The Politics of Fasting in Basil of Caesarea (Prepub)

The Politics of Fasting in Basil of Caesarea Mark DelCogliano Manifold are the benefits of fasting according to Basil of Caesarea. It is “the mother of health,” bringing physical well being to the infirm and preserving bodily health for the fit.1 It is also “a good guardian of the soul,” producing spiritual health, purifying the soul of sin, and equipping the soul with weapons most effective for spiritual warfare.2 And yet, even though Basil recognizes that fasting brings such personal and individual advantages, he actually views the benefits of fasting primarily in social and political terms, and more specifically in terms of the eradication of disorder and the establishment of good order in the domestic and civic realms. In fact, Basil is so optimistic about fasting’s power to bolster social and political order that he sees it enabling its corporate practitioners to achieve a profound peace that is modeled on and in a way recaptures the paradisiacal state. It is thus a political practice that procures salvation. The best resources for Basil’s views on fasting are three extant homilies, two of which focus on fasting itself, whereas the third is against drunkenness.3 While these three homilies cannot be dated any more precisely than to the entire span of Basil’s presbyteral (363-370 CE) 1 Iei1 7. See also Iei1 9 and Iei2 7. Iei1 6. See also Iei1 1 and Iei2 1–2. 3 Iei1 = Homilia de ieiunio I (CPG 2845) [traditionally numbered homily 1]; Iei2 = Homilia de ieiunio II (CPG 2846) [homily 2]; and Ebr = Homilia in ebriosos (CPG 2858) [homily 14]. The authenticity of these homilies has not been doubted since Julian Garnier’s edition of Basil’s opera omnia, published in 1721–1730 by the Maurists; on this edition, see Paul Jonathan Fedwick, Bibliotheca Basiliana Vniversalis (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993) i, 272–89 (hereafter=BBV). The Maurist edition remains the latest. De Sinner’s reprint of the Maurist edition in 1839 is considered the best from a technical standpoint; see Fedwick, BBV ii, 291–94. In this reprint edition, the homilies are printed in vol. ii, pp. 1–14, 14–22, and 171–182. When the Maurist edition was reprinted by J. P. Migne, errors were frequently introduced, but these remain the most accessible editions of these three homilies; see PG 31.163– 184, 185–198, and 443–463. The translations quoted here are taken from Susan R. Holman and Mark DelCogliano, St. Basil the Great: On Fasting and Feasts, Popular Patristics Series 50 (Yonkers: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2013), 55–71 (Iei1), 73–81 (Iei2), and 83–95 (Ebr). 2 and episcopal (370–378 CE) ministries,4 they are linked thematically and liturgically. The homilies on fasting rail as much against drunkenness as they do against gluttony, and the common thread running through all three is the need for self-control in the face of overindulgence, whether in eating or in drinking. The two homilies on fasting were preached during Lent, seemingly on one of the Sundays before the five-day fast each week (Mondays through Fridays) that was practiced for seven weeks in Basil’s era and area during this liturgical season.5 These homilies are exhortations to his congregation not to “drown themselves in drink”6 the day before the five-day fast but rather to observe the “true” fasting taught by the holy scriptures. The homily against drunkenness seems to have been preached shortly after Easter—perhaps even on Easter Monday—in response to some members of his congregation having celebrated the festival with excessive drinking and public debauchery.7 This homily is a plea to them not to end their Lenten fast with such shameless self-indulgence and to prepare for Pentecost in a far more appropriate manner. It should come as no surprise, then, that these three homilies often appear together in the manuscripts, and were even assigned for Lenten reading, underscoring their thematic and liturgical connections.8 See Paul Jonathan Fedwick, “A Chronology of the Life and Works of Basil of Caesarea,” in Paul Jonathan Fedwick, ed., Basil of Caesarea: Christian, Humanist, Ascetic. A Sixteenth-Hundredth Anniversary Symposium (Toronto: Pontifical Institue of Medieval Studies, 1981), 3–19 (9–10). Jean Bernardi, La prédication des pères cappadociens (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1968), 72–76, dates Iei1 and Iei2 to 371, and Ebr to 372, but his arguments are unpersuasive. 5 See Iei1 7, Iei2 4, and 7. According to later Orthodox practice, from the second to the sixth week of Lent a strict fast is kept from Monday to Friday, in which one abstains from meat, fish, eggs, dairy, wine, and oil. On Saturday and Sunday wine and oil are permitted. It is not clear if this was the precise practice in Basil’s time, but it was probably something along these lines. 6 See Iei1 10, Iei2 4, and 7. 7 See Ebr 1 and 8. 