FAST (AS. fmsten, Ieel. Pasta, Goth. fastubni, 011G. fast a, Ger. Fasten, fast, from AS. f(rgtan, Goth. fasten, Ger. fasten, to fast ; probably eonneeted with AS. frost, leel. fastr, 011(;. fasti, feste. Ger. fest, fast, firm). A term used to express either total abstinence from meat and drink, or at least a certain restraint in respect of food. As a religions custom, fasting seems to have originated in the coneeived neces sity of proper preparation for communion with the ancestral spirits in the sacrificial meal and in the ecstatic state. It was thus a sacrifice of fered to the Divinity, the acceptance of which was indicated by permission to partake in the sacrificial banquet and by the vision vouchsafed to the devotee. Hence its universal occurrence in some form in all religions and among common worshipers as well as among the religious leaders. It has been observed wherever ancestral worship has flourished, even though there was no marked tendency toward mysticism, and has not only maintained itself, but has developed especial intensity as a means of inducing an extraor dinary psychical receptivity to spiritual impres sions in monotheistic and pantheistic forms of religion otherwise preserving only slight traces of their animistic origin. The reduced vitality and increased nervous excitability occasioned by lack of proper nourishment have tended to produce a mental condition favorable to the seeing of visions and the hearing of voices, necessarily in terpreted as objective realities. By curbing the appetites and the passions, they have served as means of moral discipline. On the other hand, the reaction has added joy and exhilaration to the following communion with the Divinity. See FEsia VA bs.
The custom prevailed among the Aztecs and Toltees of Mexico, the Incas of Peru, and other American aborigines. It has been found among the Paeifie Islanders, who oceSsionally use strong purges before venturing to eat holy meat. In China and Japan there are possible traces of it before contact with Buddhism; and it has been kept in eastern Asia wherever Brahmanism and Buddhism have spread. If the climatic condi tions of India forced attention to dietary rules, the introspective attitude of her people naturally led to observation of the effects upon the mental activities of abstinence from food. Insensibility to pain, clairvoyance, attainment to a higher superconscious state, absorption in the divine, seemed the rewards or results of a patient en durance. Already in the Yajur-Veda period this estimate of the value of fasting becomes appar ent, and it is still widely prevalent in all parts of India. In the Mithras cult, a mixture of Ira
nian and orgiastic elements, it was a necessary preparation for initiation into the mysteries. As this faith spread over Armenia, Cappadocia, Pon tus, and Syria, the importance of the already existing religious custom was everywhere en hanced. It was indeed a characteristic require ment made by mystic cult societies in many lands. At least as early as the seventh cen tury B.C. the Orphie societies in Greece demanded total abstinence from meat and beans, and sub sequently the highest rites in the Eleusinian mysteries were preceded by a day of fasting. Similarly, fasting.was required previous to in itiation in the mysteries of Isis and Osiris, while in earlier time it does not seem to have been widely observed in Egypt, though it is known through Herodotus that at Busiris a fast pre ceded the sacrificial meal. The Romans also to some extent practiced fasting in connection with their festivals, and in later times before initia tion in cult societies.
It is not certain that the Babylonians kept the custom: and the story of the fast in Nineveh (Jonah iii. 5 sqq.) merely shows that the late Jewish authors took for granted that the As. Syrians fasted to avoid a great national calamity, though they may have been quite right in this assumption. In Israel. fasting in earlier times, spontaneous and not regulated by law. The purpose appears to have been to arouse Yah weh's pity (II. Sam. xii. 22), to avert national calamity ( 1. Sam. vii. 6), to express sorrow for the dead (1. Sam. xxxi. 13), to prepare for a sacrificial meal (1, Sam. xxi. 5), or to render a man lit for a special revelation ( Ex. xxxiv. 28; Dent. ix. 9, 18). After the Exile, days of public fasting were instituted. They are first mentioned in Zech. viii. 19, where the fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months are re ferred to cud the question whether they should be observed is discussed. These fasts were or dallied in commemoration of the misfortunes that had befallen Jerusalem, viz. the capture of the city on the 9th of Tammuz, the destruction of the temple on the 9th of Ab, the murder of Gedaliall on the 3d of Tishri (Jer. xli. 2), and the of the siege on the 10th of Ab. The only day set apart for fasting in the Mosaic law is the tenth of the seventh month (Tishri). It is thought by modern scholars to have been insti tuted later than the four fast days previously mentioned. See ATONEMENT, DAY OF.