Lent
LENT
A solemn time of fasting in the Christian church, observed as a time of humiliation before Easter. The Romish church, and some of the Protestant communion, maintain, that it was always a fast of forty days, and, as such, of apostolical institution. Others think that it was of ecclesiastical institution, and that it was variously observed in different churches, and grew by degrees from a fast of forty hours to a fast of forty days. This is the sentiment of Morton, bishop Taylor, Du Moulin, Daille, and others. Anciently the manner of observing Lent among those who were piously disposed, was to abstain from food till evening: their only refreshment was a supper, and it was indifferent whether it was flesh or any other food, provided it was used with sobriety and moderation. Lent was thought the proper time for exercising more abundantly every species of charity: thus what they spared of their own bodies by abridging them of a meal, was usually given to the poor: they employed their vacant hours in visiting the sick and those that were in prison; in entertaining strangers, and reconciling differences.
The Imperial laws forbade all prosecution of men in criminal actions that might bring them to corporal punishment and torture during the whole season. This was a time of more than ordinary strictness and devotion, and therefore, in many of the great churches, they had religious assemblies for prayer and preaching every day. All public games and stage plays were prohibited at this season, and also the celebration of all festivals, birthdays, and marriages. The Christians of the Greek church observe four Lents; the first commences on the fifteenth of November: the second is the same with our Lent: the third begins the week after Whitsuntide, and continues till the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul; and the fourth commences on the first of August, and lasts no longer than till the fifteenth. These Lents are observed with great strictness and austerity, but on Saturdays and Sundays, they indulge themselves in drinking wine and using oil, which are prohibited on other days.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Lent
(Anglo-Saxon: lencten, spring)
A season of penance set apart by the Church in memory of the forty days’ fast of Our Lord in the desert, and as a means of sanctification for her members. It begins on Ash Wednesday, consists of 6.5 weeks preceding Easter, and includes 40 fasting days, which are weekdays. The Sundays are a part of the Lenten season, but are not days of fasting or abstinence. The date of Lent varies according to the date of Easter. The origin of this penitential season is obscure; its length has varied in different ages, but the principle of a fast of 40 days (Latin: quadragesima Italiuan: quaresima French: careme) has been recognized since the 4th century.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Lent
Origin of the word
The Teutonic word Lent, which we employ to denote the forty days’ fast preceding Easter, originally meant no more than the spring season. Still it has been used from the Anglo-Saxon period to translate the more significant Latin term quadragesima (French carême, Italian quaresima, Spanish cuaresma), meaning the “forty days”, or more literally the “fortieth day”. This in turn imitated the Greek name for Lent, tessarakoste (fortieth), a word formed on the analogy of Pentecost (pentekoste), which last was in use for the Jewish festival before New Testament times. This etymology, as we shall see, is of some little importance in explaining the early developments of the Easter fast.
Origin of the custom
Some of the Fathers as early as the fifth century supported the view that this forty days’ fast was of Apostolic institution. For example, St. Leo (d. 461) exhorts his hearers to abstain that they may “fulfill with their fasts the Apostolic institution of the forty days” — ut apostolica institutio quadraginta dierum jejuniis impleatur (P.L., LIV, 633), and the historian Socrates (d. 433) and St. Jerome (d. 420) use similar language (P.G., LXVII, 633; P.L., XXII, 475).
But the best modern scholars are almost unanimous in rejecting this view, for in the existing remains of the first three centuries we find both considerable diversity of practice regarding the fast before Easter and also a gradual process of development in the matter of its duration. The passage of primary importance is one quoted by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., V, xxiv) from a letter of St. Irenaeus to Pope Victor in connection with the Easter controversy. There Irenaeus says that there is not only a controversy about the time of keeping Easter but also regarding the preliminary fast. “For”, he continues, “some think they ought to fast for one day, others for two days, and others even for several, while others reckon forty hours both of day and night to their fast”. He also urges that this variety of usage is of ancient date, which implies that there could have been no Apostolic tradition on the subject. Rufinus, who translated Eusebius into Latin towards the close of the fourth century, seems so to have punctuated this passage as to make Irenaeus say that some people fasted for forty days. Formerly some difference of opinion existed as to the proper reading, but modern criticism (e.g., in the edition of Schwartz commissioned by the Berlin Academy) pronounces strongly in favor of the text translated above. We may then fairly conclude that Irenaeus about the year 190 knew nothing of any Easter fast of forty days.
