On Fasting.

 Chapter I.—Connection of Gluttony and Lust.  Grounds of Psychical Objections Against the Montanists.

 Chapter II.—Arguments of the Psychics, Drawn from the Law, the Gospel, the Acts, the Epistles, and Heathenish Practices.

 Chapter III.—The Principle of Fasting Traced Back to Its Earliest Source.

 Chapter IV.—The Objection is Raised, Why, Then, Was the Limit of Lawful Food Extended After the Flood?  The Answer to It.

 Chapter V.—Proceeding to the History of Israel, Tertullian Shows that Appetite Was as Conspicuous Among Their Sins as in Adam’s Case.  Therefore the R

 Chapter VI.—The Physical Tendencies of Fasting and Feeding Considered.  The Cases of Moses and Elijah.

 Chapter VII.—Further Examples from the Old Testament in Favour of Fasting.

 Chapter VIII.—Examples of a Similar Kind from the New.

 Chapter IX.—From Fasts Absolute Tertullian Comes to Partial Ones and Xerophagies.

 Chapter X.—Of Stations, and of the Hours of Prayer.

 Chapter XI.—Of the Respect Due to “Human Authority ” And of the Charges of “Heresy” And “Pseudo-Prophecy.”

 Chapter XII—Of the Need for Some Protest Against the Psychics and Their Self-Indulgence.

 Chapter XIII.—Of the Inconsistencies of the Psychics.

 Chapter XIV.—Reply to the Charge of “Galaticism.”

 Chapter XV.—Of the Apostle’s Language Concerning Food.

 Chapter XVI.—Instances from Scripture of Divine Judgments Upon the Self-Indulgent And Appeals to the Practices of Heathens.

 Chapter XVII.—Conclusion.

Chapter XIV.—Reply to the Charge of “Galaticism.”

Being, therefore, observers of “seasons” for these things, and of “days, and months, and years,”96    Comp. Gal. iv. 10. we Galaticize.  Plainly we do, if we are observers of Jewish ceremonies, of legal solemnities:  for those the apostle unteaches, suppressing the continuance of the Old Testament which has been buried in Christ, and establishing that of the New.  But if there is a new creation in Christ,97    Comp. Luke xxii. 20; 2 Cor. v. 17, etc. our solemnities too will be bound to be new:  else, if the apostle has erased all devotion absolutely “of seasons, and days, and months, and years,” why do we celebrate the passover by an annual rotation in the first month?  Why in the fifty ensuing days do we spend our time in all exultation?  Why do we devote to Stations the fourth and sixth days of the week, and to fasts the “preparation-day?”98    Comp. Mark xv. 42.  Anyhow, you sometimes continue your Station even over the Sabbath,—a day never to be kept as a fast except at the passover season, according to a reason elsewhere given.  With us, at all events, every day likewise is celebrated by an ordinary consecration.  And it will not, then, be, in the eyes of the apostle, the differentiating principle—distinguishing (as he is doing) “things new and old”99    Comp. Matt. xiii. 52 ad fin.—which will be ridiculous; but (in this case too) it will be your own unfairness, while you taunt us with the form of antiquity all the while you are laying against us the charge of novelty.

CAPUT XIV.

Horum igitur tempora observantes, et dies et menses et annos, galaticamur. Plane si judaicarum caeremoniarum, si legalium solemnitatum observantes sumus: illas enim Apostolus dedocet compescens Veteris Testamenti in Christo sepulti perseverantiam, et novi sistens. Quod si nova conditio in Christo jam nova et solemnia esse debebunt; aut si omnem in totum devotionem temporum et dierum et mensium et annorum erasit Apostolus, cur Pascha celebramus annuo circulo in mense primo? cur quinquaginta exinde diebus in omni exultatione decurrimus? cur stationibus quartam et sextam sabbati dicamus, et jejuniis parasceven? quanquam vos etiam sabbatum, si 0973B quando continuatis, nunquam nisi in Pascha jejunandum secundum rationem alibi redditam, nobis certe 0974A omnis dies etiam vulgata consecratione celebratur. Nec ergo apud Apostolum differentiae ratio, distinguentem nova et vetera. Sed et hic inaequalitas vestra ridebitur, cum vetustatum formam nobis exprobratis, in quo caussam novitatis accusatis.