Tertullian — On Fasting 1

I should wonder at the Psychics, if they were enthralled to voluptuousness alone, which leads them to repeated marriages, if they were not likewise bursting with gluttony , which leads them to hate fasts . Lust without voracity would certainly be considered a monstrous phenomenon; since these two are so united and concrete, that, had there been any possibility of disjoining them, the pudenda would not have been affixed to the belly itself rather than elsewhere. Look at the body: the region (of these members) is one and the same. In short, the order of the vices is proportionate to the arrangement of the members. First, the belly; and then immediately the materials of all other species of lasciviousness are laid subordinately to daintiness: through love of eating, love of impurity finds passage. I recognise, therefore, animal faith by its care of the flesh (of which it wholly consists)— as prone to manifold feeding as to manifold marrying— so that it deservedly accuses the spiritual discipline, which according to its ability opposes it, in this species of continence as well; imposing, as it does, reins upon the appetite, through taking, sometimes no meals, or late meals, or dry meals, just as upon lust , through allowing but one marriage. It is really irksome to engage with such: one is really ashamed to wrangle about subjects the very defense of which is offensive to modesty. For how am I to protect chastity and sobriety without taxing their adversaries? What those…

2. Arguments of the Psychics, Drawn from the Law, the Gospel, the Acts, the Epistles, and Heathenish Practices For, so far as pertains to fasts , they oppose to us the definite days appointed by God : as when, in Leviticus, the Lord enjoins upon Moses the tenth day of the seventh month (as) a day of atonement, saying, Holy shall be to you the day, and you shall vex your souls ; and every soul which shall not have been vexed in that day shall be exterminated from his people. At all events, in the Gospel they think that those days were definitely appointed for fasts in which the Bridegroom was taken away; and that these are now the only legitimate days for Christian fasts , the legal and prophetical antiquities having been abolished: for wherever it suits their wishes, they recognise what is the meaning of the Law and the prophets until John. Accordingly, (they think) that, with regard to the future, fasting was to be indifferently observed, by the New Discipline, of choice, not of command, according to the times and needs of each individual: that this, withal, had been the observance of the apostles , imposing (as they did) no other yoke of definite fasts to be observed by all generally, nor similarly of Stations either, which (they think) have withal days of their own (the fourth and sixth days of the week), but yet take a wide range according to individual judgment, neither subject to the law of a given precept, nor (to be protracted) beyond the last hour of the day, since…