The same inference must be drawn from the language of Tertullian only a few years later. When writing as a Montanist, he contrasts the very slender term of fasting observed by the Catholics (i.e., “the days on which the bridegroom was taken away”, probably meaning the Friday and Saturday of Holy Week) with the longer but still restricted period of a fortnight which was kept by the Montanists. No doubt he was referring to fasting of a very strict kind (xerophagiæ — dry fasts), but there is no indication in his works, though he wrote an entire treatise “De Jejunio”, and often touches upon the subject elsewhere, that he was acquainted with any period of forty days consecrated to more or less continuous fasting (see Tertullian, “De Jejun.”, ii and xiv; cf. “de Orat.”, xviii; etc.).
And there is the same silence observable in all the pre-Nicene Fathers, though many had occasion to mention such an Apostolic institution if it had existed. We may note for example that there is no mention of Lent in St. Dionysius of Alexandria (ed. Feltoe, 94 sqq.) or in the “Didascalia”, which Funk attributes to about the year 250; yet both speak diffusely of the paschal fast.
Further, there seems much to suggest that the Church in the Apostolic Age designed to commemorate the Resurrection of Christ, not by an annual, but by a weekly celebration (see “the Month”, April 1910, 337 sqq.). If this be so, the Sunday liturgy constituted the weekly memorial of the Resurrection, and the Friday fast that of the Death of Christ. Such a theory offers a natural explanation of the wide divergence which we find existing in the latter part of the second century regarding both the proper time for keeping Easter, and also the manner of the paschal fast. Christians were at one regarding the weekly observance of the Sunday and the Friday, which was primitive, but the annual Easter festival was something superimposed by a process of natural development, and it was largely influenced by the conditions locally existing in the different Churches of the East and West. Moreover, with the Easter festival there seems also to have established itself a preliminary fast, not as yet anywhere exceeding a week in duration, but very severe in character, which commemorated the Passion, or more generally, “the days on which the bridegroom was taken away”.
Be this as it may, we find in the early years of the fourth century the first mention of the term tessarakoste. It occurs in the fifth canon of the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325), where there is only question of the proper time for celebrating a synod, and it is conceivable that it may refer not to a period but to a definite festival, e.g., the Feast of the Ascension, or the Purification, which Ætheria calls quadragesimæ de Epiphania. But we have to remember that the older word, pentekoste (Pentecost) from meaning the fiftieth day, had come to denote the whole of the period (which we should call Paschal Time) between Easter Sunday and Whit-Sunday (cf. Tertullian, “De Idololatria”, xiv, — “pentecosten implere non poterunt”). In any case it is certain from the “Festal Letters” of St. Athanasius that in 331 the saint enjoined upon his flock a period of forty days of fasting preliminary to, but not inclusive of, the stricter fast of Holy Week, and secondly that in 339 the same Father, after having traveled to Rome and over the greater part of Europe, wrote in the strongest terms to urge this observance upon the people of Alexandria as one that was universally practiced, “to the end that while all the world is fasting, we who are in Egypt should not become a laughing-stock as the only people who do not fast but take our pleasure in those days”. Although Funk formerly maintained that a Lent of forty days was not known in the West before the time of St. Ambrose, this is evidence which cannot be set aside.
