Learning to Fast with St. Basil

18 Apr, 2025

Fasting is one of the most neglected spiritual disciplines in 21st century America. Our age is one of individualism and excess which runs contrary to historic fasting practices which have been communal and ascetic.

St. Basil anticipates such times and tells us that rejecting fasting will lead to a "great swarm of vices" and the destruction of our bodies.¹ Such is our modern blight - the west is filled with vices and the destruction of the human body.

To combat such maladies St. Basil encourages cultivating a discipline of fasting. Throughout his sermons on fasting St. Basil speaks of fasting in three ways - fasting as a medicine, a gift, and a weapon.

Fasting as medicine

All Christians, he says should "be cheerful since the physician has given you sin-destroying medicine" of fasting. Often, we believe that food is the only medicine available to us to move the body from sickness to health. But often, this is not true. Food can be destructive to our bodies and a hindrance to our souls.

St. Basil says loading the body up with more food in order to save it is similar to a pilot trying to save a cargo ship in a storm by loading up more and more weight on the vessel. To get through the turbulent sea of life it is easier to steer the body and soul when it isn't weighed down by "unremitting self-indulgence."

Instead of further weighing down the body we should joyfully run towards God's medicine of fasting in the same way we would joyfully seek out medicine from a doctor.

St. Basil tells us that these benefits scale up and also benefit entire Christian communities:

It disposes every city as a whole and all its people to good order, quiets shouting, banishes fighting, silences abuse... if all were to take fasting as the counselor for their actions, nothing would prevent a profound peace from spreading throughout the entire world. Nations would not rise up against one another, nor would armies clash in battle. If fasting prevailed, weapons would not be wrought, courts of justice would not be erected, people would not live in prisons, nor would there ever be any criminals in the deserts, any slanderers in the cities, or any pirates on the sea.

Fasting as gift

St. Basil tells us that fasting has been given to us as an "ancient gift," a "treasure stored up by our ancestors." St. Basil traces this gift, passed down from father to child, as a "paternal inheritance."

In scripture those who break fasting rules or use food/drink immoderately often fall into sin (Adam, Noah, Esau, Israelites). The heroes of the faith are men and women who learned to restrain their self-indulgence (Moses, Samson, Elijah, Elisha, Daniel). This leads St. Basil to conclude:

Fasting begets prophets and strengthens mighty men. Fasting makes lawgivers wise. It is a good guardian of the soul, a safe companion for the body, the best weapon, a training regimen for contestants. It drives away temptations. It readies for piety. It is the companion of sobriety and the craftsman of self-control. In war it teaches bravery, in peace stillness.

Fasting as weapon

In contrast to the "wrestling academies" of his day (or bodybuilding gyms in ours), St. Basil helpfully notes that "soldiers of Christ war against invisible enemies," not against flesh and blood, but against principalities. While "oil fattens the athlete; fasting strengthens the practitioner of piety."

St. Basil picks up on the ancient similarities between military training for war and Christian training in godliness. This is language found in many other early church fathers.

As members of Christ's army St. Basil tells us that fasting is possibly our most important weapon:

It is less dangerous to be convicted of abandoning your weapons in battle than to be seen abandoning the great weapon of fasting.

Consider this the next time you abandon your fasting practice - you will be the easiest target on the battlefield. By contrast, through the weapon of fasting, one can can effectively fight against many sins and demons.

Practical considerations

Modern commentators on fasting practices often strive to quickly caveat who should not participate in fasting. St. Basil, by contrast, is not so quick to let his congregants neglect their medicine:

The summons to fast has been announced to the whole world. There is no island, no mainland, no city, no people, no remote place which does not hear the summons. Rather soldiers, and travelers, and sailors, and merchants all likewise hear the announcement and receive it with great joy. No one should remove himself from the register of those who fast, in which all peoples and all ages and all ranks of dignity are counted.

He also specifically recommends some kind of fasting practice for women, children, and the elderly:

Fasting protects children, chastens the young, makes seniors venerable. For grey hair is more venerable when it is adorned with fasting. It is an adornment very well suited for women: it restrains those in their prime, guards the married, nourishes virgins. Such is how fasting is practiced privately in homes.

With that said, everyone still needs to eat to remain alive. Even in our everyday meals however, St. Basil prescribes modesty in food and drink. Our present life is one of war against "invisible enemies." St. Basil rhetorically asks: isn't it "much more appropriate for us to be content with necessities as if we were among those living the regimented life of a military camp?" It might not be a bad idea to ask yourself before each meal: "could I eat this on a battlefield?"

In his homilies, St. Basil doesn't delve into the specific days of fasting that his congregants adhered to. But by the time of St. Basil (330-379) the weekly "station days" of Wednesday and Friday were likely common practice. Tertullian (d. 240) mentions them as fasting days and they are also referenced by the Didache (dated to ~100 AD, or earlier). In addition, the 40 days of lent are mentioned in canon 5 of the Nicene Council (325 AD). At the very least it is likely that both weekly fasting on station days and the great fast of lent were practiced by St. Basil and his congregants.

True Fasting

Lest anyone think fasting is primarily about food, St. Basil is quick to point out in many instances that the true purpose of fasting is to abstain from sin.

Abstinence from food by itself is insufficient for praiseworthy fasting. Rather, we must fast with an acceptable fasting that is pleasing to God. True fasting is being a stranger to vice, controlling the tongue, abstaining from anger, distancing oneself from lust, evil speech, lying, perjury. The absence of these vices makes fasting true, and so shunning these vices makes fasting good.

This is the goal of our fasting - to distance ourself from the way of the sinner and the seat of the scoffer. Instead, we seek to grow in our planted-ness and bear fruit like the blessed man.