8 See the contents of the Greek corpora in Fedwick, BBV ii, 1–125. For example, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale de France gr. 763 has the three homilies in a row. In the manuscripts Iei2 often precedes Iei1, though Ebr is generally the third in the series. On the manuscript evidence for these homilies, see BBV ii, 1063–67 and 1082–91. On the reading of these homilies during Lent, see Fedwick, “A Chronology,” 9n37 and BBV ii, 1082n59 and 1087n66. 4 The problem with self-indulgence, as Basil sees it, aside from its negative personal and individual effects,9 is that it results in social and political disorder in both the private (domestic) and the public (civic) spheres. Basil is particularly disturbed that self-indulgence results in an upsetting of the customary social order, its hierarchies, its gender roles, its boundaries, and its norms.10 For example, Basil poses a rhetorical question to those who have indulged in drinking to the point of drunkenness: “How will you rule your household servants when you yourselves are enslaved to foolish and harmful desires as if you were prisoners of war? How will you reprove your children when you live a life that is deaf to reproof and devoid of regulation?”11 Self-indulgence reverses the customary hierarchies, making the master an enslaved prisoner and the parent an unruly child; domestic disorder reigns. In another example, Basil describes a drinking party at which drunkards perversely mock the expected social hierarchies and norms by creating a façade of order in disorder: As soon as the day breaks they immediately adorn the places for their symposiums, or drinking parties, with multicolored carpets and floral wall hangings, and display eagerness and diligence in the preparation of the vessels, Two examples: “What is easier for the stomach? To pass the night with plain fare? Or for it to lie there weighed down by an abundance of food? Or rather, not for it to lie there, but for it to be constantly upset, bloated, and grumbling?” (Iei1 4 [58]); “No one experiences a hangover from drinking water. No one’s head hurts if it is saturated with water. No one needs another’s feet if he spends his life drinking water. No one trips over his own feet, no one loses the use of his hands, if he imbibes water. For digestive problems, which are the necessary consequence of self-indulgence, produce terrible maladies in the body” (Iei1 9 [65]). 10 Basil was also surely aware that extreme asceticism could lead to similar social and political disruptions. At the Council of Gangra (whose exact date remains disputed, with conjectures ranging from 340 to 355 CE) Basil’s onetime mentor, Eustathius of Sebasteia, was censured for spearheading such ascetical fanaticism. Anna Silvas, The Asketikon of St Basil the Great (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 19-20, gives a succinct account of the social and political disorder created by Eustathius and his followers: “the disparagement of marriage, the unilateral adoption of celibacy by ascetic-minded spouses; the subverting of parent-child, slave-master relationships; the provocative stance of ascetics with regard to the local church; their commandeering of church funds for distribution to the poor; their wearing outlandish clothing; women behaving as if the ascetic life emancipated them from sexual differentiation, shown by their cropped hair and male attire.” Basil’s own ascetic program in general, and his understanding of the role of fasting in the church in particular, would seem to steer a middle course between the equally disruptive tendencies of ascetic extremism and laxity in the form of over-indulgence, a rhetorical position that is implicit in the homilies under consideration here. 11 Ebr 8 (94). 9 arranging the psykters, the kraters, and the phiales, as if assembling them for a kind of procession or sacred festival. Thus they conceal their indulgence through a variety of vessels and sufficiently prolong their time for drinking by the alteration and exchange of vessels. At these drinking parties there are symposiarchs who preside, as well as head cup-bearers and table-waiters: they bring about a semblance of order in disorder and organization in chaos. And so, just as the presence of bodyguards boosts the dignity of civic leaders, so too the attendants stationed around the wine as if it were a kind of empress conceal its ignominy with the greatest possible zeal. In addition, garlands, and flowers, and perfumes, and incense, and innumerable other trifles create even more preoccupation for those who are perishing. Then as the drinking proceeds, quarrels, arguments, and disputes break out over who gets more to drink since they aspire to surpass each other in drunkenness. But the devil presides at these games, and sin is the reward for victory. For whoever pours out more undiluted wine carries away the victory prize from the others. Truly, they glory in their shame [Phil 3.19]. For while they vie with each other, they inflict harm on themselves. What could I say that would get through to those who have become so shameless? Everything brims with irrationality, everything brims with confusion. The defeated