What do you think?
Rate this book
Popular Patristics Series #50
On Fasting and Feasts
Saint Basil of Caesarea (c. 329-378/9 CE) was a monk, bishop, preacher, theologian, and social activist who had very down-to-earth views about eating, drinking, fasting, and feasts in honor of local martyrs. In this new collection of sermon translations—most offered here in English for the first time— Basil addresses such issues as drunkenness, hesitations over baptism, community benefits of fasting, how to be thankful when facing loss and disaster, and the mystery of the incarnation. Also included are three sermons on local martyrs Julitta, Mamas, and Barlaam. This small volume of elegant translations will be a vital and valued resource for anyone interested in religion and the body, early Christian spiritual disciplines, and their application to the Church today.
Dr Mark DelCogliano teaches at the University of St Thomas in St Paul, Minnesota. In addition to his scholarship on the fourth-century Trinitarian controversies, he has published numerous translations of patristic works, including eleven of Basil’s Moral Homilies in On Christian Doctrine and Practice (PPS 47).
Dr Susan R. Holman is author of over thirty publications, including four books, in the areas of patristic studies, the history of poverty, and medicine. She is Senior Writer at the Harvard
Dr Mark DelCogliano teaches at the University of St Thomas in St Paul, Minnesota. In addition to his scholarship on the fourth-century Trinitarian controversies, he has published numerous translations of patristic works, including eleven of Basil’s Moral Homilies in On Christian Doctrine and Practice (PPS 47).
Dr Susan R. Holman is author of over thirty publications, including four books, in the areas of patristic studies, the history of poverty, and medicine. She is Senior Writer at the Harvard
141 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
16 people are currently reading
357 people want to read
About the author
Basil the Great
323books113followersAfter 370, Christian leader Saint Basil, known as "the Great," Greek bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, vigorously opposed Arianism.
Arabic: باسيليوس الكبير
Greek: Ἅγιος Βασίλειος ὁ Μέγας
People also call him of Mazaca in Asia Minor. He influenced as a 4th century theologian and monastic.
Theologically, Basil supported the Nicene faction of the church, not the followers of Apollinaris of Laodicea on the other side. Ability to balance theological convictions with political connections made Basil a powerful advocate for the Nicene position.
In addition to work as a theologian, Basil cared for the poor and underprivileged. Basil established guidelines, which focus on community, liturgical prayer, and manual labor for monastic life. People remember him, together with Pachomius, as a father of communal monasticism in east. The traditions of east and west consider him.
People refer collectively to Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa as the fathers. The Eastern Orthodox Church and Catholics gave the title of hierarch to Basil, together with Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom. The Catholic Church recognizes him as a doctor. The epithet "revealer of heavenly mysteries," sometimes refers to Basil.
Arabic: باسيليوس الكبير
Greek: Ἅγιος Βασίλειος ὁ Μέγας
People also call him of Mazaca in Asia Minor. He influenced as a 4th century theologian and monastic.
Theologically, Basil supported the Nicene faction of the church, not the followers of Apollinaris of Laodicea on the other side. Ability to balance theological convictions with political connections made Basil a powerful advocate for the Nicene position.
In addition to work as a theologian, Basil cared for the poor and underprivileged. Basil established guidelines, which focus on community, liturgical prayer, and manual labor for monastic life. People remember him, together with Pachomius, as a father of communal monasticism in east. The traditions of east and west consider him.
People refer collectively to Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa as the fathers. The Eastern Orthodox Church and Catholics gave the title of hierarch to Basil, together with Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom. The Catholic Church recognizes him as a doctor. The epithet "revealer of heavenly mysteries," sometimes refers to Basil.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 28, 2021
Basil the Great. On Fasting and Feasting. Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2013.
This is not the name of a book Basil wrote. It is a collection of sermons delivered on various feast days. It is nothing like a systematic treatise on fasting, but it can be a good spur for the Christian life. We really don’t know how to feast because we don’t know how to fast. We consider McDonald’s to be a good meal.
Birth of Christ
This sermon establishes the pattern that as Christ’s flesh participates in divinity, so our own flesh must be prepared. The incarnation is the foundation for fasting. Basil repeats the standard line that the mode of eternal generation is ineffable (Basil 27). The closest analogy is fire to iron. He does seem to anticipate something like the extra-calvinisticum when he notes “Heaven was not deprived of what it contained, and the earth received the heavenly one within its own embraces” (30). As Christ’s flesh shares in divinity, “it does not impart its own weaknesses to the divinity.”
