commands, Luke 21, 34: Take heed lest your hearts be
overcharged with surfeiting; also Matt. 17, 21: This kind
goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. Paul also says, 1
Cor. 9, 27: I keep under my body and bring it into subjection.
Here he clearly shows that he was keeping under his body, not
to merit forgiveness of sins by that discipline, but to have
his body in subjection and fitted for spiritual things, and
for the discharge of duty according to his calling. Therefore,
we do not condemn fasting in itself, but the traditions which
prescribe certain days and certain meats, with peril of
conscience, as though such works were a necessary service.

Nevertheless, very many traditions are kept on our part, which
conduce to good order in the Church, as the Order of Lessons
in the Mass and the chief holy-days. But, at the same time,
men are warned that such observances do not justify before
God, and that in such things it should not be made sin if they
be omitted without offense. Such liberty in human rites was
not unknown to the Fathers. For in the East they kept Easter
at another time than at Rome, and when, on account of this
diversity, the Romans accused the Eastern Church of schism,
they were admonished by others that such usages need not be
alike everywhere. And Irenaeus says: Diversity concerning
fasting does not destroy the harmony of faith; as also Pope
Gregory intimates in Dist. XII, that such diversity does not
violate the unity of the Church. And in the Tripartite
History, Book 9, many examples of dissimilar rites are
gathered, and the following statement is made: It was not the
mind of the Apostles to enact rules concerning holy-days, but
to preach godliness and a holy life [, to teach faith and