get drunk, the victorious get drunk, the attendants mock them. The hand falls limp from exhaustion, the mouth can take no more, the stomach bursts, but the evil does not diminish. The wretched body, having lost its natural tone, is dissipated in every way, unable to withstand the violence brought on by excess.12 12 Ebr 6 (90-91). The drinkers’ symposium is a mirror image of a religious procession, a sacred festival, or the retinue of a dignitary: the objective of the detailed planning and organization that goes into these is diametrically opposed to that for the symposium. The sham “order” of the symposium is aimed at maximizing the drunkenness of the participants. It establishes an arena for a contest in which one wins by being defeated. It is a descent into irrationality, confusion, and disorder. In this context, Basil brings up a specific instance of the reversal of civic norms brought on by drunkenness when he bemoans how a soldier who should make his enemies tremble with fear is defeated by wine and becomes a public laughingstock: What a pitiful spectacle for Christian eyes! A man who is in the prime of life, vigorous in body, pre-eminent in the military ranks, is carried home on a stretcher, able neither to stand up nor to walk on his own feet! A man who ought to make his enemies tremble with fear sparks the laughter of boys in the forum! He has been stricken, but not by a sword; he has been slain, but not by enemies. A manat-arms at the very pinnacle of his life has become a casualty of wine, ready to suffer according to the whim of his enemies. . . . O man, you have turned your drinking party into a battlefront. You remove the young men from battle, leading them by the hand as though they were wounded, in that you brought death to the flower of youth with wine. And you invite him to a meal as a friend, but you send him away dead, in that you have snuffed out his life with wine.13 The implication here is that the city is imperiled when those entrusted with its order and security overindulge in drinking, when disorder disrupts civic expectations and norms. In a final example, Basil seems to have another specific incident in mind when deploring the disorder brought on by self-indulgence. On Easter day several women were caught drinking, 13 Ebr 7 (91-92). dancing erotically, and singing obscene songs in front of the martyrs’ shrines, attracting a crowd of young men, who ogled them and ached to do more than ogle: Lewd women, who forget the fear of God and scorn the everlasting fire, on that day when they were supposed to be sitting in their homes in remembrance of the resurrection, reflecting on that day when the heavens will be opened and the judge will appear to us out of the heavens, as well as the trumpets of God, and the resurrection of the dead, and the just judgment, and the repayment to each according to his deeds—lewd women, instead of pondering these things in their mind, purifying their hearts of wicked thoughts, washing away their past sins with tears, and preparing themselves to meet Christ on that great day of his appearing,14 instead of doing these things they shook off their yoke of slavery to Christ, ripped the veils of modesty from their heads, despised God, despised his angels, acted shamelessly at the sight of every male, tousling their hair, dragging their garments in trains and at the same time tinkling with their feet [Is 3.16 LXX], incited frenzied dancing with their lascivious eyes and boisterous laughter, enticing young men to commit every form of licentiousness with them, formed bands of dancers in the martyr’s shrines in front of the city and made the holy places a workshop for their own obscenity. They defiled the air with their obscene ditties, defiled the earth with their unclean feet, stomping on it while dancing, and drew a crowd of young men into a circle of spectators around themselves: they were truly insolent and totally carried away, omitting no excess of insanity.15 14 15 See Act 2:20; Jud 1:6; Rev 6:17, 16:14. Ebr 1 (83-84). Here is but one example of the boisterous celebrations at the martyrs’ shrines which bishops throughout the Christian world denounced again and again.16 According to Basil, these women rejected not only their religious obligations on the most important Christian solemnity of the year, but also the social norms that governed female behavior: they removed their veils, tousled their hair, drank, danced and sang in public, even in places marked off as holy, laughing boisterously, and tempted innocent young men to acts of licentiousness.17 These women also upset the social order by causing a ruckus in a public space, to say nothing of distracting the young men from whatever they were supposed to be doing. That these women were drinking is clear not only from the context of this passage, from the opening section of the homily against drunkenness, but also from what immediately follows: “Drunkenness is the demon of our own choosing, entering souls through pleasure. Drunkenness is the mother of wickedness, the antithesis