and drunkenness;7 during these days, though, you should also fast. During the
104 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS
So it is that both Moses and Elijah and the Lord himself all fasted for forty days, to suggest to us that we are being worked upon in Moses and in Elijah and in Christ himself, that is in the law and the prophets and in the gospel itself, to ensure that we aren't conformed to this world and don't cling to it, but that instead we crucify the old self,5 behaving not in gluttony and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness; but let us put on the Lord Jesus, and take no care for the flesh in its lusts (Rom 13:13-14).6 Live here like that always, Christian; if you don't want your footsteps to sink in the earthly quagmire, don't come down from this cross.
But now, if that is what has to be done throughout the whole of this life, how much more during these days of Lent, in which this life is not only being spent, but in addition is also being mystically signified?
Works of penance
2. So on other days your hearts should never be weighed down with drugs and drunkenness;7 during these days, though, you should also fast. During the other days of the year you mustn't so much as touch upon adultery, fornication, and any other forms of unlawful depravity; during these days, though, you should also abstain from your marriage partners. What you deprive yourselves of by fasting, add by being generous to the alms you give. Let the time that was taken up with the payment of the marriage debt be spent in supplications; let the body, which was relaxing in demonstrations of carnal affection, prostrate itself in the purity of prayer; let the arms which were twined in embraces be raised and extended in orisons.
As for those of you who also fast on other days,8 add during these days to what you normally do. Those of you who throughout the other days of the year crucify the body by perpetual continence, cleave to your God during these days by more frequent and more earnest prayer. All of you, be of one mind and heart, all of you faithfully faithful, all of you, in this time of exile and wandering, full of heartfelt sighs and fervent love for the one, common home country. See to it that none of you envies, none of you mocks in another the gift of God which you don t have in yourself. In the matter of spiritual goods, regard as your own what you love and admire in your brother or sister; let them regard as their own what they love and admire in you.
None of us, under the pretense of self-denial, should make a point of chang¬ ing, rather than cutting back on, our pleasures; looking out for special delicacies because we aren t eating meat, and for strange liquors because we aren't drink¬ ing wine, that way, under the cloak of taming the flesh we are conducting the business of pleasure. All kinds of food are indeed pure to the pure;9 but self-in¬ dulgent luxury is pure to nobody.
Fast from quarrels
3. Before everything else, brothers and sisters, fast from quarrels and discord. Remember how the prophet upbraided some people and cried out, Your own