St Athanasius the Great LETTERS, Part I, Complete

Translated by Cardinal Newman.

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Page 85

2. It is well, my beloved, to proceed from feast to feast; again festal meetings, again holy vigils arouse our minds, and compel our intellect to keep vigil unto contemplation of good things. Let us not fulfil these days like those that mourn, but, by enjoying spiritual food, let us seek to silence our fleshly lusts [4030] . For by these means we shall have strength to overcome our adversaries, like blessed Judith [4031] , when having first exercised herself in fastings and prayers, she overcame the enemies, and killed Olophernes. And blessed Esther, when destruction was about to come on all her race, and the nation of Israel was ready to perish, defeated the fury of the tyrant by no other means than by fasting and prayer to God, and changed the ruin of her people into safety [4032] . Now as those days are considered feasts for Israel, so also in old time feasts were appointed when an enemy was slain, or a conspiracy against the people broken up, and Israel delivered. Therefore blessed Moses of old time ordained the great feast of the Passover, and our celebration of it, because, namely, Pharaoh was killed, and the people were delivered from bondage. For in those times it was especially, when those who tyrannized over the people had been slain, that temporal feasts and holidays were observed in Judaea [4033] .

[4030] tois tes sarkos epitimontes pathesin. S. Cyril. Hom. Pasch. xx.

[4031] Judith xiii. 8.

[4032] Esther iv. 16.

[4033] Cf. Esther ix. 20-28; Judith ix. xv.

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