Tertullian, On Fasting 1

I would be astonished if the Psychics were driven only by luxury — the vice that makes them marry so often — and not also torn apart by gluttony, the vice that makes them hate fasting. For lust without gluttony would be a monstrosity, since these two are so tightly fused that if they could be completely separated, the genitals would never have stuck to the belly in the first place. Look at the body: it is one continuous region. And just as the members are arranged, so the vices line up: the belly comes first, and immediately the rest are built up by lust. Gluttony is the gateway to lechery. I therefore recognize their animal faith for what it is — a life powered entirely by fleshly appetite, prone to both massive eating and serial marrying. Spiritual discipline, the rival of that substance, rightly indicts it on this front of self-control too, putting a bridle on gluttony by sometimes prescribing even dry or meager rations, just as it curbs lust by limiting marriage to a single union. I am fed up with engaging such people; I am ashamed even to argue with them, since their defense has no shame. How else can I defend chastity and sobriety without calling out their opponents? Let me name them once for all: the external and internal parasites of the Psychics.

They pick a fight with the Paraclete; that is why the new prophecies are rejected — not because Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla preach another God, or dissolve Jesus Christ, or overturn any rule of faith or hope, but because they plainly teach people to fast more often than to marry. We have already published a defense of monogamy on the manner of marrying. Now, regarding the discipline of diet, there is a second — or rather the first — battle of self-control. They accuse us because we keep our own fasts; because we often extend our fast-days until evening; because we also observe xerophagies, drying our food of all meat, all juice, and every moist fruit, so that we neither eat nor drink anything with a wine-like quality; and because we abstain from bathing, which suits a dry diet. So they reject the novelty, prescribing its illegitimacy, or they judge it a heresy if it is human presumption, or they denounce it as a false prophecy if it is a spiritual indictment — while we hear anathema from every side, simply because we proclaim it differently.