Duration of the Fast
In determining this period of forty days the example of Moses, Elias, and Christ must have exercised a predominant influence, but it is also possible that the fact was borne in mind that Christ lay forty hours in the tomb. On the other hand just as Pentecost (the fifty days) was a period during which Christians were joyous and prayed standing, though they were not always engaged in such prayer, so the Quadragesima (the forty days) was originally a period marked by fasting, but not necessarily a period in which the faithful fasted every day. Still, this principle was differently understood in different localities, and great divergences of practice were the result. In Rome, in the fifth century, Lent lasted six weeks, but according to the historian Socrates there were only three weeks of actual fasting, exclusive even then of the Saturday and Sunday and if Duchesne’s view may be trusted, these weeks were not continuous, but were the first, the fourth, and sixth of the series, being connected with the ordinations (Christian Worship, 243). Possibly, however, these three weeks had to do with the “scrutinies” preparatory to Baptism, for by some authorities (e.g., A.J. Maclean in his “Recent Discoveries”) the duty of fasting along with the candidate for baptism is put forward as the chief influence at work in the development of the forty days. But throughout the Orient generally, with some few exceptions, the same arrangement prevailed as St. Athanasius’s “Festal Letters” show us to have obtained in Alexandria, namely, the six weeks of Lent were only preparatory to a fast of exceptional severity maintained during Holy Week. This is enjoined by the “Apostolic Constitutions” (V, xiii), and presupposed by St. Chrysostom (Hom. xxx in Gen., I). But the number forty, having once established itself, produced other modifications. It seemed to many necessary that there should not only be fasting during the forty days but forty actual fasting days. Thus we find Ætheria in her “Peregrinatio” speaking of a Lent of eight weeks in all observed at Jerusalem, which, remembering that both the Saturday and Sunday of ordinary weeks were exempt, gives five times eight, i.e., forty days for fasting. On the other hand, in many localities people were content to observe no more than a six weeks’ period, sometimes, as at Milan, fasting only five days in the week after the oriental fashion (Ambrose, “De Elia et Jejunio”, 10). In the time of Gregory the Great (590-604) there were apparently at Rome six weeks of six days each, making thirty-six fast days in all, which St. Gregory, who is followed therein by many medieval writers, describes as the spiritual tithing of the year, thirty-six days being approximately the tenth part of three hundred and sixty-five. At a later date the wish to realize the exact number of forty days led to the practice of beginning Lent upon our present Ash Wednesday, but the Church of Milan, even to this day adheres to the more primitive arrangement, which still betrays itself in the Roman Missal when the priest in the Secret of the Mass on the first Sunday of Lent speaks of “sacrificium quadragesimalis initii”, the sacrifice of the opening of Lent.
Nature of the fast
Neither was there originally less divergence regarding the nature of the fast. For example, the historian Socrates (Hist. Eccl., V, 22) tells of the practice of the fifth century: “Some abstain from every sort of creature that has life, while others of all the living creatures eat of fish only. Others eat birds as well as fish, because, according to the Mosaic account of the Creation, they too sprang from the water; others abstain from fruit covered by a hard shell and from eggs. Some eat dry bread only, others not even that; others again when they have fasted to the ninth hour (three o’clock) partake of various kinds of food”. Amid this diversity some inclined to the extreme limits of rigor. Epiphanius, Palladius, and the author of the “Life of St. Melania the Younger” seem to contemplate a state of things in which ordinary Christians were expected to pass twenty-four hours or more without food of any kind, especially during Holy Week, while the more austere actually subsisted during part or the whole of Lent upon one or two meals a week (see Rampolla, “Vita di. S. Melania Giuniore”, appendix xxv, p. 478). But the ordinary rule on fasting days was to take but one meal a day and that only in the evening, while meat and, in the early centuries, wine were entirely forbidden. During Holy Week, or at least on Good Friday it was common to enjoin the xerophagiæ, i.e., a diet of dry food, bread, salt, and vegetables.
There does not seem at the beginning to have been any prohibition of lacticinia, as the passage just quoted from Socrates would show. Moreover, at a somewhat later date, Bede tells us of Bishop Cedda, that during Lent he took only one meal a day consisting of “a little bread, a hen’s egg, and a little milk mixed with water” (Hist. Eccl., III, xxiii), while Theodulphus of Orleans in the eighth century regarded abstinence from eggs, cheese, and fish as a mark of exceptional virtue. None the less St. Gregory writing to St. Augustine of England laid down the rule, “We abstain from flesh meat, and from all things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese, and eggs.” This decision was afterwards enshrined in the “Corpus Juris”, and must be regarded as the common law of the Church. Still exceptions were admitted, and dispensations to eat “lacticinia” were often granted upon condition of making a contribution to some pious work. These dispensations were known in Germany as Butterbriefe, and several churches are said to have been partly built by the proceeds of such exceptions. One of the steeples of Rouen cathedral was for this reason formerly known as the Butter Tower. This general prohibition of eggs and milk during Lent is perpetuated in the popular custom of blessing or making gifts of eggs at Easter, and in the English usage of eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.
