Starvation and the sight of idol-food cannot break the martyr

Since some punishments are unbearable and bring the quickest release, while others last longer and cut deeper into the pain, the devil was eager to find a punishment that had both at once—length and an incurable excess of suffering—so that by its intensity and by the amount of time it lasted he might break the firmness of the holy man's mind. And what does he do? He hands the saint over to starvation. But when you hear “starvation,” do not pass over what is being said lightly, for of all deaths this is the most severe. Those who have experienced it are witnesses—may we never experience it, for we have been well taught to pray not to enter into temptation. It is like an executioner sitting inside the bowels and tearing apart all the limbs, devouring the body from every side more violently than any fire or wild beast, producing a constant and unspeakable pain. And so that you may learn how great starvation is, mothers have often tasted their own children, unable to bear the force of this evil. The prophet, lamenting this disaster, said: “The hands of compassionate women boiled their own children” (Lamentations 4:10). Mothers ate the children they bore, and the womb that gave birth became the grave of the children born from it, and starvation overpowered nature—or rather, not nature only, but also the will. Yet it did not overpower this holy man's nobility. Who would not be astonished to hear these things? What is more powerful than nature? What is more easily swayed than the will? But so that you may learn that nothing is stronger than the fear of God, the will proved more vigorous than nature: it convicted mothers and made them forget their birth pangs, but it was not able to trip up this holy man. The punishment did not overcome his self-discipline, nor did the torture master his courage. He remained stronger than any adamant, delighting in good hopes and glorying in the cause of his contests, having in the reason for his struggles sufficient comfort—especially as he heard Paul saying every day: “in starvation and thirst, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:27), and again, “To this very hour we hunger and thirst and are poorly clothed and are struck” (1 Corinthians 4:11). For he knew, he knew clearly, that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

But when the defiled demon saw that he was not yielding to such great pressure from the situation, he made the torture still more severe. He took food offered to idols, filled a table with it, and arranged for it to be placed before his eyes, so that the ready power at his disposal might weaken the vigor of his resolve. For we are not so easily captured when the things that entice us are out of sight as when they lie before our eyes—just as a person could more easily master desire for women if he does not see a beautiful woman than if he gazes at her constantly. Nevertheless, the righteous man overcame this ambush too, and what the devil thought would weaken his courage was the very thing that anointed him for the contests. Not only did he suffer no harm from the sight of the food offered to idols, but he turned away from it all the more and hated it. And what happens to us with enemies—the more we look at them, the more we hate them and turn away from them—that is what he experienced then with that defiled sacrifice. The more he saw it, the more he loathed it and recoiled, and the constant sight drove him further into hatred and aversion of what lay before him. And while starvation cried out loudly from within and the food before him urged him to touch it, the fear of God held back his hands and made him forget nature itself. Seeing a defiled and polluted table, he remembered another table, the awesome one full of the Spirit, and so he was set on fire, choosing to endure and suffer everything rather than taste those defiled foods.