of virtue.”18 Basil is obviously quite disturbed that drunkenness has caused the contravening of so many expectations of the religious and social order. One of the main problems with the self-indulgence of drinking, according to Basil, is the unbridled, frenzied sexual activity that it prompts, in such a way that sexual boundaries are crossed. He repeatedly compares gluttons and drunkards to irrational beasts in heat whose lust 16 The difference here, of course, is that the rowdy celebration took place on Easter, not on the festival day of a martyr. For the problem in Cappadocia, see Vasiliki M. Limberis, Architects of Piety: The Cappadocian Fathers and the Cult of the Martyrs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 16 and 25; Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 37–39. On Augustine’s response to the problem, see Peter Brown, “Enjoying the Saints in Late Antiquity,” Early Medieval Europe 9 (2000): 1–24. 17 Note that Basil doesn’t spare the young men either: “Let me apply what I have said to the men. Has one of them leered? Has one of them ogled? Whoever looks upon a woman in order to lust has already committed adultery [Matt 5.28]. If accidentally encountering women is so dangerous for those whose eyes wander around carelessly, how much more dangerous is it to meet with women deliberately to watch them behaving disgracefully from drunkenness, making erotic gestures, and singing dissolute songs? Merely hearing these songs can produce every kind of frenzy for pleasure in licentious people! What will they say? How will they defend themselves? From such spectacles they round up a swarm of innumerable evils. Haven’t they have looked for this reason, that they might rouse lust? So then, according to the inescapable verdict of the Lord, they are liable to the condemnation of adultery” (Ebr 8 [94]). 18 Ebr 2 (84). knows no limits in mating. For example, Basil writes: “For self-indulgence and drunkenness and every variety of rich food is swiftly accompanied by every kind of bestial licentiousness. Thus men became horses in heat [Jer 5.8] because of the sting of lust which self-indulgence produces in the soul.”19 In another place he even opines that drunkards are worse than irrational beasts: How do you differ, O man, from irrational brutes? Isn’t it by the gift of reason, which you received from the one who created you, that you became the ruler and lord of all creation? So whoever has deprived himself of his wits through drunkenness is compared to senseless beasts and becomes like them [Ps 49.12 (48.13 LXX)]. In fact, I would say that those in a drunken state are even more irrational than beasts. For all quadrupeds and beasts have the impulse to mate at appointed times, but those whose soul is seized by drunkenness and whose body is filled with unnatural heat are driven at every opportunity and at every hour to impure and disgraceful intercourse, and to pleasures.20 In the manner of irrational beasts, or so Basil thinks, self-indulgence, and in particular drunkenness, leads the unmarried to have sex outside of marriage and the married to have sex with those not their spouses. Probably referring to the incident on Easter mentioned earlier, Basil writes: [M]en and women jointly form mixed bands of dancers, hand their souls over to the demon of wine, and thereby wound each other with the arrows of passion. The giggling on the part of both sexes, their appalling ditties, and their obscene gestures inflame lewdness. Tell me, do you giggle and delight in licentious delights, even though you should be weeping and groaning over your past 19 20 Iei1 9 (68-69). Ebr 3 (85). actions? Do you sing obscene ditties, discarding the psalms and hymns that you were taught? Do you move your feet, and leap around like a madman, and dance with those who ought not dance, even though you should be bending your knees in adoration? For whom should I lament? For the unmarried maidens? Or for those constrained by the yoke of marriage? After all, the former have returned without their virginity, but the latter have not returned their conjugal chastity to their husbands. Even if one way or another some of them avoided sinning with their body, nonetheless they welcomed corruption into their souls with open arms.21 Basil also suggests that self-indulgence, and, again, in particular drunkenness, leads to homosexual acts: “Inversions of nature arise when people are drunk; they seek the male in the female and the female in the male.”22 This in fact makes drunkards even worse than beasts, who at least know with whom to mate.23 Basil appears to attribute the “slip” into homosexual intercourse to the confusion and misperception of the senses that results from drunkenness.24 It seems that Basil thinks that men and women can become so drunk that they simply have no idea Ebr 8 (93). Basil also writes that “fasting also recognizes limits for marital relations” (Iei1 9 [69]), implying that self-indulgence neglects these limits. 