Relaxations of the Lenten Fast
From what has been said it will be clear that in the early Middle Ages Lent throughout the greater part of the Western Church consisted of forty weekdays, which were all fast days, and six Sundays. From the beginning to the end of that time all flesh meat, and also, for the most part, “lacticinia”, were forbidden even on Sundays, while on all the fasting days only one meal was taken, which single meal was not permitted before evening. At a very early period, however (we find the first mention of it in Socrates), the practice began to be tolerated of breaking the fast at the hour of none, i.e., three o’clock. We learn in particular that Charlemagne, about the year 800, took his lenten repast at 2 p.m. This gradual anticipation of the hour of dinner was facilitated by the fact that the canonical hours of none, vespers, etc., represented rather periods than fixed points of time. The ninth hour, or none, was no doubt strictly three o’clock in the afternoon, but the Office of none might be recited as soon as sext, which, of course, corresponded to the sixth hour, or midday, was finished. Hence none in course of time came to be regarded as beginning at midday, and this point of view is perpetuated in our word noon which means midday and not three o’clock in the afternoon. Now the hour for breaking the fast during Lent was after Vespers (the evening service), but by a gradual process the recitation of Vespers was more and more anticipated, until the principle was at last officially recognized, as it is at present, that Vespers in lent may be said at midday. In this way, although the author of the “Micrologus” in the eleventh century still declared that those who took food before evening did not observe the lenten fast according to the canons (P.L., CLI, 1013), still, even at the close of the thirteenth century, certain theologians, for example the Franciscan Richard Middleton, who based his decision in part upon contemporary usage, pronounced that a man who took his dinner at midday did not break the lenten fast. Still more material was the relaxation afforded by the introduction of “collation”. This seems to have begun in the ninth century, when the Council of Aix la Chapelle sanctioned the concession, even in monastic houses, of a draught of water or other beverage in the evening to quench the thirst of those who were exhausted by the manual labor of the day. From this small beginning a much larger indulgence was gradually evolved. The principle of parvitas materiae, i.e., that a small quantity of nourishment which was not taken directly as a meal did not break the fast, was adopted by St. Thomas Aquinas and other theologians, and in the course of centuries a recognized quantity of solid food, which according to received authorities must not exceed eight ounces, has come to be permitted after the midday repast. As this evening drink, when first tolerated in the ninth-century monasteries, was taken at the hour at which the “Collationes” (Conferences) of Abbot Cassian were being read aloud to the brethren, this slight indulgence came to be known as a “collation”, and the name has continued since. Other mitigations of an even more substantial character have been introduced into lenten observance in the course of the last few centuries. To begin with, the custom has been tolerated of taking a cup of liquid (e.g., tea or coffee, or even chocolate) with a fragment of bread or toast in the early morning. But, what more particularly regards Lent, successive indults have been granted by the Holy See allowing meat at the principal meal, first on Sundays, and then on two, three, four, and five weekdays, throughout nearly the whole of Lent. Quite recently, Maundy Thursday, upon which meat was hitherto always forbidden, has come to share in the same indulgence. In the United States, the Holy See grants faculties whereby working men and their families may use flesh meat once a day throughout the year, except Fridays, Ash Wednesday, Holy Saturday, and the vigil of Christmas. The only compensation imposed for all these mitigations is the prohibition during Lent against partaking of both fish and flesh at the same repast. (See
ABSTINENCE;
FAST;
CANONICAL IMPEDIMENTS;
LAETARE SUNDAY;
SEPTUAGESIMA;
SEXAGESIMA;
QUINQUAGESIMA;
QUADRAGESIMA;
VESTMENTS).