The body of the Holy Virgin is “the workshop for this divine economy.” Nice turn of phrase.
On Baptism
Any time is an acceptable time for baptism (41). Basil uses the language of baptism saving. We shouldn’t try to weaken that. What we should not miss, however, is that baptism allows us to participate in redemptive history.
We also see hints of a baptismal service in the ancient church: “You may find yourself (as unbaptized) able neither to lift your hands to heaven, stand upright, give proper bodily worship for the ritual, learn properly, confess clearly, join with God, nor renounce the devil” (49).
Learn good habits: “prayer as a night-watchman, fasting as the servant at the door, psalmody as your soul-guide” (52).
First Homily on Fasting
True fasting should loose the bonds of iniquity (injustice). One of the reasons we shouldn’t look sad during a fast is because we shouldn’t “look gloomy while [we] are being healed” (55). Fasting, when done properly, can kill (or at least expose) the root of a sin in the soul. Basil takes the command to “anoint your head” as a reference to the chrismic mysteries and oil. This allows us, he suggests, to “share in Christ” (56).
In terms of physical and temporal health, Basil notes that “eating lightly” is healthier for the body (57), Of course, they would have been eating actual food and not today’s food-like products.
The saints received fasting as a paternal inheritance.
Basil gives Noah the benefit of the doubt on the wine incident. Noah didn’t know how to partake moderately. Developing this point, fasting allows us to view food (and wine) properly. To the degree that we moderns do fast, we break our fast, not by small amounts of lean meat and a little wine, but by McDonalds.
“Fasting begets prophets and strengthens mighty men” (61). It is quite simply a training regimen.
A man who truly fasts will not lend money at interest (64).
A man who does not heed “the life-giving doctrines will have his mind waste away” (67).
Passions disturb the mind, but fasting weakens the passions.
Second Homily on Fasting
Thesis: “The more you deny the flesh, the more you render your soul radiant” (73-74).
The church uses the feast days to train the body to rhythms of fasting and feasting. These rhythms keep the soul ready to fight spiritual warfare. Indeed, “going without food to eliminate intemperance, they foster a kind of receptivity, re-education, and fresh start of the redevelopment of the nutritive faculty [perhaps we don’t need to adopt this aspect of ancient medicine]” (79).
There are aspects of Basil’s counsel that we probably couldn’t adopt today: church feast calendar, etc. Much of what he says, though, is worth considering and neatly unites both body and soul.
This is not the name of a book Basil wrote. It is a collection of sermons delivered on various feast days. It is nothing like a systematic treatise on fasting, but it can be a good spur for the Christian life. We really don’t know how to feast because we don’t know how to fast. We consider McDonald’s to be a good meal.
Birth of Christ
This sermon establishes the pattern that as Christ’s flesh participates in divinity, so our own flesh must be prepared. The incarnation is the foundation for fasting. Basil repeats the standard line that the mode of eternal generation is ineffable (Basil 27). The closest analogy is fire to iron. He does seem to anticipate something like the extra-calvinisticum when he notes “Heaven was not deprived of what it contained, and the earth received the heavenly one within its own embraces” (30). As Christ’s flesh shares in divinity, “it does not impart its own weaknesses to the divinity.”
The body of the Holy Virgin is “the workshop for this divine economy.” Nice turn of phrase.
On Baptism
Any time is an acceptable time for baptism (41). Basil uses the language of baptism saving. We shouldn’t try to weaken that. What we should not miss, however, is that baptism allows us to participate in redemptive history.
We also see hints of a baptismal service in the ancient church: “You may find yourself (as unbaptized) able neither to lift your hands to heaven, stand upright, give proper bodily worship for the ritual, learn properly, confess clearly, join with God, nor renounce the devil” (49).
Learn good habits: “prayer as a night-watchman, fasting as the servant at the door, psalmody as your soul-guide” (52).
First Homily on Fasting
True fasting should loose the bonds of iniquity (injustice). One of the reasons we shouldn’t look sad during a fast is because we shouldn’t “look gloomy while [we] are being healed” (55). Fasting, when done properly, can kill (or at least expose) the root of a sin in the soul. Basil takes the command to “anoint your head” as a reference to the chrismic mysteries and oil. This allows us, he suggests, to “share in Christ” (56).
In terms of physical and temporal health, Basil notes that “eating lightly” is healthier for the body (57), Of course, they would have been eating actual food and not today’s food-like products.
The saints received fasting as a paternal inheritance.