22 Iei1 9 (69). See the next n. too. 23 “A lack of self-control with respect to pleasures is quick to arise from wine, like water suddenly welling up from a spring, and undiluted wine is swiftly accompanied by the malady of lasciviousness. This malady demonstrates that every madness which beasts have for females takes second place to the lust of drunkards. For irrational brutes recognize the boundaries of their nature, but drunkards seek the female in the male and the male in the female” (Ebr 4 [86]). 24 “And not only does this produce brutish irrationality in them, but also the perversion of their senses shows that the drunkard is worse than every beast. For what beast’s vision and hearing is as distorted as a drunkard’s? Don’t they fail to recognize their closest kin and frequently run up to strangers as if they were intimate friends? Don’t they frequently jump over shadows as if they were streams or gullies? Their ears are filled with sounds like the roaring of the billowing sea. The ground seems to rise uphill and the mountains appear to circle around them. Sometimes they cannot stop laughing, sometimes they are pained and wail inconsolably. Now they are courageous and undaunted, now terrified and cowardly. They find sleep onerous, insufferable, suffocating, and in fact bordering on death, but when awake they are in more of a stupor than when asleep. For their life unfolds in a dream: they have neither coat nor anything to eat the next day, yet in their drunkenness they rule like a king and lead armies, build cities, and distribute goods. It is the wine seething in their hearts that fills them with such fantasies and such great delusion” (Ebr 3 [85-86]). 21 with whom they are having sex, mistakenly seeking the “male in the female and the female in the male,” as he puts it. Moving on from Basil’s quaint views on sex, his words and his analyses of the various situations mentioned here make it clear that for him the inevitable result of selfindulgence, whether excessive eating or drinking, is disorder, whether in the household or in the city, whether by transgressing traditional hierarchies and boundaries or by upsetting social norms and expectations. Given this situation, Basil thinks that fasting is necessary not only for stemming domestic and civic disorder but also for achieving a peaceful social and political order in the private and public spheres. He thinks this not least of all because he interprets the scriptures as inculcating a universal obligation to fast. The command to fast antedates the Law (here Basil is thinking of the obligation to fast on the Day of Atonement); in fact, it is “as old as humanity” as “it was legislated in paradise” when God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2:17.25 Basil does not locate the scriptural basis for the obligation for fasting solely in the story of Adam and Eve. He goes through the history of fasting in the scriptures to demonstrate that it has been an obligation from the beginning that was practiced by the greatest saints. “All the saints,” writes Basil, “received fasting as a kind of paternal inheritance, observed it as such, and handed it on, father to child. And so, through a chain of succession, this asset has been preserved even for us.”26 Prominent fasters include Moses, who through fasting ascended the mountain and received the Law, whereas through gluttony and drunkenness the Israelites devolved in idolatry 25 Iei1 3 (57). Basil also uses Noah to prove that there was no self-indulgence in paradise (presumably with the exception of the eating of the forbidden fruit). First, he interprets Gen 9:3 (the concession of an omnivore diet to humanity after the flood) to mean that “the enjoyment of meat was conceded only when the hope of perfection was lost” (Iei1 5 [59]). Second, he views Noah’s drunkenness after planting the vineyard as proof that humanity had no previous experience with wine and did not know that it needed to be consumed in moderation: “And so, the invention of drinking wine is more recent than paradise, and thus the dignity of fasting is ancient” (Iei1 5 [59]). 26 Iei1 5 (59). and the tablets of the Law were shattered. Fasting also allowed Moses to receive the Law a second time.27 Samuel was granted to Hannah when she joined fasting to her prayer.28 Samson’s mother only conceived him when she fasted, and Samson performed so many mighty feats as long as he fasted, but his downfall occurred when he was seized by drunkenness and fornication.29 Through fasting, Elijah saw the Lord, restored a child to life, and shut the heavens for three and half years.30 Elisha enjoyed the hospitality of the Shunamite woman and received the prophets with fasting.31 By fasting, the three young men in the fiery furnace made their bodies impervious to fire.32 By fasting, Daniel escaped the mouth of the lions and saw visions.33 By fasting, Lazarus gained rest in the bosom of Abraham.34 The life of John the Baptist, writes Basil, “was a single continuous fast.”35 Paul’s fasting “when boasting over his afflictions brought him up to the third heaven.”36 And finally, Jesus—“the principal example among those already mentioned”—fasted not only “to fortify the flesh that he assumed for our sake” against the devil’s assaults, but also to instruct us to fast “in order to prepare and train ourselves for struggles with temptation.”37 Basil also gives the negative example of Esau’s failure to fast even for a single meal causing him to lose his birthright.38 In each of these positive and negative examples, someone fasted and received some personal benefit or it enabled them to benefit another or others. The point Basil wants to make here with these various examples, particularly with the example of Jesus, is to show that everyone is obligated to fast. 27 Iei1 5, Iei1 9, and Iei2 6. Iei1 6 and Iei2 6. See 1 Sam 1:11. 