parts of the globe, a considerable body of evidence, from which
he suggested that it may have arisen out of the custom of
providing refreshments for the dead, either by actually feeding
the corpse, or by leaving eatables and drinkables for its use.
It is suggested that the fasting which was at first the natural
and inevitable result of such sacrifice on behalf of the dead
may eventually have come to be regarded as an indispensable
concomitant of all sacrifice, and so have survived as a well-established
usage long after the original cause had ceased to
operate.[1] But this theory is repudiated by the best authorities;
indeed its extreme precariousness at once becomes evident when
it is remembered that, now at least, it is usual for religious fasts
to precede rather than to follow sacrificial and funeral feasts,
if observed at all in connexion with these. Spencer himself
(p. 284) admits that “probably the practice arises in more ways
than one,” and proceeds to supplement the theory already
given by another—that adopted by E. B. Tylor—to the effect
that it originated in the desire of the primitive man to bring on
at will certain abnormal nervous conditions favourable to the
seeing of those visions and the dreaming of those dreams which
are supposed to give the soul direct access to the objective
realities of the spiritual world.[2] Probably, if we leave out of
sight the very numerous and obvious cases in which fasting,
originally the natural reflex result of grief, fear or other strong
emotion, has come to be the usual conventional symbol of these,
we shall find that the practice is generally resorted to, either as
a means of somehow exalting the higher faculties at the expense
of the lower, or as an act of homage to some object of worship.
The axiom of the Amazulu, that “the continually stuffed body
cannot see secret things,” meets even now with pretty general
acceptance; and if the notion that it is precisely the food which
the worshipper foregoes that makes the deity more vigorous to
do battle for his human friend be confined only to a few scattered
tribes of savages, the general proposition that “fasting is a work
of reverence toward God” may be said to be an article of the
Catholic faith.[3]
Although fasting as a religious rite is to be met with almost everywhere, there are comparatively few religions, and those only of the more developed kind, which appoint definite public fasts, and make them binding at fixed seasons upon all the faithful. Brahmanism, for example, does not appear to enforce any stated fast upon the laity.[4] Among the ancient Egyptians fasting seems to have been associated with many religious festivals, notably with that of Isis (Herod. ii. 40), but it does not appear that, so far as the common people were concerned, the observance of these festivals (which were purely local) was compulsory. The νηστεία on the third day of the Thesmophoria at Athens was observed only by the women attending the festival (who were permitted to eat cakes made of sesame and honey). It is doubtful whether the fast mentioned by Livy (xxxvi. 37) was intended to be general or sacerdotal merely.
Jewish Fasts.—While remarkable for the cheerful, non-ascetic character of their worship, the Jews were no less distinguished from all the nations of antiquity by their annual solemn fast appointed to be observed on the 10th day of the 7th month (Tisri), the penalty of disobedience being death. The rules, as laid down in Lev. xvi. 29-34, xxiii. 27-32 and Numb. xxix. 7-11, include a special injunction of strict abstinence (“ye shall afflict your souls”[5]) from evening to evening. This fast was intimately associated with the chief feast of the year. Before that feast could be entered upon, the sins of the people had to be confessed and (sacramentally) expiated. The fast was a suitable concomitant of that contrition which befitted the occasion. The practice of stated fasting was not in any other case enjoined by the law; and it is generally understood to have been forbidden on Sabbath.[6] At the same time, private and occasional fasting, being regarded as a natural and legitimate instinct, was regulated rather than repressed. The only other provision about fasting in the Pentateuch is of a regulative nature, Numb. xxx. 14 (13), to the effect that a vow made by a woman “to afflict the soul” may in certain circumstances be cancelled by her husband.
