Chapter 15

How unworthy, also, is the way in which you interpret to the favour of your own lust the fact that the Lord “ate and drank” promiscuously!  But I think that He must have likewise “fasted” inasmuch as He has pronounced, not “the full,” but “the hungry and thirsty, blessed:”  (He) who was wont to profess “food” to be, not that which His disciples had supposed, but “the thorough doing of the Father’s work;” teaching “to labour for the meat which is permanent unto life eternal;” in our ordinary prayer likewise commanding us to request “bread,” not the wealth of Attalus therewithal.  Thus, too, Isaiah has not denied that God “hath chosen” a “fast;” but has particularized in detail the kind of fast which He has not chosen:  “for in the days,” he says, “of your fasts your own wills are found (indulged), and all who are subject to you ye stealthily sting; or else ye fast with a view to abuse and strifes, and ye smite with the fists.  Not such a fast have I elected;” but such an one as He has subjoined, and by subjoining has not abolished, but confirmed.