29 Iei1 6 and Iei2 6. 30 Iei1 6 and Iei2 6. 31 Iei1 6. See 2 Kgs 4:8-41. 32 Iei1 6. 33 Iei1 7 and 9. See Dan 6:17-25. 34 Iei1 9. 35 Iei1 9 (66). 36 Iei1 9 (66). See 2 Cor 11:27 and 12:2. 37 Iei1 9 (66). 38 Iei1 6. 28 But Basil also provides two corporate examples of fasting in which the practice brings social and political benefit: the Israelites fleeing Egypt and the Ninevites. When the Israelites fled Egypt, as long as they fasted on manna and water from the rock they were successful in escaping the Egyptians but when self-indulgent by remembering the fleshpots they failed to realize their hopes as a people for the promised land.39 “The Ninevites,” writes Basil, “would not have escaped the destruction with which they were threatened if the irrational animals had not fasted along with them.”40 According to Basil, the civic fasting orchestrated by the Ninevites required not only human but also jumentous participation in order to be successful. These two examples accord with Basil’s idea that corporate fasting brings social and political benefits, even if he is using them as scriptural evidence for the obligation of fasting. As these two final examples show, Basil thinks that the obligation to fast is not merely incumbent upon individuals, but that all members of a household or city should fast: only in this way can corporate fasting can bring about peace and order in the domestic and civic realms. “Fasting,” writes Basil, “brings about the orderliness of a city, the tranquility of the forum, the peace of households, the security of possessions.”41 In regard to the household, Basil writes, “Fasting is the expansion of households, . . . the pedagogue of youth, an adornment for seniors, . . . and a safe housemate for married couples.”42 He also says, “Fasting protects children, chastens the young, makes seniors venerable. For grey hair is more venerable when it is adorned with fasting. It is an adornment very well suited for women: it restrains those in their prime, guards the married, nourishes virgins. Such is how fasting is practiced privately in homes.”43 Fasting, then, when practiced by all the members of the household, contributes to its overall well being 39 Iei1 9. Iei1 9 (67). See Jon 3:4-10. 41 Iei1 11 (71). 42 Iei1 7 (63). 43 Iei2 5 (77). 40 and order: children are properly raised and kept safe, seniors are accorded the respect they deserve, unmarried women and virgins observe traditional sexual boundaries, and harmonious relations flourish between husbands and wives. On the subject of how fasting helps maintain order within a marriage, Basil writes: “A husband does not suspect treachery in his marriage when he observes his wife living with fasting. Nor is a wife consumed with jealousy when she observes her husband embracing fasting.”44 Basil sees fasting as the guardian of martial fidelity if both spouses practice it. Fasting on the part of the members of the household also contributes to the maintenance of its provisions through its lack of consumption.45 It also affords rest to the household servants, bringing about peace in the whole house; there is harmony between the master and mistress and their servants.46 And so, a fasting household eradicates disorder brought on by unruly and imperiled children, disrespected elders, unfaithful spouses, sexually promiscuous daughters, and overworked servants, creating an order characterized by peace, harmony, and good relations that maintains societal norms and expectations, anti-consumerism, and the non-exploitation of the household staff. Basil also points out the benefits that fasting brings to the public and civic spheres. He states that everyone in the city is obligated to fast; no one, no profession, no economic status, no location, is exempted. “The summons to fast,” writes Basil, “has been announced to the whole world. There is no island, no mainland, no city, no people, no remote place which does not hear 44 Iei1 7 (63). “Who has suffered the loss of his household possessions when fasting? Count what’s in your house today, and count it after the fast. Nothing will be missing from your household possessions because of fasting. No animal bemoans death: an implacable stomach neither sheds the blood of animals nor issues an order for their slaughter. The butcher puts down his knife and the table is content with plants” (Iei1 7 [63-64]). 