Letter 329

To the same. Just as circumcision is reckoned as uncircumcision for the wicked Jew [an allusion to Romans 2:25], so too self-control and fasting are reckoned as drunkenness and gluttony for the man who fasts after the manner of the Greeks [pagans], and for the man who abstains from food after the manner of the Manichaeans [a dualist sect that rejected the material creation as evil], and for the man who abhors the good creatures of God.

Ὥσπερ ἡ περιτομὴ εἰς ἀκροβυστίαν λελόγισται τῷ μοχθηρῷ Ἰουδαίῳ, οὕτως ἡ ἐγκράτεια, καὶ ἡ νηστεία εἰς κραιπάλην, καὶ ἀπληστίαν λογίζεται τῷ κατὰ τοὺς Ἕλληνας νηστεύοντι, καὶ τῷ κατὰ τοὺς Μανιχαίους ἀσιτοῦντι, καὶ τὰ καλὰ κτίσματα τοῦ θεοῦ βδελυττομένῳ ἀνθρώπῳ.