Basil gives Noah the benefit of the doubt on the wine incident. Noah didn’t know how to partake moderately. Developing this point, fasting allows us to view food (and wine) properly. To the degree that we moderns do fast, we break our fast, not by small amounts of lean meat and a little wine, but by McDonalds.
“Fasting begets prophets and strengthens mighty men” (61). It is quite simply a training regimen.
A man who truly fasts will not lend money at interest (64).
A man who does not heed “the life-giving doctrines will have his mind waste away” (67).
Passions disturb the mind, but fasting weakens the passions.
Second Homily on Fasting
Thesis: “The more you deny the flesh, the more you render your soul radiant” (73-74).
The church uses the feast days to train the body to rhythms of fasting and feasting. These rhythms keep the soul ready to fight spiritual warfare. Indeed, “going without food to eliminate intemperance, they foster a kind of receptivity, re-education, and fresh start of the redevelopment of the nutritive faculty [perhaps we don’t need to adopt this aspect of ancient medicine]” (79).
There are aspects of Basil’s counsel that we probably couldn’t adopt today: church feast calendar, etc. Much of what he says, though, is worth considering and neatly unites both body and soul.
Read
March 14, 2023A wonderful collection of homilies on fasting, baptism, the incarnation and thankfulness. Basil is a bold voice that is helpful as we live in the midst of an overly offended culture. He does not shy away from the truth.
“Fasting is as old as humanity: it was legislated in paradise. It was the first command that Adam received: You shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You shall not eat legislates fasting and self-control. If Eve had fasted from the tree, we would not need this fasting now.
It is because we did not fast that we were banished from paradise.
So let us fast that we may return to it.”
“Fasting begets prophets and strengthens mighty men. Fasting makes lawgivers wise. It 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 and perfects the priest.”
PS: I’m pretty sure Basil was an enneagram 8.
“Fasting is as old as humanity: it was legislated in paradise. It was the first command that Adam received: You shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You shall not eat legislates fasting and self-control. If Eve had fasted from the tree, we would not need this fasting now.
It is because we did not fast that we were banished from paradise.
So let us fast that we may return to it.”
“Fasting begets prophets and strengthens mighty men. Fasting makes lawgivers wise. It 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 and perfects the priest.”
PS: I’m pretty sure Basil was an enneagram 8.
March 29, 2019
A wonderful collection of homilies that makes reading feel just like being in Cappadocia.
March 11, 2022
“Who is brazen enough to claim that he can comprehend divinity? Or do you not see from what follows, that it concerns a certain understanding? What do we understand of God in the words, “My sheep hear my voice”? Do you see how God can be perceived? In that, namely, we hear his commands, and that we hear and obey them. In this is the knowledge of God, that we observe God's command. It is not in long investigation over God's essence; not in examining the supernatural; not in brooding over things that are invisible. "My own know me and I know my own.” It is enough for you to know that he is a good shepherd, that he has given his life's for the sheep. That is the limit of knowing God. How great God is, his measurable dimensions, in what his essence consists--to ask such things is perilous and impossible to answer. On these points it is best
to remain silent. “My sheep hear my voice.” They hear, he says, but not "They brood over.” They are not disobedient, not quarrelsome.”
Fr. Basil has some hard things to say in these homilies (the above is just beautiful—not hard) and I imagine much would be lost by a reader that was not also Orthodox/living the tradition he is preaching from.
to remain silent. “My sheep hear my voice.” They hear, he says, but not "They brood over.” They are not disobedient, not quarrelsome.”
Fr. Basil has some hard things to say in these homilies (the above is just beautiful—not hard) and I imagine much would be lost by a reader that was not also Orthodox/living the tradition he is preaching from.
March 18, 2024
I've previously loved everything of Basil's that I've read. However, this set of sermons, whilst remaining encouraging and convicting, lacked much discussion of christology or theology. I've come to find that these are the topics that I love to read about in Patristics, and they just weren't prominent here. This set of texts was mainly cohortative and persuasive, appealing to the masses for the importance of fasting. The text on giving thanks was lovely, and so too were the short homilies given for the sake of various martyrs on their feast day in Cappadocia. I love certain turns of phrase and conceptions of salvation that Basil uses, but he didn't use much of these in these sermons.
Medium recommendation to anyone interested.
Medium recommendation to anyone interested.
June 15, 2023
A collection of homilies by St. Basil the Great on the themes of:
Fasting
Thankfulness
Sacrament
Death and feasting
I enjoyed this translation and found it to be enlightening and instructive to the Orthodox faith. I would recommend this to those wanting to learn more from the early church fathers as it was quite easy to read.