46 “The sabbath was given to the Jews, it says, that your donkey and your manservant might rest [Ex 20:10]. Let fasting be for your household servants a rest from their perpetual labors, seeing that they serve you for the whole year. Give your meat cook a rest. Give your tablesetter a holiday. Stay the hand of your winepourer. Give some time off to your pastry chef, who makes a variety of desserts. Give your household some quiet from the endless clamor, from the smoke and cooking aromas, and from the servants who run up and down to cater to your stomach as if it were an imperious lady” (Iei1 7 [64]). 45 the summons. Rather soldiers, and travelers, and sailors, and merchants all likewise hear the announcement and receive it with great joy. No one should remove himself from the register of those who fast, in which all peoples and all ages and all ranks of dignity are counted.”47 In one passage, Basil directly addresses the various members of the household and the city, reminding each not to despise fasting: Are you rich? Do not mock fasting, deeming it unworthy to welcome as your table companion. Do not expel it from your house as a dishonorable thing eclipsed by pleasure. Never denounce yourself to the one who has legislated fasting and thereby merit condemnation to bitter penury caused either by bodily sickness or by some other gloomy condition. Let not the pauper think of fasting as a joke, seeing that for a long time now he has had it as the companion of his home and table. But as for women, just as breathing is proper and natural for them, so too is fasting. And children, like flourishing plants, are irrigated with the water of fasting. As for seniors, their long familiarity with fasting makes a difficult task easy. For those in training know that difficult tasks done for a long time out of habit become quite painless. As for travelers, fasting is an expedient companion. For just as self-indulgence necessarily weighs them down because they carry around what they have gorged themselves with, so too fasting renders them swift and unencumbered. . . . Take fasting, O you paupers, as the companion of your home and table; O you servants, as rest from the continual labors of your servitude; O you rich, as the remedy that heals the damage caused by your indulgence and in turn makes what you usually despise more delightful.48 47 48 Iei2 2 (74). Iei2 2 (74-75) and 7 (79). “Hence one finds,” says Basil, “the benefit of fasting in every pursuit and in every bodily state, and it is equally suitable for everything: homes, flora, nights, days, cities, deserts. . . . in so many situations fasting graces us with something that is good in itself . . . . ”49 Basil furthermore thinks that the social and political order generated by fasting is possible only if all participate in the practice (much like in Nineveh, though Basil does not make the connection). The “good in itself” with which corporate fasting graces the social or political body is order and peace. In a key passage, Basil explains how corporate fasting creates a “good order” (eutaxia) in the city and a “profound peace” (eirēnē batheia) throughout the world; as he gives his explanation apparently he has in mind the incident on Easter that I mentioned above in mind, but he goes beyond it: But how is it [fasting] practiced in our public life? It disposes every city as a whole and all its people to good order, quiets shouting, banishes fighting, silences abuse. What teacher’s arrival settles down the uproar of boys as abruptly as the advent of fasting quells the tumult of the city? What reveler carries on when fasting? What band of lascivious dancers is formed by fasting? Silly giggling and obscene ditties and erotic dancing abruptly leave the city, banished by fasting as if by a stern judge. Now if all were to take fasting as the counselor for their actions, nothing would prevent a profound peace from spreading throughout the entire world. Nations would not rise up against one another, nor would armies clash in battle. If fasting prevailed, weapons would not be wrought, courts of justice would not be erected, people would not live in prisons, nor would there ever be any criminals in the deserts, any slanderers in the cities, or any pirates on the sea. 49 Iei2 7 (79). If all were students of fasting, they would never hear the voice of the taskmaster [Job 3.18] mentioned in the book of Job.50 A quelling of rowdiness, a silencing of revelry, a cessation of hostilities, an end to crime: these are just some of social and political benefits of corporate fasting both within the city and between cities. Here Basil paints a picture of eschatological peace reminiscent of Isaiah 2:1-4 and 11:6-9 (though there appears to be no direct borrowing). Basil’s conviction that the benefits of fasting are primarily social and political is rooted in a scriptural view of fasting, which teaches that true fasting is abstaining from vice. In this regard he does not fail to evoke Isaiah 58:3-9, writing: “Do not define the good derived