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HERBERT THURSTON Transcribed by Anthony A. Killeen A.M.D.G.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IXCopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Lent
the forty days’ fast, is the preparation for Easter in the Western, Eastern, and Lutheran churches, and in the Church of England, and was instituted at a very early age of Christianity. In most languages the name given to this fast signifies the number of the days Forty; but our word Lent signifies the Sparing Fast, for Lenten-Tide in the Anglo-Saxon language was the season of spring, in German Lenz. (For another etymology, SEE LENTILE. )
It is observed in commemoration of our Lord’s fast in the wilderness (Matthew 4); and although he did not impose it on the world by an express commandment, yet he showed plainly enough by his example that fasting, which God had so frequently ordered in the old covenant, Twas also to be practiced by the children of the new. The observance of Lent was doubtless strongly confirmed by those words of the Redeemer in answer to the disciples of John the Baptist: Can the children of the Bridegroom mourn as long as the Bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast (Luk 5:34-35). Hence we find, in the Acts of the Apostles, that the disciples, after the foundation of the Church, applied themselves to fasting. In their epistles, also, they recommended it to the faithful. The primitive Christians seem to have considered Christ, in the above-mentioned passage, as alluding to the institution of a particular season of fasting and prayer in his future Church, and it was therefore only natural that they should have made this period of penitence to consist of forty days, seeing that our divine Master had consecrated that number by his own fast, and before him Moses and Elijah had done the same, it was even deduced from the forty years’ staying of the Israelites in the desert (Augustine, Serms. 264, 5). SEE FASTING,
I. Practice of the Early Church. In the age immediately succeeding that of the apostles, it does not appear that much value was attached to the practice of fasting. In the Shepherd of Hermas it is spoken of in disparaging terms. Very little notice was taken of fasting by the writers of the first centuries, which may be accounted for from the discouraging influence of the doctrines of Montanus, the tenets of the new Platonic school, and the progress of Gnosticism. Hence it seems that the observance of fasts was introduced into the Church slowly and by degrees. We learn from Justin Martyr that fasting was joined with prayer at Ephesus in the administration of baptism, which is worthy of being noted as an early addition to the original institution. In the 2d century, in the time of Victor and Irenaeus, it had become usual to fast before Easter, yet it consisted not in a single fast, but rather in a series of solemnities, which were deemed worthy of celebration. It was therefore the custom of several congregations to prepare themselves by mortification and fasting, inaugurated of the afternoon of the day on which they commemorated the crucifixion, and it was continued until the morning of the anniversary of the resurrection. The whole interval would thus be only about forty hours (Chrysostom, Orat. adv. Judaeos, 3, 4, vol. 1, p. 611: , . . ..; Hom. 2 in Genesin, 1, vol. 4, p. 8; Irenaeus, Epist. ad Victorin. Papanmi; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 24; Dionys. Alex. Epist. Canon.; Beveridge, Synoduon). Clement of Alexandria, however, speaks of weekly fasts. Tertullian, in his treatise De Jejunio, complains bitterly of the little attention paid by the Church to the practice of fasting: by which we may see that even orthodox Christians exercised in this matter that liberty of judgment which had been sanctioned by the apostles. Origen adverts to this subject only once, in his 10th Homily on Leviticus, where he speaks in accordance with the apostolical doctrine. It appears, however, from his observations, that at Alexandria Wednesdays and Fridays were then observed as fast-days, on the ground that our Lord was betrayed on a Wednesday, and crucified on a Friday. The custom of the Church at the end of the 4th century may be seen from a passage of Epiphanius: In the whole Christian Church the following fast-days throughout the year are regularly observed: On Wednesdays and Fridays we fast until the ninth hour, etc.
But even at this comparatively late date there was no universal agreement in the practice of the Church in this matter, neither had fasts been established by law. Only later was the number of days (namely, forty) fixed according to the Greek and Latin names ( = quadragesima). But for a long time the Oriental and Occidental churches differed. As the former did not permit its members to fast on the Sabbath, their fast continued one week longer (Socrates, Hist. Eccles. 1, 5, 100:22; Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. 5:24; Sozomen, Hist. Ecc 7:19). The custom, so far as it existed, had been silently introduced into the Church, and its observance was altogether voluntary at first. This fasting consisted in abstinence from food until three o’clock in the afternoon, but at a later period a custom was introduced, probably by the Montanists, affecting the kind of food to be taken, which was limited to bread, salt, and water.
Some, however, who had become subject to the rules of the Church, tried to compensate themselves for their privation during the fasts by banqueting on the days preceding them (Chrysostom. De penitentia, hom. 5, 5, vol. 2, p. 315). Others adhered literally to the rules of fasting by avoiding strictly the prohibited food, but prepared from that which was permitted costly dainties (Augustine, Serm. 208, 1). The fathers and teachers of the Church of this period, as Chrysostom, Augustine, Maximus of Turin, Caesarius of Aries, etc., spoke often against this hypocritical fasting, and showed that abstinence would then only be of service when avoidance of sinful habits, etc., as well as contrition of heart was connected with it. The general design, then, of the primitive Church in fasting forty days, we may give in the words of Chrysostom: Many heretofore were used to come to the communion indevoutly and inconsiderately, especially at that time, when Christ first gave it to his disciples. Therefore our forefathers, considering the mischief arising from such careless approaches, meeting together, appointed forty days for fasting and prayer, and hearing sermons, and for holy assemblies; that all men in these days, being carefully purified by prayer, and alms-deeds, and fasting, and watching, and tears, and confession of sins, aad other like exercises, might come, according to their capacity, with a pure conscience, to the holy table.