The history of Israel from Moses to Ezra furnishes a large number of instances in which the fasting instinct was obeyed both publicly and privately, locally and nationally, under the influence of sorrow, or fear, or passionate desire. See, for example, Judg. xx. 26; 1 Sam. vii. 6 (where the national fast was conjoined with the ceremony of pouring out water before the Lord); Jer. xxxvi. 6, 9; and 2 Sam. xii. 16.[7] Sometimes the observance of such fasts extended over a considerable period of time, during which, of course, the stricter jejunium was conjoined with abstinentia (Dan. x. 2). Sometimes they lasted only for a day. In Jonah iii. 6, 7, we have an illustrative example of the rigour with which a strict fast might be observed; and such passages as Joel ii. and Isa. lviii. 5 enable us to picture with some vividness the outward accompaniments of a Jewish fast day before the exile.
During the exile many occasional fasts were doubtless observed by the scattered communities, in sorrowful commemoration of the various sad events which had issued in the downfall of the kingdom of Judah. Of these, four appear to have passed into general use—the fasts of the 10th, 4th, 5th and 7th months—commemorating the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem, the capture of the city, the destruction of the temple, the assassination of Gedaliah. As time rolled on they became invested with increasing sanctity; and though the prophet Zechariah, when consulted about them at the close of the exile (Zech. viii. 19), had by no means encouraged the observance of them, the rebuilding of the temple does not appear to have been considered an achievement of sufficient importance to warrant their discontinuance. It is worthy of remark that Ezekiel’s prophetic legislation contains no reference to any fast day; the book of Esther (ix. 31), on the other hand, records the institution of a new fast on the 13th of the 12th month.
In the post-exile period private fasting was much practised by the pious, and encouraged by the religious sentiment of the time (see Judith viii. 6; Tob. xii. 8, and context; Sirach xxxiv. 26; Luke ii. 37 and xviii. 12). The last reference contains an allusion to the weekly fasts which were observed on the 2nd and 5th days of each week, in commemoration, it was said, of the ascent and descent of Moses at Sinai. The real origin of these fasts and the date of their introduction are alike uncertain; it is manifest, however, that the observance of them was voluntary, and never made a matter of universal obligation. It is probable that the Sadducees, if not also the Essenes, wholly neglected them. The second book (Seder Moed) of the Mishna contains two tractates bearing upon the subject of fasting. One (Yoma, “the day”) deals exclusively with the rites which were to be observed on the great day of expiation or atonement the other (Taanith, “fast”) is devoted to the other fasts, and
- ↑ Principles of Sociology, i. pp. 170, 284, 285. Compare the passage in the appendix from Hanusch, Slavischer Mythus, p. 408.
- ↑ Spencer, Prin. of Sociology, i. 256, &c.; E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 277, 402; ii. 372, &c.
- ↑ Hooker, E.P. v. 72. In the Westminster Assembly’s Larger Catechism fasting is mentioned among the duties required by the second commandment.
- ↑ The Brahmans themselves on the eleventh day after the full moon and the eleventh day after the new “abstain for sixty hours from every kind of sustenance”; and some have a special fast every Monday in November. See Picart, The Religion and Manners of the Brahmins.
- ↑ נפשׁ is here to be taken as substantially equivalent to “desire,” “appetite.”
- ↑ See Judith viii. 6. “And yet it may be a question whether they (the Jews) did not always fast upon Sabbath,” says Hooker (E.P. v. 72, 7), who gives a curious array of evidence pointing in this direction. He even makes use of Neh. viii. 9-12, which might be thought to tell the other way. Justinian’s phrase, “Sabbata Judaeorum a Mose in omne aevum jejunio dicata” (l. xxxvi. c. 2; comp. Suetonius, Augustus, 76) may be accounted for by the fact that the day of atonement is called Sabbat Sabbatôn (“a perfect Sabbath”).
- ↑ There is, as Graf (Gesch. Bücher des A.T. p. 41) has pointed out, no direct evidence that the fast on the 10th of the 7th month was ever observed before the exile. But the inference which he draws from this silence of the historical books is manifestly a precarious one at best. Bleek calls Lev. xvi. “ein deutliches Beispiel Mosaïscher Abfassung” (Einleitung, p. 31, ed. 1878).
