Page:Early Christianity outside the Roman empire.djvu/57

Rh but it has come by another line of descent and the cousins have not all things in common.

With regard to the Lord's Supper Aphraates is comparatively normal. In the Eucharist the faithful partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. It must be taken fasting, but the fast must be such as once for all was prescribed by Isaiah, "for always is fasting from evil things better than fasting from bread and water ." The fasting of Abel and Enoch, of innocent Noah, of faithful Abraham, of unrevengeful Joseph are to be our models. "If purity of heart be absent, the fast is not accepted. And remember and see, my beloved, that it is well that a man should cleanse his heart and keep his tongue and cleanse his hands of evil; for it is not fitting to mix honey and wormwood. For if a man would fast from bread and water, let him not mix with his fasting abuse and cursing. Thou hast but one door to thy house—that house which is a Temple of God; it doth not beseem thee, O man, that by the door where the King doth enter in