Sobriety, fasting and appetite

Meaning

Sobriety and fasting answer gluttony and drunkenness in the account of inward conflict in II.3.15. The heavenly, immortal person is figured as captive within the earthly, corruptible person as prison: a spiritual anthropology, not two anatomical people. Fasting is presented as a restraint upon the inward flames that move the senses and kindle the blood. The passage closes with two means of regeneration, baptismal water and the Holy Spirit’s fire, not two separately counted regenerations. The vocabulary belongs to an exhortation concerning renewal and the coming water-and-fire analogy. It is not a medically specified fasting programme, nor does its reference to inward flames make every spiritual temptation a literal combustible substance.