What do the Church Fathers say about fasting?

St. Basil the Great says, “[Fasting] is a good guardian of the soul, a safe companion for the body, the best weapon, a training regimen for contestants. It drives away temptations. It readies for piety. It is the companion of sobriety and the craftsman of self-control. In war it teaches bravery, in peace stillness. It sanctifies the Nazirite [monk] and perfects the priest. For it is impossible to venture upon priestly activities without fasting, not only in the case of our present holy and true worship, but also in the prefigured worship set out in the law.”⁴¹³

“Fasting is likeness to the angels, companionship with the righteous, moderation in life. It made Moses the lawgiver. Samuel is the fruit of fasting. Hannah as she fasted vowed to God: O Lord God of Sabaoth, if you were to look upon your maidservant and give me a male child, then I will offer him in your presence as a gift. He shall drink no wine or strong drink until the day of his death (1 Sam. 1:11 LXX). The great Samson was reared on fasting, and as long as it was part of that man’s life, his enemies fell by the thousands (Judg. 15:16), the

412 See Elias Koyter al-Mukhlessy, St. Basil the Great (Arabic) (Publications of the Pauline Library in Beirut, 1989): p. 288.

413 St. Basil of Caesarea, On Fasting and Feasts 1.6 (PP 50:61).

gates of the city were pulled down (Judg. 16:3), and lions did not withstand the strength of his hands (Judg. 14:6). But when drunkenness and fornication seized him, he was easily captured by his enemies. And after he was deprived of his eyes, he was set out as a plaything for little Philistine boys. After Elijah fasted, he shut up heaven for three years and six months (1 Kings 17:1). For when he saw that such great arrogance had been born of self-indulgence, he deemed it necessary to subject them to involuntary fasting with a famine, forcing an end to their sin, which had already increased beyond measure. It was fasting that, like a kind of cauterization or amputation, halted the rampant spread of vice.”⁴¹⁴

“Daniel, the man of desires (Dan. 10:11), neither ate bread nor drank water for three weeks (see Dan. 10:2–3). And he taught the lions to fast when he climbed down into their den (cf. Dan. 6:17–25). For just as lions cannot sink their teeth into anything constructed of stone or metal or any other solid material, so too fasting, by hardening the body of that man as tempering hardens iron, made it as steel to the lions. For they did not open their mouth against the saint. Fasting quenched the power of fire and kept away the mouths of the lions.”⁴¹⁵