The rule of fasting for Lent varied greatly. It was usual to abstain from food altogether until evening, change of diet not being accounted sufficient. St. Ambrose exhorts men: Differ aliquantulum, non longe fines est diei’ (Serm. 8 in Psalmn 118). The food, when taken, was to be of the simplest and least delicate kind, animal food and wine being prohibited. St. Chrysostom (Hom. 4 on Stat.) speaks of those who for two days abstained from food, and of others who refused not only wine and oil, but every other dish, and throughout Lent partook of bread and water only. The Eastern Church, at the present day, observes a most strict rule of fasting. Wine and oil are allowed on Saturdays and Sundays, but even these days are only partially excepted from the restrictions of Lent. The discipline of Holy Week is exceedingly rigorous. During Lent corporeal punishment was forbidden by the laws of Theodosius the Great: Nulla supplicia sint corporis quibus (diebus) absolutio expectatur animarum’ (Cod. Theodos. 9, tit. 35, leg. 5.). Public games, and the celebration of birthdays and marriages, were also interdicted (Concil. Laodic. 51, 53). It was the special time for preparing catechumens for baptism, and most of St. Cyril’s catechetical lectures were delivered during Lent. St. Chrysostom’s celebrated Homilies on the Statutes were preached during this season. Daily instruction formed a part of the service, and holy communion was celebrated at least every Lord’s day. The last week, the Holy or Great Week, was kept with still greater strictness and solemnity (Blunt, Dict. Of Doctrinal and Historical Theology, p. 408).
II. Practice of later Times. Fasting, after a time, ceased to be a voluntary exercise. By the second canon of the Council of Orleans, A.D. 541, it was decreed that any one who should neglect to observe the stated times of abstinence should be treated as an offender against the laws of the Church. The eighth Council of Toledo, in the 7th century (canon 9), condemns anyone who should eat flesh during the fast before Easter, and says that such offenders should be forbidden the use of it throughout the year. In the 8th century fasting began to be regarded as a meritorious work, and the breach of the observance at the stated times subjected the offender to excommunication. In later times some persons who ate flesh during Lent were punished with the loss of their teeth (Baronius, Annal. ad an. 1018). Afterwards these seveities were to a great extent relaxed. Instead of the former limitation of diet on fast-days to bread, salt, and water, permission was given for the use of all kinds of food except flesh, eggs, cheese, and wine. Then eggs, cheese, and wine were allowed, flesh only being prohibited, an indulgence which was censured by the Greek Church, and led to a quarrel between it and the Latin. In the 13th century a cold collation in the evening of fast-days was permitted.
The following are the fasts which generally obtained in the Church:
1. The annual fast of forty days before Easter, or the Season of Lent. The duration of this fast at first was only forty hours (Tertull. De Jejun. 100:2, 13; Irenaeus, ap. Euseb. ist. Eccl. E . 5, 100:24). By the time of Gregory the Great (in the 8th century) it had extended to thirty-six days, and it had beein so accepted by the Council of Nicaea; but by Gregory the Great, or by Gregory II, it was extended to forty days, the duration of the recorded fasts of Moses, Elias, and our blessed Savior (Exo 34:28; 1Ki 19:8; Mat 4:2). Hence the term Quadragesima (q.v.), which had already been used to denote this period, became strictly applicable. Socrates (Hist. Eccl. 1. 7, 100:19), Basil the Great, Ambrode, and Leo the Great speak of this quadragesimal fast as a divine institution but this can mean no more than that the fast was observed in imitation of the example of the divine Redeemer (Concil. Genonsens. 100:7 in canone apostolorum, 68: Si quis Episcop., aut Presbyt., etc., sac. Quadragesimam Paschae, aut quartam feriam, aut Parasecevem non jejunaverit, etc.: Concil. Coloniens. ii, pt. 9, Song of Solomon 6).
2. Quarterly-fasts, no traces of which occur before the 5th century, although Bellarmine (De bonis operibus, lib. 2, 100:19) says that the first three of these fasts were instituted in the times of the apostles, and the last by pope Calixtus, A.D. 224.
3. A fast of three days befobe the festival of the Ascension, introduced by Mamercus, bishop of Vienne, in the middle of the 5th century. In some places it was not celebrated until after Whitsuntide. It was called Jejunium Royationum, or Jejuniumn Litaniarum, the fast of Rogations or Litanies, on account of certain litanies sung on those days. The words and , litanies, in Latin Supplicationes et Rogationes, in their original signification, are but another name for prayers in general, of whatever kind, that either were made publicly in the church or by any private person. (Sce Euseb. Vit. Const. 1. 1, 100:14; 1. 4, 100:66; Chrysost. Hom. antequeam iret in exiliumn; Cods. Theod. lib. 16, tit. 5, De hereticus, 1, 30, 1.)
