Texts in Conversation
The Shepherd of Hermas has the shepherd tell Hermas that his usual fast is worthless and no fast at all. The Gospel of Thomas likewise turns against fasting of the traditional kind, with Jesus warning that it brings sin.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Shepherd of Hermas 54:3
Early Christian
2 “What,” he says, “is a station?” “I am fasting, Sir,” I say. “And what,” he says, “is this fast that you are fasting?” “As I used to do, Sir,” I say, “so I fast.” 3 “You do not know,” he says, “how to fast to the Lord, nor is this a fast, this unprofitable fast that you observe for Him.” “Why, Sir,” I say, “do you say this?” “I tell you,” he says, “this is not a fast, the kind you think you are keeping; but I will teach you what a complete fast is and one acceptable to the Lord. Listen,” he says. 4 “God does not want such a worthless fast; for by fasting like this for God you will do nothing for righteousness. But fast for God in this way:
Date: 90-140 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Gospel of Thomas 1:14
Nag Hammadi
13 Jesus said to his disciples, “Compare me and tell me whom I am like.” Simon Peter said to him, “You are like a righteous messenger.” Matthew said to him, “You are like a wise philosopher.” Thomas said to him, “Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say whom you are like.” Jesus said, “I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring I have measured out.” And he took him and withdrew and spoke three sayings to him. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?” Thomas said to them, “If I tell you even one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me, and fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.” 14 Jesus said to them, “If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves; if you pray, you will be condemned; if you give alms, you will do harm to your spirits. When you go into any land and travel about in the countryside, if they receive you, eat what they set before you and heal the sick among them. For what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, what comes out of your mouth is what will defile you.” 15 Jesus said, “When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship him; that one is your Father.”
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Notes and References
“... 14.1 If you fast, you will give birth to sin in yourselves. Fasting is never quite valued positively in Thomas, though nowhere else is it so negative. In GTh 6, along with prayer and almsgiving, fasting is relativised. In GTh 104 Jesus rejects the disciples’ suggestion of fasting (and prayer), while perhaps allowing for it in some sense ‘when the bridegroom leaves the bridal chamber’. The sayings about ‘fasting to the world’ (GTh 27) and social fasting (GTh 69) are rather more positive, though the former is probably not a literal kind of fasting but a spiritualised version, and the latter is not called fasting: it is not fasting in the traditional sense, accompanying prayer or mourning, for example. This comports exactly with the way in which fasting is treated in the Shepherd of Hermas: in one place, fasting along traditional lines is forbidden (Herm. 54 [Sim. 5.1]), and Herm. 56 (Sim. 5.3) explicitly reinterprets fasting in the direction of social fasting. ...”
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