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TO this Abbot Theonas thus began his reply. It is indeed right for us,
even when we cannot see the reason, to yield to the authority of the
fathers and to a custom of our predecessors that has been continued through
so many years down to our own time, and to observe it, as handed down from
antiquity, with constant care and reverence. But since you want to know the
reasons and grounds for this, receive in few words what we have heard as
handed down by our Elders on this subject. But before we bring forward the
authority of Holy Scripture, we will, if you please, say a little about the
nature and character of the fast, that afterwards the authority of Holy
Scripture may support our words. The Divine Wisdom has pointed out in
Ecclesiastes that for everything, i.e., for all things happy or those which
are considered unfortunate and unhappy, there is a right time: saying: "For
all things there is a time, and a time for everything under the heaven. A
time to bring forth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pull
down what is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to destroy
and a time to build; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn
and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones and a time to gather
stones; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to
get and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to send away; a time to
scatter and a time to collect; a time to be silent and a time to speak; a
time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace;" and
below: "For mere is a time," it says, "for everything and for every
deed." None therefore of these things does it lay down as always good,
but only when any of them are fittingly done and at the right time, so that
these very things which at one time, when done at the right moment, turn
out well, if they are ventured on at a wrong or unsuitable time, are found
to be useless or harmful; only excepting those things which are in their
own nature good or bad, and which cannot ever be made the opposite, as,
e.g., justice, prudence, fortitude, temperance and the rest of the virtues,
or on the other hand, those faults, the description of which cannot
possibly be altered or fall under the other head. But those things which
can sometimes turn out with either result, so that, in accordance with the
character of those who use them, they are found to be either good or bad,
these we consider to be not absolutely in their own natures useful or
injurious, but only so in accordance with the mind of the doer, and the
suitableness of the time.
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