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On the Ruin of Britain

St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899

2. Respecting Abstinence from Foods

RESPECTING ABSTINENCE FROM FOODS GILDAS SAYS:¹ Abstinence from fleshly foods without love is profitless. Better therefore are those who fast without great display, and do not beyond measure abstain from what God has created, but anxiously preserve a clean heart within (from which they know is the issue of life), than those who refuse to eat flesh or delight themselves in worldly foods, who ride not in vehicles and on horseback, and because of these things regard themselves as superior to others. To these men death enters by the windows of pride.

Notes

H. xii, 5, where the title is: “Uselessness of fasting without charity” (De eo, quod inutile sit ieiunium sine caritate). The simple and sane interpretation given here to true abstinence reappears in the Irish Rule of Columbanus, for example: “The chastity of a monk is judged by his thoughts; what boots it to be chaste in body, if not chaste in mind!” “It is not only the possession of superfluous things that is censurable, but also the desiring of them.” “If abstinence is excessive, it becomes a vice, not a virtue.”