FASTING 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 contempor aries 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 "VVestcott and Hort as well as by Tischendorf on the evidence of the Cod. Sinaiticus (first hand) and Cod. Vaticanus. 1 The refer ence 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 comrnendeth not to God (Col. ii. 16-23; 1 Cor. viii. 8; Rom xiv. 14-22; 1 Tim. iv. 3-5). The fast ings 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 ; 2 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 tem perance 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 observ ance of the Wednesday and Friday fasts the dies statio- num (Clem. Alex., Strom., vii. 877), and also of a " quadragesimal " fast before Easter. But the very passage which proves the early origin of " quadragesima," conclu sively 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 1 The idea, however, is found in the Clementine Homilies, ix. 9. Compare Tertullian De Jejuniis, c. 8. " Docuit etiam adversus diriora dsemonia jejuniis pneliandum." 2 On the manuscript evidence the words " I was fasting," in Acts x. 30, must also be regarded as doubtful. They are rejected by Lach- mann, Tregelles. and Tischendorf. 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 feel ing that the anniversaries of the crucifixion and the resur rection 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 com municants 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 Hernias (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 con tent 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 sol- licitudinis ecclesiastics causa " (Tertullian), was also re cognized. Later Practice of the Church. According to an expres sion preserved by Eusebius (II. 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 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 ex pressed 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. 3 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 3d 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 lacticiuia, 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 (dr. 212) and the first recorded instances of ecclesiastical legislation on the subject. These while far from indicating that the church 3 Quinam isti (adversarii) sint, semel nominabo : exteriores et; iuteriores botuli psychicoruna . . . Arguunt nos quod jcjunia propria custodiamus, quod station es plerumque in vesperam producamus, quod etiam xerophagias observemus, siccautes cibuin ab oinui carne et omui jurulentia et uvidioribus quibusque pornis, nee quid vinositatis vel edamus vel potemus ; lavacri quoque abstinent iam congruentem arido victui.