from fasting only in terms of abstaining from food. For true fasting is being a stranger to vice. Loose every bond of wickedness [Is 58:6]. Let your neighbor grieve you; forgive him his debts [Matt 6:12]. Do not fast only to quarrel and fight [Is 58:4]. ”51 Similarly, he says elsewhere: “True fasting is being a stranger to vice, controlling the tongue, abstaining from anger, distancing oneself from lust, evil speech, lying, perjury. The absence of these vices makes fasting true, and so shunning these vices makes fasting good.”52 And so, if vice leads to social disorder, then the practice of true fasting—self-control not only in matters of food and drink, but also in vice—creates a virtuous society and consequently social and political order.53 Basil makes this explicit connection in one passage: “Nor would our life be so lamentable and sorrowful if fasting were to preside over our life. For it is clear that it would have taught all people not only to control themselves with regard to food, but also to completely avoid and be utterly estranged from 50 Iei2 5 (77-78). Iei1 10 (69). See also Iei1 1. 52 Iei2 7 (80). Cf. “if you wish to make your mind strong, subdue your flesh through fasting” (Iei1 9 [67]). 53 Note that fasting, when understood as not eating, cannot be practiced continually, but fasting, when understood as self-control in matters of food and drink as a way of supporting the avoidance of vice and the cultivation of virtue, can. 51 avarice, greed, and every kind of vice. When these are extirpated, nothing can prevent us from passing our life in profound peace and tranquility of soul.”54 Here the “profound peace” (eirēnē batheia) and “tranquility of soul” in which life is passed when true fasting is practiced is social and political, not simply personal, just as in the passage cited above. Finally, the peaceful social and political order in the domestic and civic spheres that can be gained by fasting is for Basil a kind of recapturing of the paradisiacal state. It is clear that for Basil fasting is crucial to salvation: “see how fasting conveys to God and how self-indulgence forsakes salvation.”55 For fasting reverses the original sin: “If Eve had fasted from the tree, we would not need this fasting now. . . . We have been injured by sin; let us be healed by repentance. But repentance is futile without fasting. . . . Make satisfaction to God through fasting.”56 Thus, there is a kind of symmetry: just as the first sin occurred by breaking the command to fast, the repentance for the sin must be done by fulfilling the obligation to fast. Accordingly, this means that fasting is also the way to return to paradise, from which humanity was expelled because of that first transgression: “It is because we did not fast that we were banished from paradise. So let us fast that we may return to it. Don’t you realize that Lazarus entered paradise through fasting? Do not imitate the disobedience of Eve.”57 Basil also comments that “fasting is likeness to the angels [and] companionship with the righteous”58— something which would seem to be a foretaste or prefiguration of the heavenly life. Yet, Basil does not make an explicit connection between the order achieved through fasting and the order of the paradisiacal state. Nonetheless, the connection is there: the peaceful order of paradise is Basil’s model for social and political order. Throughout his corpus, Basil 54 Iei2 5 (78). Iei1 5 (60). 56 Iei1 3 (57). 57 Iei1 4 (57-58). 58 Iei2 6 (78). 55 recognizes the harmonious relations between God, humanity, and all creation that characterized the world before the fall.59 And so there is in his thought at least the implicit idea that the “profound peace” of the “good order” in the domestic and civic realms is somehow paradisiacal. It seems that for Basil the different results of fasting (that is, the return to paradise and the creation of social and political order) are but different aspects of the same reality, which in this life is never fully achieved but always to be pursued. The practice of true fasting in this fallen world is thus fuelled by an eschatological hope, for Basil says that God created human beings to practice virtue “to bring about upon the earth a reflection of the good order [eutaxia] in heaven.”60 As we have seen, fasting, the true fasting taught by the scriptures, is fundamental to, or rather is, this practice of virtue, which when practiced collectively brings about on the earth a “good order” and “profound peace” in domestic and civic realms that “reflects” [skiagraphein] the “good order in heaven.” For Basil, then, fasting is replete with political ramifications of eschatological and soteriological importance. 59 See e.g. Homilia dicta in Lakizis 8 (This homily is traditionally numbered 26). Quod rebus mundanis adhaerendum non sit 5 (traditionally numbered homily 21), translation taken from Mark DelCogliano, St. Basil the Great: On Christian Doctrine and Practice, Popular Patristics Series 47 (Yonkers: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012), 170. 60