it was under Montanistic influence, is doubly interesting, first
as showing how free the practice of the church down to that time
had been, and then as foreshadowing the burdensome legislation
which was destined to succeed. In that treatise (c. 15) he
approves indeed of the church practice of not fasting on Saturdays
and Sundays (as elsewhere, De corona, c. 3, he had expressed
his concurrence in the other practice of observing the entire
period between Easter and Pentecost as a season of joy); but
otherwise he evinces great dissatisfaction with the indifference
of the church as to the number, duration and severity of her
fasts.[1] The church thus came to be more and more involved in
discussions as to the number of days to be observed, especially
in “Lent,” as fast days, as to the hour at which a fast ought to
terminate (whether at the 3rd or at the 9th hour), as to the
rigour with which each fast ought to be observed (whether by
abstinence from flesh merely, abstinentia, or by abstinence from
lacticinia, xerophagia, or by literal jejunium), and as to the
penalties by which the laws of fasting ought to be enforced.
Almost a century, however, elapsed between the composition
of the treatise of Tertullian (cir. 212) and the first recorded
instances of ecclesiastical legislation on the subject. These, while
far from indicating that the church had attained unanimity
on the points at issue, show progress in the direction of the later
practice of catholicism. About the year 306 the synod of
Illiberis in its 26th canon decided in favour of the observance
of the Saturday fast.[2] The council of Ancyra in 314, on the other
hand, found it necessary to legislate in a somewhat different
direction,—by its 14th canon enjoining its priests and clerks
at least to taste meat at the love feasts.[3] The synod of Laodicea
framed several rules with regard to the observance of “Lent,”
such as that “during Lent the bread shall not be offered except
on Saturday and Sunday” (can. 49), that “the fast shall not be
relaxed on the Thursday of the last week of Lent, thus dishonouring
the whole season; but the fast shall be kept throughout the
whole period” (can. 50), that “during the fast no feasts of the
martyrs shall be celebrated” (can. 51), and that “no wedding
or birthday feasts shall be celebrated during Lent” (can. 52).
The synod of Hippo (393 A.D.) enacted that the sacrament of
the altar should always be taken fasting, except on the Thursday
before Easter. Protests in favour of freedom were occasionally
raised, not always in a very wise manner, or on very wise grounds,
by various individuals such as Eustathius of Sebaste (c. 350),
Aerius of Pontus (c. 375), and Jovinian, a Roman monk (c. 388).
Of the Eustathians, for example (whose connexion with Eustathius
can hardly be doubted), the complaint was made that “they
fast on Sundays, but eat on the fast-days of the church.” They
were condemned by the synod of Gangra in Paphlagonia in the
following canons:—Can. 19, “If any one fast on Sunday, let
him be anathema.”[4] Can. 20, “If any one do not keep the fasts
universally commanded and observed by the whole church, let
him be anathema.” Jovinian was very moderate. He “did not
allow himself to be hurried on by an inconsiderate zeal to condemn
fasting, the life of celibacy, monachism, considered purely
in themselves. . . . He merely sought to show that men were
wrong in recommending so highly and indiscriminately the life
of celibacy and fasting, though he was ready to admit that both
under certain circumstances might be good and useful”
(Neander). He was nevertheless condemned (390) both by Pope
Siricius at a synod in Rome, and by Ambrose at another in Milan.
