Encyclopedia of Spiritual Theology

Fasting… and Its Spirituality

Fasting… and Its Spirituality (1)

Everyone Fasted:

Fasting is the oldest commandment given to humanity. When man was in Paradise, God commanded him to abstain from a certain kind of food, while allowing him to eat from other kinds (Gen 2:16–17).

The Holy Bible explains to us how the prophets fasted: it presents to us the fast of David (Ps 108:23), Daniel (Dan 9), Nehemiah (Neh 1), Esther (Esth 4), Joel (Joel 2), Ezekiel (Ezek 4), and Ezra (Ezra 8:21) … as well as the apostles of Christ (Acts 13). Even the Gentiles also fasted. The Bible gives us an idea about the fast of Cornelius the centurion, Darius king of Persia, and also the fast of the people of Nineveh.

The Lord of glory Himself fasted. And the three who appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration—the Lord Jesus Christ, Moses, and Elijah—each of them had fasted forty days and forty nights.

Because of the greatness of fasting, the Lord explained that through it demons are cast out, saying: “However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (Matt 17:21).

Vegetarian Fasting Is a Divine Ordinance:

• God created man vegetarian. Adam and Eve did not eat in Paradise except plants—legumes and fruits. Thus God said to Adam and Eve: “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food” (Gen 1:29). After man was expelled from Paradise, he also remained vegetarian. But alongside legumes and fruits of trees, he was also given to eat vegetables, as the Lord said: “Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so (Gen 1:30).

• Man was not permitted to eat meat until after the Ark of Noah, at a time when “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart” (Gen 6:5–6). Thus, after the Ark rested, God said to Noah and his sons: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Gen 9:3–4).

• When God led His people in the wilderness, He fed them vegetarian food, which was the manna: “And it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Exod 16:31). The people gathered it, ground it on millstones, or beat it in the mortar. They also “cooked it in pans and made cakes of it; and its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil” (Num 11:8).

When God permitted them to eat meat, it was in anger because of their lust, and He struck them with a very great plague: “But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague. So he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving” (Num 11:20–34).

• Vegetarian food was also the food of the prophet Daniel and his companions in captivity, as they ate legumes (Dan 1:12). In Daniel’s fast he said: “I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled” (Dan 10:3).

• This vegetarian food was what God commanded the prophet Ezekiel to eat in his fast, saying to him: “Take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt” (Ezek 4:9). The duration of Ezekiel’s fast was 390 days.

The Period of Abstinence:

Fasting in its Christian definition is “abstaining from food for a specific period of time, followed by food free from animal fat.”

Therefore, there must be a period of abstinence from food. It is not correct for a person to wake up from sleep and eat immediately. He must abstain for a period. Fasting in language means abstinence. Thus, whoever does not abstain from food has not yet understood Christian fasting.

However, the period of abstinence from food may differ from one person to another according to one’s ability and level of training. People differ in age, health, strength, type of work, and training in fasting. Therefore, not everyone abstains from food for a unified duration.

Rejected Fasting:

Not every fast is acceptable before God; there are fasts that the Lord rejected.

An example of this is the fast of the Pharisee who boasted that he fasted two days a week, and the fast of the hypocrites who appear gloomy and disfigured so that people may see their fasting and thus receive their reward on earth (Matt 6:16).

The Lord gave us in the book of Jeremiah an example of this rejected fast, saying to the prophet: “Therefore do not pray for this people for their good. When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them. But I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence” (Jer 14:12). The Lord did not accept their fasting because they were wicked and their worship was merely formal.

Among the examples of rejected fasting is the fast of the sinful people in the days of Isaiah, who said to the Lord: “Why have we fasted,” they say, “and You have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?” (Isa 58:3).

Likewise, it was a rejected fast—the fast of those whom the Lord rebuked in the book of the prophet Zechariah, saying: “When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me?” (Zech 7:5).

Fasting Is Contrition, Repentance, and Humility:

Fasting is not merely a bodily virtue. In our fasting we walk according to the Spirit, and spiritual fasting includes humility, contrition, and repentance.

When Nehemiah fasted, he said about his fast: “So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said… both my father’s house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses” (Neh 1:4–8).

When the prophet Daniel fasted, he mixed his fast with prayer, supplications, wearing sackcloth, and sitting in ashes. He confessed his sins and the sins of the people before God, saying: “We have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments… O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face… O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You… O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act!” (Dan 9:5–19). And he was mourning in his fast (Dan 10:2).

The book of the prophet Joel speaks to us about repentance, contrition, and humility in fasting, saying: “Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the Lord your God… Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly. Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room. Let the priests, who minister to the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar; let them say, ‘Spare Your people, O Lord’” (Joel 2:12–17).

The famous fast of Nineveh, which brought them forgiveness, was not merely abstinence from food and drink, but included humility and repentance. They wore sackcloth from the greatest to the least; the king himself covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. A decree was proclaimed among the people that they should “cry mightily to God, yes, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?” Thus the Scripture focuses more on their repentance than on their fasting, saying: “Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it” (Jonah 3:8–10). It did not say, “when God saw their fasting,” because repentance was the foundation, and fasting was merely an expression of repentance. Thus the Lord Jesus Christ said about the people of Nineveh that they would rise in the judgment and condemn that generation “because they repented at the preaching of Jonah” (Matt 12:41), and He did not say because they fasted.

Fasting without repentance is a rejected fast before God. We also notice in all the previous examples that fasting was accompanied by prayer and supplication.

1. An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Second Year – Tenth Issue, December 1966.

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