The key takeaway was a reiteration of the instruction to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks..”
Fasting
Thankfulness
Sacrament
Death and feasting
I enjoyed this translation and found it to be enlightening and instructive to the Orthodox faith. I would recommend this to those wanting to learn more from the early church fathers as it was quite easy to read.
The key takeaway was a reiteration of the instruction to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks..”
August 10, 2023
This book is definitely worth reading, but I probably wouldn’t recommend it as an entry point for Basil. If you’re interested in reading some of his work, I’d suggest starting with “On Social Justice” or “On Christian Doctrine and Practice”.
That being said, this short book has some excellent sermons in it! These may not be the best Basil sermons I’ve read, but they are still very edifying. I am glad to have read it and I will definitely revisit the sermons on fasting.
That being said, this short book has some excellent sermons in it! These may not be the best Basil sermons I’ve read, but they are still very edifying. I am glad to have read it and I will definitely revisit the sermons on fasting.
November 8, 2023
Really good. Basil doesn't cut his congregation any slack and he's super entertaining to read.
More importantly, though, these sermons are a super poignant challenge to the modern neglect of fasting as a spiritual discipline--not taken up for its own sake, but for the good of the one who fasts. Incredibly convicting and thought-provoking sermons throughout that go beyond the titular subject of fasting and feasting
More importantly, though, these sermons are a super poignant challenge to the modern neglect of fasting as a spiritual discipline--not taken up for its own sake, but for the good of the one who fasts. Incredibly convicting and thought-provoking sermons throughout that go beyond the titular subject of fasting and feasting
October 30, 2019
The sermons themselves are great as always - St. Basil speaks as if he is living on earth today with us in the 21st century. But the collection and organization of sermons felt a bit incohesive
August 4, 2020
Really fantastic.
April 5, 2025
A good collection for the Lenten season. I found some of the translations to be a bit clunky, but still worth reading!
July 27, 2016
I picked up this volume at my favourite theological bookstore in the fall, mostly because I'm a fan of the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil, Greg and Greg). I admit that I had a bit of trepidation about the fasting part because I recognize this is a spiritual discipline that I really don't do. I sometimes think I should, so I feel a bit guilty about that. Mind you, I'm all for the feasting part, which more fun (although what Basil means is not a massive pig-out so much as a church feast- lots of church). So, I wasn't sure how I'd react to this volume.
Really, this volume is a series of sermons by Basil which are loosely connected by the title. Several, of course, deal with fasting and are rather hortatory. Fasting is good, go do it, is rather the tone. It is followed by a couple of sermons which look directly at the necessity to be thankful and with the feasts of a couple of martyrs. Basil is Basil, of course, so he is sometimes drifts into allegory in ways that strike us as strange. He is relentlessly scriptural, so it is hard to fault him there. Scripture weaves in and out of these sermons which is refreshing given some modern preaching. It all has a slightly foreign tone, of course, because it is a style of preaching that we aren't used to. It is bracing and challenging for a time which needs both.
The translations are clear enough and there is a good introduction to Basil and his sermons. Like most Popular Patristics books, it is meant to be accessible (or as accessible as these writers let themselves be). It is well worth the read!
Really, this volume is a series of sermons by Basil which are loosely connected by the title. Several, of course, deal with fasting and are rather hortatory. Fasting is good, go do it, is rather the tone. It is followed by a couple of sermons which look directly at the necessity to be thankful and with the feasts of a couple of martyrs. Basil is Basil, of course, so he is sometimes drifts into allegory in ways that strike us as strange. He is relentlessly scriptural, so it is hard to fault him there. Scripture weaves in and out of these sermons which is refreshing given some modern preaching. It all has a slightly foreign tone, of course, because it is a style of preaching that we aren't used to. It is bracing and challenging for a time which needs both.
The translations are clear enough and there is a good introduction to Basil and his sermons. Like most Popular Patristics books, it is meant to be accessible (or as accessible as these writers let themselves be). It is well worth the read!
July 15, 2014
I've come to recognize that St. Basil's sermons are not my favorite among the Patristic writers. His analogies and arguments are often not convincing to me. He is very erudite, and has pretty good command of the science/philosophy of his day. So he gives some good insight into how the Christian intellectuals of his time dealt with Scripture and with the challenges of life. Chrysostom seems often times more creative and even humorous in his comments, though he is more of a moralist in his homilies. The book is worth reading to become familiar with St. Basil's thoughts and also with some of the issues he was dealing with in the 4th Century.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.