Volume 1

A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood.

Date:: [between 1890 and 1899?]

Credit: A dictionary of Christian antiquities : being a continuation of the 'Dictionary of the Bible' / edited by William Smith and Samuel Cheetham ; illustrated by engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

993/1096 (page 973)

$weeks before Easter, except on Saturdays and Sundays.® In Illyria, through all Greece, and in Alexandria [those of Illyria, the West (ol Trphs Svffiv). throughout all Libya, in Egy|)t and Pa- lestine (Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. vii. 19)], a fast of six weeks’ duration was observed. Othei’s again continued it for seven weeks: these are spoken of vaguely by Soci'ates as &Woi, and more specifi- cally by Sozomen as those of Constantinople, and the countries round about as far as Phoenicia.*^ Socrates, however, states that these, while begin- ning the fast seven weeks before Easter, only fasted for fifteen days by intervals (rpeis pLovas ‘irevOripLepuvs e« SiahTjupLaTcav); and Sozomen upeaks of some who fasted three weeks by intex'- vals {(TTTopdS-nv) out of the six or seven weeks. Lastly, some fasted for two weeks, as the Mon- tanists did. Gi’egoi-y the Great {Horn, in Evan;), i. 16. 5; vol. i. 1494, ed. Bened.) speaks of the fast as of thirty-six days’ duiaition, that is to say, of six weeks, not counting in the six Sundays. It will have been noticed above that Sozomen speaks of six weeks as the period obsei’ved by the Westerns, whei-eas it lasted through seven weeks in Con- stantinople and the East. Now in the East, Saturday as well as Sunday partook of a festal character,® and thus the number of actual fasting days would be in either case thirty-six. Of course those Eastern churches which only took six weeks would have but thirty-one days’ fast. [The Saturday which was Easter Eve was of coui-se in all cases excepted from the genei'al rule of Saturdays.] In any case thirty-six was the maximum number of days’ fast(cf. Cassian, ColL<t. xxi. 24, 25; Patrol, xlix. 1200). whom the remaining four days were addend, that is Ash-Wednesday and the thi-ee days following it, does not clearly appeal’. Gregory the Great (ob. a.d. 604) has often been credited with it (see e.g. the Micrologus, c. 49 ; Patrol. cli. 1013), but his remark which we have I’eferred to above seems conclusive against this. The evidence also derivable fi’om the Gregorian saci’amentary, into which we must enter in detail when we come to speak of the liturgical pai’t of our subject, points the same way. Thus the headings for these first four days never include the term Quadragesima, which occurs for the first time on the Sunday ; and there seems ground for omitting the words cajiut jejunii in the heading to Ash-Wednesday. Martene (^De Ant. Eccles. Pit. iii. 58, ed. Venice, 1783) shews that even after the time of Gregory the Great, c There is some difflculky here in the remark as to the Roman fast not holding on the baiurday. See Vaiesius’s not. in Ijoc. d In illustration of the longer period of the fast ob- served in the East, we may refer to the case mentioned by Photius (Bibli-oth. 107 ; Patrol. Gr. ciii. 377). e For an illustration of this, see e.jf. Chrysostom (.Horn, xi. in Gen. $ 2 ; vol iv. 101, ed. Gaume), who speaks of the relaxation afforded in Lent by the cessation of the fast on Saturday and Sunday. As regards the West an exception niu.st be made in the case of Milan, where Saturday was viewed as in the East (see Ambrose, de Klia et jejunio, infra), .also for Gaul (see Aurelian, infra). f We may refer here to the notion that, since thirty-six days was one-tenth of the year, therefore in Lent was fulfilled the Mosaic precept of paying tithes (Cassian, I.C.). the four additional days cannot for some time have been observed, at any rate at all universally, for the Regula Magistri, a writing apparently of the 7th century, oi’ders that from Sexagesima the monks should fast till the evening on Wed- nesdays, Fi’idays, and Satui’day.s, but that on other days up to (Quadragesima they should take their meal at the ninth hour. Thus by the addition of these six days, the diminution caused in Lent by the taking out of the six Sundays was exactly counterbalanced (c. 28, Patrol. Ixxxviii. 997). Clearly, therefore, this wi’iter can in no way have viewed Lent as definitely beginning with Ash-Wedne.sday, and indeed the following day is not I’eckoned as part of the fast at all. On the other hand, the addition is cei’- tainly not to be fixed later than the time of Charlemagne, for (Martene, 1. c.) the title “ feria quarta in capite jejunii occurs in MSS. of sacra- mentaries of and perhaps before his time. Similar evidence is furnished by the Pule of Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, in the latter part of the 8th century (c. 30, Patrol. Ixxxix. 1071), and apparently in the Penitential of Egbert, arch- bishop of York from A.D. 732 to 766 (I. i. 37, Patrol. Ixxxix. 410). Others have refei-red the addition to Gregory II. (ob. A.D. 731), but the matter seems quite doubtful.8^ It may be remarked here in connex- ion with this latter pi-elate, that the Micrologus (c. 50, supra) states that it was he w^ho fii’st requii’ed the Thursdays throughout Lent to be kept as fasts, contrary to the ancient Roman usage. It is to Melchiades that the appointment of Thursdays as exceptions to the law of fasting in Lent is refei-red. This, howevei’, is very doubtful, when viewed in connexion vvith the words of Gregory the Great already quoted. Considering the diversity which we have found to prevail as to the duration of Lent, it is curious to see how persistently the word Tfaaa- puKocrrii is adhered to, a point which puzzled Socrates (/. c.) in the 5th century. Although the origin of this name is by no means clear, there are at any rate some reasonable grounds for connecting it with the period during which our Lord yielded to the power of death, which was estimated at forty hours [e.g. from noon on Friday till 4 a.m. on Sunday] ; and we have seen that Tertullian twice refers to the fast as con- tinuing for the days “in quibus ablatus est sponsus.” We must also not lose sight of the forty days’ fasts of Moses, Elijah, and our Lord, as being especially suggestive of the number of forty. It will have been noticed that when the duration of the fast was considerably lengthened, in the majority of cases the number of days of actual fasting was still approximately forty. 2. Object and purport of Lent.—We may inquire in the next place what was the priraai y idea iu the institution of such a fast, and what other reasons were subserved in the maintenance of it. (a) From a passage of Tertullian already cited {de Jejunio, c. 13) it is clear that the fast primarily lasted for the time during which our Lord was under the power of death, to mark the mourning of the church when the bridegroom g It is clear that in some parts the additional four days cannot have been accepted for a long time, for Martene (p. 59) speaks of the end of the llth century as the period when they were recognised in Scotland.$