Ammonius of Alexandria : The prophet teaches us that fasting is a great virtue and so too is affliction with prayer. Through these things sometimes a person is deemed worthy even of visions. — FRAGMENTS ON Daniel 10:3 Tertullian : This abstinence Daniel used in order to please God by humiliation, and not for the purpose of producing a sensibility and wisdom for his soul previous to receiving communication by dreams and visions, as if it were not rather to effect such action in an ecstatic state. This "sobriety" … will have nothing to do with exciting ecstasy but will rather serve to recommend its being wrought by God. — ON THE SOUL 48 Theodoret of Cyrus : Daniel paid no attention to his body in these days either by anointing the outside or [by taking] food within. Quite well and usefully he has added the descriptor desirable not to meat but to bread. For bread is the most necessary food of all; the wealthy enjoy meat, but the poor as well as the rich enjoy bread. Therefore, he called it "the desirable bread," on the grounds that is a most common food and most desired of all food. — COMMENTARY ON Daniel 10:2-3