Appetites and pleasures which are in accordance with nature are not reprehensible, since they are a necessary consequence of natural appetency. For our ordinary food, whether we wish it or not, naturally produces pleasure, since it satisfies the hunger which precedes a meal. Drink: also produces pleasure, since it relieves the discomfort of thirst; so does sleep, since it renews the strength expended in our waking hours; and so, too, do all our other natural functions necessary for maintaining life and conducive to the acquisition of virtue.
—St Maximos the Confessor, Various Texts on Theology, the Divine Economy, and Virtue and Vice
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Why do we rush to a lavish table? Because we know the meaning of material food from experience. Why do we not rush to church, but try to come a little later, when a significant portion of the Divine services are already over? Because we do not know from experience the meaning of prayer, which is food for the soul, and which imparts spiritual strength to the soul.
—St. Ignatius Brianchanivov -
Do not hanker after varied and costly foods or lethal pleasures. For ‘she that indulges in pleasure”, it is said, ‘is dead while still alive” (1 Tim. 5: 6). Even with ordinary foods, avoid satiety as far as possible. For it is written; ‘Do not be deceived by the filling of the belly’ (Prov. 24: 15. LXX).
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One should eat every day, but only a little, so as not to be satisfied.
—Abba Poemen -
It is also necessary to accustom the body to become alienated, as much as possible, from the pleasure of the satiety arising from luxurious food, but not from the fullness produced by a slender diet, in order that moderation may proceed through all things, and that what is necessary, or what is most excellent, may fix a boundary to our diet. For he who thus mortifies his body will receive every possible good, through being sufficient to himself, and an assimilation to divinity.
—St. Porphyry, On Abstinence From Animal Food, Book 1 -
but once he’d sated his hunger, he thought no greater pleasure would come from actively seeking more elaborate dining.
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Bread and water produce the highest pleasure, when one who needs them puts them to his lips. To grow accustomed therefore to simple and not luxurious diet gives us health to the full, and makes a man alert for the needful employments of life, and when after long intervals we approach luxuries, disposes us better towards them, and fits us to be fearless of fortune.
—Epicurus, LETTER TO MENOECEUS
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For the body that fasts cannot endure to sleep upon its pallet all the night through. Fasting naturally incites wakefulness unto God, not only during the day, but also at night. For the empty body of a faster is not greatly wearied by the battle against sleep. And even if his senses are weakened, his mind is wakeful unto God in prayer. It is better for a man to desist from his liturgy because of weakness due to fasting, than because of sloth due to eating.
—St. Isaac the Syrian -
For fasting was the commandment that was given to our nature in the beginning to protect it with respect to the tasting of food, and in this point the progenitor of our substance fell.
—St. Isaac the Syrian -
They who feed their bodies beyond due measure leave their souls hungry… They despise fasting, which is an important means for salvation. Instead they sink into gluttony and are conquered by sin, particularly by adulterous lust.
—St Cyril of Alexandria
