deals especially with the manner in which occasional fasting is
to be gone about if no rain shall have fallen on or before the 17th
day of Marcheschwan. It is enacted that in such a case the
rabbis shall begin with a light fast of three days (Monday,
Thursday, Monday), i.e. a fast during which it is lawful to work,
and also to wash and anoint the person. Then, in the event of a
continued drought, fasts of increasing intensity are ordered;
and as a last resort the ark is to be brought into the street and
sprinkled with ashes, the heads of the Nasi and Ab-beth-din being
at the same time similarly sprinkled.[1] In no case was any
fast to be allowed to interfere with new-moon or other fixed
festival. Another institution treated with considerable fulness
in the treatise Taanith is that of the אנשׁי מעמר (viri stationis),
who are represented as having been laymen severally representing
the twenty-four classes or families into which the whole
commonwealth of the laity was divided. They used to attend
the temple in rotation, and be present at the sacrifices; and as
this duty fell to each in his turn, the men of the class or family
which he represented were expected in their several cities and
places of abode to engage themselves in religious exercises,
and especially in fasting. The suggestion will readily occur that
here may be the origin of the Christian stationes. But neither
Tertullian nor any other of the fathers seems to have been
aware of the existence of any such institution among the Jews;
and very probably the story about it may have been a comparatively
late invention. It ought to be borne in mind that the
Aramaic portion of the Megillath Taanith (a document considerably
older than the treatises in the Mishna) gives a catalogue
only of the days on which fasting was forbidden. The Hebrew
part (commented on by Maimonides), in which numerous fasts
are recommended, is of considerably later date. See Reland,
Antiq. Hebr. p. iv. c. 10; Derenbourg, Hist. de Palestine, p. 439.
Practice of the Early Christian Church.—Jesus Himself did not inculcate asceticism in His teaching, and the absence of that distinctive element from His practice was sometimes a subject of hostile remark (Matt. xi. 19). We read, indeed, that on one occasion He fasted forty days and forty nights; but the expression, which is an obscure one, possibly means nothing more than that He endured the privations ordinarily involved in a stay in the wilderness. While we have no reason to doubt that He observed the one great national fast prescribed in the written law of Moses, we have express notice that neither He nor His disciples were in the habit of observing the other fasts which custom and tradition had established. See Mark ii. 18, where the correct reading appears to be—“The disciples of John, and the Pharisees, were fasting” (some customary fast). He never formally forbade fasting, but neither did He ever enjoin it. He assumed that, in certain circumstances of sorrow and need, the fasting instinct would sometimes be felt by the community and the individual; what He was chiefly concerned about was to warn His followers against the mistaken aims which His contemporaries were so apt to contemplate in their fasting (Matt. vi. 16-18). In one passage, indeed, He has been understood as practically commanding resort to the practice in certain circumstances. It ought to be noted, however, that Matt. xvii. 21 is probably spurious; and that in Mark ix. 29 the words “and fasting” are omitted by Westcott and Hort as well as by Tischendorf on the evidence of the Cod. Sinaiticus (first hand) and Cod. Vaticanus.[2] The reference to “the fast” in Acts xxvii. 9 has generally been held to indicate that the apostles continued to observe the yearly Jewish fast. But this inference is by no means a necessary one. According to Acts xiii. 2, 3, xiv. 23, they conjoined fasting with prayer at ordinations, and doubtless also on some other solemn occasions; but at the same time the liberty of the Christian “in respect of an holiday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath” was strongly insisted on, by one of them at least, who declared that meat whether taken or abstained from commendeth not to God (Col. ii. 16-23; 1 Cor. viii. 8; Rom. xiv. 14-22; 1 Tim. iv. 3-5). The fastings to which the apostle Paul alludes in 2 Cor. vi. 5, xi. 27, were rather of the nature of inevitable hardships cheerfully endured in the discharge of his sacred calling. The words which appear to encourage fasting in 1 Cor. vii. 5 are absent from all the oldest manuscripts and are now omitted by all critics;[3] and on the whole the precept and practice of the New Testament, while recognizing the propriety of occasional and extraordinary fasts, seem to be decidedly hostile to the imposition of any of a stated, obligatory and general kind.
The usage of the Christian church during the earlier centuries was in this, as in so many other matters, influenced by traditional Jewish feeling, and by the force of old habit, quite as much as by any direct apostolic authority or supposed divine command. Habitual temperance was of course in all cases regarded as an absolute duty; and “the bridegroom” being absent, the present life was regarded as being in a sense one continual “fast.” Fasting in the stricter sense was not unknown; but it is certain that it did not at first occupy nearly so prominent a place in Christian ritual as that to which it afterwards attained. There are early traces of the customary observance of the Wednesday and Friday fasts—the dies stationum (Clem. Alex. Strom. vii. 877), and also of a “quadragesimal” fast before Easter. But the very passage which proves the early origin of “quadragesima,” conclusively shows how uncertain it was in its character, and how unlike the Catholic “Lent.” Irenaeus, quoted by Eusebius (v. 24), informs us with reference to the customary yearly celebration of the mystery of the resurrection of our Lord, that disputes prevailed not only with respect to the day, but also with respect to the manner of fasting in connexion with it. “For some think that they ought to fast only one day, some two, some more days; some compute their day as consisting of forty hours night and day; and this diversity existing among those that observe it is not a matter that has just sprung up in our times, but long ago among those before us.” It was not pretended that the apostles had legislated on the matter, but the general and natural feeling that the anniversaries of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ ought to be celebrated by Christians took expression in a variety of ways according to the differing tastes of individuals. No other stated fasts, besides those already mentioned, can be adduced from the time before Irenaeus; but there was also a tendency—not unnatural in itself, and already sanctioned by Jewish practice—to fast by way of preparation for any season of peculiar privilege. Thus, according to Justin Martyr (Apol. ii. 93), catechumens were accustomed to fast before baptism, and the church fasted with them. To the same feeling the quadragesimal fast which (as already stated) preceded the joyful feast of the resurrection, is to be, in part at least, attributed. As early as the time of Tertullian it was also usual for communicants to prepare themselves by fasting for receiving the eucharist. But that Christian fasts had not yet attained to the exaggerated importance which they afterwards assumed is strikingly shown in the well-known Shepherd of Hermas (lib. iii. sim. v.), where it is declared that “with merely outward fasting nothing is done for true virtue”; the believer is exhorted chiefly to abstain from evil and seek to cleanse himself from feelings of covetousness, and impurity, and revenge: “on the day that thou fastest content thyself with bread, vegetables and water, and thank God for these. But reckon up on this day what thy meal would otherwise have cost thee, and give the amount that it comes to to some poor widow or orphan, or to the poor.” The right of bishops to ordain special fasts, “ex aliqua sollicitudinis ecclesiasticae causa” (Tertullian), was also recognized.
Later Practice of the Church.—According to an expression preserved by Eusebius (H.E. v. 18), Montanus was the first to give laws (to the church) on fasting. Such language, though rhetorical in form, is substantially correct. The treatise of Tertullian,—Concerning Fasting: against the Carnal,—written as
- ↑ The allusion to the ark warns us to be cautious in assuming the laws of the Mishna to have been ever in force.
- ↑ The idea, however, is found in the Clementine Homilies, ix. 9. Compare Tertullian De jejuniis, c. 8: “Docuit etiam adversus diriora daemonia jejuniis praeliandum.”
- ↑ On the manuscript evidence the words “I was fasting,” in Acts x. 30, must also be regarded as doubtful. They are rejected by Lachmann, Tregelles and Tischendorf.
