desirable that it does not become contemptible through the continuity of enjoyment; but those things whose possession is rare, their enjoyment is highly sought after. Thus also He who created us has contrived to keep the grace of what is given for us lasting through this change in our way of life. Do you not see that even the sun is brighter after the night, and waking is sweeter after sleep, and health more desirable after the experience of the contrary? A table, therefore, is more pleasant after fasting, whether for the rich and those with well-furnished tables, or for those who are simple and spontaneous in their diet. Fear the example of the rich man; the luxury he lived throughout his life handed him over to the fire. For he was not accused of injustice, but of the soft life, and he was being roasted in the flame of the furnace. If, therefore, we would extinguish that fire, there is need of water. And fasting is profitable not only for the future, but it is also more advantageous to the flesh itself; for those who possess an extreme state of well-being have relapses and reversals, the nature of the body stumbling, being unable to bear the weight of such well-being. See, therefore, that you do not now disdain water, lest later you should desire a drop, like the rich man. No one has become drunk from water; no one’s head has ever ached heavy from water; no one has needed another’s feet by living on a water-regimen; no one’s hands have been rendered useless by being watered. For the disorder in digestion necessarily follows those who live in luxury; this produces violent diseases in bodies. The faster has a noble complexion, not blooming into shameless redness, but decorated with a sober pallor; his gaze is gentle, his walk is composed, his face keeps its thoughts, not being insulted by dissolute laughter, his speech is measured, his heart is pure. Remember the saints from ages past, of whom the world was not worthy, who wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, evil-treated (Heb. 11:37); imitate their way of life, if you seek their portion. What caused Lazarus to rest in the bosom of Abraham? Was it not fasting? And the life of John was entirely one single fast; he had no bed, no table, no tilled earth, no ox for plowing, no grain, no baker, nor anything else of those things belonging to life. For this reason there is not among those born of women anyone greater than John the Baptist. And Paul, along with other things, was brought to the third heaven by fasting, which he enumerated among his boastings in suffering. And the head of all these things is our Lord, who, having fortified the flesh that He took up for us with fasting, thus met the assaults of the devil within it, teaching us to anoint and train ourselves with fasts for the contests in temptations, and, as it were, giving a handle to the opponent through lack of food. For He was inaccessible to him because of the height of His divinity, had He not descended to the human level through need. Yet, returning to the heavens, He touched food, giving assurance of the nature of the body that had risen. But you, over-fatting yourself and not desisting from yielding to the flesh, as you wither the mind in a lack of nourishing, saving, and life-giving teachings, of this you make no account. Or are you ignorant that, just as in a battle formation the alliance of one side brings about the defeat of the other, so he who adds to the flesh conquers the spirit, and he who changes sides to the spirit subdues the flesh? For these things are opposed to one another. C Wherefore if you wish to make the mind strong, subdue the flesh through fasting. This is that which the Apostle says: "Though our outer man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed" (2 Cor. 4:16); and, "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10). Will you not disdain corruptible foods? Will you not take up a desire for the table in the kingdom, which the fasting here will altogether prepare? Or are you ignorant that by the excess of your gluttony you are preparing a thick worm to be your tormentor? For who, in a condition of constant abundance and luxury, has received some communion of spiritual grace? Moses, receiving the legislation for the second time, had need of a second fast; the Ninevites, had they not also fasted along with their beasts, would not have escaped the threat of destruction. Whose bodies fell in the desert? Was it not those who desired flesh-meat? Those, as long as they were content with manna and the water from the rock, were conquering the Egyptians, and were walking through the sea; there was no one weak in their tribes; but after they remembered the flesh and the pots and returned to Egypt in their desires, they did not see the land of promise. Does the example not frighten you? Do you not shudder at gluttony, lest it exclude you from the hoped-for good things? But the wise Daniel would not have seen the visions if fasting had not made his soul more transparent. For from thick food, as it were, smoky vapors are sent up, which like a dense cloud cut off the illuminations occurring on the mind from the Holy Spirit. But if there is any food of angels, it is bread, as the Prophet says ("Man ate the bread of angels" [Ps. 77:25]), not flesh, not wine, not things that are laboriously sought after by the slaves of the belly. Fasting is a weapon for the strategy against demons; for "This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting" (Matt. 17:20). And these indeed are the goods from fasting. But gluttony is the beginning of insolence. For immediately with food, drunkenness and all sorts of sauces accompany a form of bestial licentiousness. Hence horses grow lustful, and men, because of the goad that arises in the soul from luxury, are acted upon by those who are drunk; the natural relations are confounded, with the male seeking the female, and in the female their contrary. Fasting, however, knows the measure of even marital works, and restrains the excess of those permitted by law. D You are like one seeking to find a man who must go to trial with another before the king, and finding that there is none at all. For he has destroyed many of those who choose to commit injustice. Because of these things, the good-loving God did not overlook the tears and groans of His own priests and holy men who call upon Him on his behalf, saying through the prophet Isaiah: "Judge for the orphan, and justify the widow, and come, let us reason together" (Is. 1:17, 18). But having also heard these prayers, He forgave that one his transgressions against man, and gave back to the Church its own ornament, and the beauty of the holy and venerable icons, and bestows upon us who sincerely worship and kiss them, and who keep His divine commands, constant peace and forgiveness of sins every day; for to Him be the glory and the power and the honor and the worship, unto the ages of ages. Amen.
MONITION CONCERNING THE FOLLOWING SERMON
Of very little value to give to the presses, indeed, and had Savile not published it, it ought to have been left in darkness; but he thought that it, as well as many other things of the same brand, ought to be assessed by a knowledgeable person, and one of judgment. [alt-version omitted]