4. Monthly fasts, a fast-day in every month except July and August (Concil. Illiberit. can. 23; Turon. 2, can. 18, 19).
5. Fasts before festivals, in the place of the ancient vigils which were abolished in the 5th century.
6. Weekly fasts, on Wednesdays and Fridays, entitled stationes, from the practice of soldiers keeping guard, which was called statio by the Romans (Stationum dies, Tertullian, De Orait.; Stationibus quartam et sextam Sabbati dicamus, Idem, De Jejunio; , , Clem. Alex. Stroma. 1. 7). These fasts were not so strictly observed as some others, and were altogether omitted between Easter and Whitsuntide. The observance was enjoined especially upon the clergy and monks (Constit. Apost. v. 15; Can. Apost. 69). By the Council of Elvira, 100:26, at the beginning of the 4th century, Saturday was added to the weekly fasts, and this led to the gradual neglect of the Wednesday fast in the Western Church. The stations, or fasts on stationary days, terminated at three o’clock P.M. (non ultra nonam detinendum, Tertullian, De Jejunio; Quando et orationes fere nona hora concludat de Petri exemplo quod Acts 10 refertur, ib. 100:2). Hence Tertullian calls them half-fasts (semijejunio stationum, De Jejun. 100:13). When a fast was continued the whole day, it was entitled Jejuium, or Jejunium perfectum; and when it lasted until the morning of the following day, or for several days together, it was distinguished by the title Superpositio ( ). The latter kind of fasts was commonly observed during the great week, or week before Easter; but it was not strictly peculiar to that season. It exceeded the others not only in point of time, but by the observance of additional austerities, such as the , or living on dry food, namely, bread, salt, and water, taken only in the evening.
7. There were also occasional fasts, appointed by ecclesiastical authority in times of great danger, emergency, or distress (Cyprian, Epist. 8, 1; 57, 3; Tertullian, Apol. c. 40; De Jejun. 100:13).
III. Practice in Modern Times. The Christians of the Greek Church observe four regular fasts. The first commences on the 15th day of November, or forty days before Christmas. The second is the one which immediately precedes Easter. The third begins the week after Whitsunday, and continues till the festival of St. Peter and Paul. The number of days, therefore, comprised in these seasons of fasting is not settled and determined, but they are more or less long, according as Whitsunday falls sooner or later. The fourth fast commences the 1st of August, and lasts no longer than till the 15th. These fasts are observed with great strictness and austerity. The only days when they indulge themselves in drinking wine and using oil are Saturdays and Sundays.
In the English Church Lent was first commanded to be observed in England by Ercombert, seventh king of Kent, before the year 800. The Lenten fast does not embrace all the days included between Ash- Wednesday and Easter, for the Sundays are so many days above the number of forty. They are excluded because the Lord’s day is always held as a festival, and never as a fast. These six Sundays are therefore called Sundays in Lent, not Sundays of Lent. The principal days of Lent are the first day of Lent (Caput Jejunii, or Dies Cinerune), Ash Wednesday, and the Passion-week, particularly Thursday and Friday in that week. There is also a solemn service appointed for Ash-Wednesday, under the title of a Commination or denounlcing of God’s anger and judgments against sinners. The last week of Lent, called Passion-week, has always been considered as its most solemn season. It is called the great week, for the important transactions which are then commemorated.
The same rules, observations, services, etc., are observed in the Protestant Episcopal Church of America as in the Church of England during the solemn season of Lent.
In nearly all the Protestant churches of Europe, particularly in the Lutheran Church, fasts and Lenten-season remain up to this day pretty much the same as in the Roman Catholic Church.
See Bellarmine, Opera; Bergier, Dictionnaire de Theologie, art. Careme; Pascal, La Liturgie catholique, s.v.; Gfrorer’s Church History; Hook, Ch. Dict. s.v.; Riddle, Christian Antiquities, p. 660, 668; Hall, Harmony (see Index); Bible and Missal, p. 170; Walcott, Sac. Archaeol. p. 348; Procter, On Book of Common Prayer, p. 250, 276, 277; Wheatley, Book of Common Prayer, p. 217 sq. SEE FASTING.