bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them and then they will fast. And no man putteth[1] a piece of undressed cloth upon an old garment, for that which would fill it up, taketh from the garment and a worse rent is made. Neither do men put new wine into old wine-skins, or else the wine-skins burst and the wine is spilt and the skins perish, but they put new wine into new skins and both are preserved," Matt. 9: 15–17. Here the Saviour excuses his disciples for not fasting, first for the reason that he, the bridegroom of the church, was at that time with his children and providing for them; secondly, because that bodily fasting did not befit them for that time, as Lyra says: "Wherefore does the bridegroom say, 'Can the children of the bridegroom mourn?' that is, be sad by afflicting themselves with fasting?—which is as if he should say, No, for fasting does not befit them now, 'but the days will come,' namely, the days of the passion, 'when the bridegroom will be taken away from them' by death, and 'then they will fast,' that is, with the fasting of grief, as it is written: 'Ye shall weep and lament,' John 16:20. 'Then shall they fast,' namely, at a time when such fasting befits them. And then by a double example the Saviour proves that bodily fasting did not befit them at that time." Supplications are also touched upon in Luke 5:33, when they said: "Why do the disciples of John fast often and make supplications,[2] likewise also the disciples of the Pharisees, but thine eat and drink? And Jesus said unto them, Can ye make the sons of the bridegroom fast when the bridegroom is with them?” which is as much as to say, apart from the bridegroom's will ye cannot lawfully make his sons to fast.
Truly Christ is the good prior and abbot, who does not burden his disciples but, laying on them an easy yoke and a light burden, says of the Pharisees and scribes, sitting in
