FASTING. In its religious or magical signification, and as a social custom, fasting, by which is implied abstinence from food, and sometimes from drink as well, varies among different races. Among savage races the rite was enjoined at certain stages of life, as an act of mourning (when it is the usual precedent, and is occasionally preceded by a feast), as a rite of preparation at the initiation into man hood or womanhood or for sacred and ritual acts, as an act of penitence and as an ascetic practice. It is usually accompanied by con tinence, by other austerities, and by prayer. Among the American Indians the rite was widely observed, was practised both in private and in connection with public ceremonies, and tribal fasts were occasionally ordered by the chiefs to avert some threatened calamity. Among the Melanesians certain foods are for bidden to pregnant women, and fasting is en joined on the fathers of newly-born children. So widely diffused was the custom that it was practised in nearly all the nations of antiquity —in Armenia, Persia, Scythia, Nineveh, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Among the Hindus it has always been an ascetic practice, although Gau tama Buddha enjoined moderation rather than excessive fasting. Among the Jews the fasts were all founded on tradition, except that of the Day of Atonement, which was appointed by Moses, to which five days of compulsory fasting were afterward added, in commemoration of days of humiliation and national misfortune. With the Jews fasting always implies entire abstinence, and lasts, except on the Day of Atonement and the 9th of Ab, from daybreak to the appearance of the first three stars.
Although Our Lord fasted 40 days before the beginning of his public ministry and prob ably kept the Day of Atonement obligatory on his race, he left no direct rules for fasting. It was incongruous, he said, ((that the children of the bridechamher fast when the Bridegroom was with them; but the days would come when the Bridegroom should be taken away from them, and then should they fast in those days? (Mark ii, 19-20).
Hence it was inferred that from the time of His ascension the practice was obligatory on His disciples, the temporary cause of exemption hitherto existing having ceased.
During the first two centuries of the Chris tian era fasting was voluntary on the part of the faithful, and was practised before holy acts and rites, such as baptism, communion and ordination. The Pascal fast is first mentioned by Irenaeus (A.D. 195). The fast of 40 hours when Our Lord lay in the grave had gradually expanded in the 6th century into the 40 days Lenten fast, while the mode of fasting varied greatly. Fasts, Hooker explains, were ((set as ushers of festival days," their object being ((to temperthe mind, lest contrary affections i coming in place should make it too profuse and dissolute." The fast days in the Roman Catholic Church are: All the week days of Lent, beginning on Ash Wednesday; the Fridays in Advent; the Ember days, namely, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays following (1) the first Sunday in Lent, (2) .Whitsunday, (.3) the 14th of September, (4) the third Sun day of Advent; also the vigils of Pentecost, the Assumption, All Saints and Christmas. When the vigil falls on Sunday the fast is kept on the Saturday preceding. The days of abstinence (on which flesh-meat is not allowed) are all Fridays in the year and fast days. Illness, old age and other causes may entitle a person to a dispensation from these regulations. The Anglican appoints the following fixed days for fasting and abstinence, between which no dif ference is made: (1) the 40 days of Lent; (2) the Ember days, at the four seasons; (3) the three Rogation days before Holy Thursday; (4) every Friday except Christmas Day. The difference between the Roman Catholic and the Anglican Church in regard to fasting is that, according to Hooker, the former holds it as an imperative means of grace, the latter as a use ful exercise preparatory for the means of grace.