Chapter II.
How great is the virtue of fasting, and how beautiful and powerful its practice is, is confirmed by the example of Christ and the holy Elijah.
Great is the virtue of fasting. Indeed, its military appearance is so beautiful that it delightfully attracts and elevates humans to heaven for fasting and for Christ: so powerful that it raises men up to heaven. And to use more human than divine examples, from the fasting mouth of Elijah a voice was uttered that closed heaven to the sacrilegious people of the Jews (3 Kings 17:1). For when Ahab, the king, had set up an altar to the idol, according to the words of the prophet, there was no rain for three years and six months upon the earth. A fitting punishment which would appropriately restrain intemperance; that the heavens should be closed to the impious, who have defiled the earth. It is fitting also that the prophet of the sacrilegious king should be sent to the widow in Zarephath of Sidon, who, since she preferred devotion to food, deserved not to feel the hardship of the public drought alone. Therefore, the jug of meal did not run out, even when the flow of the river failed.
3. What does his remaining cover? He, while fasting, raised the widow's son from the dead; he, while fasting, caused rains to fall from his mouth; he, while fasting, brought forth fire from heaven; he, while fasting, was carried up to heaven in a chariot; and through a forty-day fast he obtained divine presence. Then at last he deserved more, when he fasted more. By his fasting he made the waters of the Jordan stand still, and the flowing river bed, suddenly dried up, he crossed over with a dusty footprint. By divine decree, he was deemed worthy to be taken up to heaven with his body; for he lived a heavenly life in the flesh and displayed the practice of heavenly conduct on earth.