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Showing posts with label Gluttony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gluttony. Show all posts

Saturday, April 19, 2014

By stinting the stomach, the heart is humbled

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 14 ~ On Gluttony

¶22. By stinting the stomach, the heart is humbled; but by pleasing the stomach, the mind becomes proud.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Give your stomach satisfying and digestible food

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 14 ~ On Gluttony

¶12. [Evagrius] says: ‘When our soul desires different foods, then confine it to bread and water.’ To prescribe this is like saying to a child: ‘Go up the whole ladder in one stride.’ And so, rejecting his rule, let us say: When our soul desires different foods, it is demanding what is proper to its nature. Therefore, let us also use cunning against our unscrupulous foe. And unless a very severe conflict is on us, or amends for falls, let us for a while only deny ourselves fattening foods, then heating foods, and only then what makes our food pleasant. If possible, give your stomach satisfying and digestible food, so as to satisfy its insatiable hunger by sufficiency, and so that we may be delivered from excessive desire, as from a scourge, by quick assimilation. If we look into the matter, we shall find that most of the foods which inflate the stomach also excite the body.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Satiety in food is the father of fornication

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 14 ~ On Gluttony

¶5. Satiety in food is the father of fornication; but affliction of the stomach is an agent of purity.
¶6. He who fondles a lion often tames it, but he who coddles the body makes it still wilder.

Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach

Venerable John Climacus ~ The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Step 14 ~ On Gluttony

¶2. Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach; for when it is glutted, it complains of scarcity; and when it is loaded and bursting, it cries out that it is hungry.

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