Alphabetarius

Cyprian

Jerome First part

Abstinence is to accommodate
the mind to things allowed
and through God to others.

i Tule Abstinence is a fixed time
of eating, not overstepping
to satisfy.

Bapo Bring only this hard thing, that
I subtract from my own will.

Iso What you were about to eat,
if you had not fasted, give to the poor,
lest your fast be a profit of greed.

Is He permits fasting who refers
it to the evening study.

Is It is much better to eat a little
daily than very rarely
once, for it is better than the sense
defended in the middle, as rain
suddenly falls upon the fields.

Is It profits nothing to carry a long
empty stomach, if it is compensated
by satiety after the fast.

Is He makes a burnt offering who
afflicts his own body in moderation
and departs from necessity and
poverty always.

Is He fasts to God who macerates
himself for love of Him, and what
he denies himself, he distributes to others.

Is A fat belly does not produce
a thin mind, in that through the wall
of this flesh, if you cannot pray
in love, you cannot jump; therefore
that journey which you perform
is heavy.

Is Before God, it is not so much the
measure of the work that matters as the labor, nor

abstinence as much as the work
of the mortification of vices.

Is What you were about to eat, if
you had not fasted, give to the poor,
that your fasting may be satisfaction
there.

Is A moderate and temperate diet is
useful for soul and body.

Is Then is the abstinence of the body
bright and before God, when it lifts
the mind to heaven.

Is A virgin should avoid wine like
poison, for I think it is the poison
of pleasure.

Is Because when Eve abstained in
paradise, she was alive, but when
she violated the precept of abstinence,
she felt corruption.

Is It is very absurd and full of satiety
to want to pray with a belly, which
we have known to be pleasing to God.

Josue After they ate the desert manna,
the children of Israel did not
use that food anymore.

Is No chaste woman should appear
in the middle of the crowd, while
only abstinence preserves the flesh,
and all things are for seasoning with
vegetables.

Is The mind, loosened by the immoderation
of foods, loses the vigor of prayer.

Is It profits nothing to lead a long
fast all day if, after food, the soul
is suffocated by satiety or immoderation.

Is If the food was temperate,
the body is irrigated and does not
germinate in the thorns of lust.

Is What is the flesh that after