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THERE is too another evil sort of vexation which would not be worth
mentioning were it not that we know it is allowed by some of the brethren
who, when they have been vexed or enraged actually abstain persistently
from food, so that (a thing which we cannot mention without shame) those
who when they are calm declare that they cannot possibly put off their
refreshment to the sixth or at most the ninth hour, when they are filled
with vexation and rage do not feel fasts even for two days, and support
themselves, when exhausted by such abstinence, by a surfeit of anger.
Wherein they are plainly guilty of the sin of sacrilege, as out of the
devil's own rage they endure fasts which ought specially to be offered to
God alone out of desire for humiliation of heart and purification from sin:
which is much the same as if they were to offer prayers and sacrifices not
to God but to devils, and so be worthy of hearing this rebuke of Moses:
"They sacrificed to devils and not to God; to gods whom they knew not."
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