The views of Aerius, according to the representations of his
bitter opponent Epiphanius (Haer. 75, “Adv. Aerium”), seem
on this head at least, though unpopular, to have been characterized
by great wisdom and sobriety. He did not condemn
fasting altogether, but thought that it ought to be resorted to
in the spirit of gospel freedom according as each occasion should
arise. He found fault with the church for having substituted
for Christian liberty a yoke of Jewish bondage.[5]
Towards the beginning of the 5th century we find Socrates (439) enumerating (H.E. v. 22) a long catalogue of the different fasting practices of the church. The Romans fasted three weeks continuously before Easter (Saturdays and Sundays excepted). In Illyria, Achaia and Alexandria the quadragesimal fast lasted six weeks. Others (the Constantinopolitans) began their fasts seven weeks before Easter, but fasted only on alternate weeks, five days at a time. Corresponding differences as to the manner of abstinence occurred. Some abstained from all living creatures; others ate fish; others fish and fowl. Some abstained from eggs and fruit; some confined themselves to bread; some would not take even that. Some fasted till three in the afternoon, and then took whatever they pleased. “Other nations,” adds the historian, “observe other customs in their fasts, and that for various reasons. And since no one can show any written rule about this, it is plain the apostles left this matter free to every one’s liberty and choice, that no one should be compelled to do a good thing out of necessity and fear.” When Leo the Great became pope in 440, a period of more rigid uniformity began. The imperial authority of Valentinian helped to bring the whole West at least into submission to the see of Rome; and ecclesiastical enactments had, more than formerly, the support of the civil power. Though the introduction of the four Ember seasons was not entirely due to him, as has sometimes been asserted, it is certain that their widespread observance was due to his influence, and to that of his successors, especially of Gregory the Great. The tendency to increased rigour may be discerned in the 2nd canon of the synod of Orleans (541), which declares that every Christian is bound to observe the fast of Lent, and, in case of failure to do so, is to be punished according to the laws of the church by his spiritual superior; in the 9th canon of the synod of Toledo (653), which declares the eating of flesh during Lent to be a mortal sin; in Charlemagne’s law for the newly conquered Saxony, which attaches the penalty of death to wanton disregard of the holy season.[6] Baronius mentions that in the 11th century those who ate flesh during Lent were liable to have their teeth knocked out. But it ought to be remembered that this severity of the law early began to be tempered by the power to grant dispensations. The so-called Butter Towers (Tours de beurre) of Rouen, 1485–1507, Bourges and other cities, are said to have been built with money raised by sale of dispensations to eat lacticinia on fast days.
It is probable that the apparent severity of the medieval Latin Church on this subject was largely due to the real strictness of the Greek Church, which, under the patriarch Photius in 864, had taken what was virtually a new departure in its fasting praxis. The rigour of the fasts of the modern Greek Church is well known; and it can on the whole be traced back to that comparatively early date. Of the nine fundamental laws of that
- ↑ Quinam isti (adversarii) sint, semel nominabo: exteriores et interiores botuli psychicorum.... Arguunt nos quod jejunia propria custodiamus, quod stationes plerumque in vesperam producamus, quod etiam xerophagias observemus, siccantes cibum ab omni carne et omni jurulentia et uvidioribus quibusque pomis, nec quid vinositatis vel edamus vel potemus; lavacri quoque abstinentiam congruentem arido victui.
- ↑ The language of the canon is ambiguous; but this interpretation seems to be preferable, especially in view of canon 23, which enacts that jejunii superpositiones are to be observed in all months except July and August. See Hefele, Councils, i. 148 (Engl. trs.).
- ↑ Compare the 52nd [51st] of the Apostolical canons. “If any bishop or presbyter or deacon, or indeed any one of the sacerdotal catalogue, abstains from flesh and wine, not for his own exercise but out of hatred of the things, forgetting that all things were very good ... either let him reform, or let him be deprived and be cast out of the church. So also a layman.” To this particular canon Hefele is disposed to assign a very early date.
- ↑ Compare canon 64 of the (supposed) fourth synod of Carthage: “He who fasts on Sunday is not accounted a Catholic” (Hefele, ii. 415).
- ↑ Priscillian, whose widespread heresy evoked from the synod of Saragossa (418) the canon, “No one shall fast on Sunday, nor may any one absent himself from church during Lent and hold a festival of his own,” appears, on the question of fasting, not to have differed from the Encratites and various other sects of Manichean tendency (c. 406).
- ↑ Cap. iii. pro partib. Saxoniae: “Si quis sanctum quadragesimale jejunium pro despectu Christianitatis contempserit et carnem comederit, morte moriatur. Sed tamen consideretur a sacerdote ne forte causa necessitatis hoc cuilibet proveniat, ut carnem comedat.” See Augusti, Christliche Archäologie, x. p. 374.
