The corruption of lineages through appetite

He hates misfortune. And because of this, it comes to pass that the house of the fasting person has angels as guardians, protectors, and attendants, while the one indulging in pleasures during the forty days has demons as household members, and lovers and lustful ones of blood, and attendants of drunkenness. For even regarding the spirits, whether holy or unclean, each one approaches its own kind and friends, just as it can be seen among birds.

For a dove indeed loves the pure places and turns itself toward the clearings, sowing seed for itself and its young; and the berry sits sweetly upon the tree leaves, producing something sweet and thin. But the gluttonous raven sits near the butcher shops, heavy and unpleasant, descending upon those who are slaughtering meat.

Therefore, let us love self-control, so that we may be loved by angels, and let us hate unrestrained luxury, so that we may not cast ourselves into fellowship with demons along with it. No one living in luxury became diligent, nor is one idling in prayers a disciple of virtue, nor is a lover of pleasure a saint, nor is one living fleshly a companion of the kingdom.

Come into your memory toward the beginning of our race and you will find the experience of those of whom we are witnesses. For a law of fasting would not have been set for us if the law of first self-control had not been surpassed; nor would the stomach have been named an intruder, if the pretext of pleasure had not introduced sin.

There was no need for the plow, nor for oxen to plow, nor for the cutting of the furrow, nor indeed for the sowing of seed and the watering, nor for the cycle of seasons, nor for the thickening of winter and the loosening of summer, nor for all this cyclical toil, if we had not decided upon the cycle of labors for the sake of an easy, immediate enjoyment of this life; but we intended a different state of life from the one seen, which we again hope to attain when we put on the impassible life through the resurrection.

For this is the blessing of God's condescension toward us, so that we might restore our worth toward the former state; which, having taken hold of philanthropically, we did not preserve, feeling the grace sensitively. Let us therefore be brightened at the coming fast; an icon of the coming life, a mimic of the incorruptible conduct. There are neither drinking parties nor pleasures...

Leave the first man, and count those after him as well. Why did it make the righteous Noah act shamefully, being stripped of his members which law should cover, and prepare to mock the impious Ham through the drunkenness of his father (Gen 9:20-27), so that two evils might come from one fault? For one drunkenness stripped both the father of the good covering and the son of liberty.

But when I turn again to the children of Eli the priest and to that history (1 Sam 2), I find a cluster of misfortunes connected to one another from a single source, that of the belly and the penis. For they, having made the priesthood of the father a starting point for pleasure and enjoyment, defiled the sacrifices and went toward the belly before God of the priests. And fornication followed, the sister of the sin of luxury, and to all these, the judgment from God brings a strict and sudden sentence.

For an enemy nation marched against Jerusalem because of them. And so that the word might cut short a multitude of gloomy narratives, the unrestrained youths fell in battle, the mother endangered with the sinners, and the ark of God was taken captive by the enemies, and the old priest died at the messages of evils, and so much of our evil was brought upon the city through the pleasure of the throat.

Therefore, let us all fast; especially those who are members of the priests, and more so as having the teaching of self-control and the philosophical commands from the table as a co-dweller. For it is absurd for the children of money-changers to be silver-knowers, and the members of the coppersmiths to be near the fire and the bellows, but for the members of the priests, whether relatives or otherwise, to neglect the object of life which the master and lord of the hearth was permitted to live. He was most harmed through the belly, even the elder son of Isaac (Gen 25). For being a hunter by profession and once, after a great run to the house, returning hungry, he took in the food that was before him, and he gave the firstborns to the lentil-eater (Gen 25:30-34); from there, moreover, he also snatched away the paternal blessing, and thus, being made a stranger little by little, he lost virtue and the patriarchal glory of God.