Thus speaks the LORD of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother:
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Caesarius of Arles
AD 542
For this reason, beloved, I am inserting certain headings and notes as to how you ought to understand and receive these matters, so through the goodness of God you can accept and observe them better. In order that the things that I have said may be kept more closely in your hearts, I am briefly repeating what I mentioned. Therefore, in these matters, as I already said above, we judge others dangerously when it is doubtful whether they are acting with a good or bad intention in fasting, keeping vigils, bestowing alms, abstaining or not abstaining from wine and meat, and other similar matters. These things can be done for the sake of God or for human praise, and because we do not know with what motive they are done, we should not judge at all. In matters of this kind the Lord said, “Do not judge, that you may not be judged,” but in a matter of open sin it is said, “Reprove, entreat, rebuke with all patience and teaching.” Moreover, there is what we already mentioned: “Render just judgmen...
[You] should have fasted then, when drunkenness was doing those terrible things to you, when your gluttony was giving birth to your ungodliness—not now. Now your fasting is untimely and an abomination. Who said so? Isaiah himself when he called out in a loud voice: “ ‘I did not choose this fast,’ says the Lord.” Why? “You quarrel and squabble when you fast and strike those subject to you with your fists.” But if your fasting was an abomination when you were striking your fellow slaves, does it become acceptable now that you have slain your master? How could that be right? Discourses Against Judaizing Christians
