3. The practice of the early Church. — The chief instances are before solemn appointments (Ac 13--' U-^). St Paul alludes to his fasts (2 Co G" 11"). It is somewhat difficult, however, to decide whether he is speaking of voluntary or involuntary ones. Perliaps both are included. The connexion of words seems rather to sug^ost voluntary fasts in the former passage, and involun- tary ones in the latter. In places TR has an allusion to fasting where it is wanting according U) the best evidence (Mt 17-', Mk 9^, Ac 10™, 1 Co 7°). This corruption of the text may have been due to the increasing value which was set on fasting in the Christian Church with the lapse of time. See further, Feasts and Fasts.
In the Oxyrhynchus fraginent discovered by Orenfell and Hunt, the 2nd Logion contains the words tkt fir, ^firrtu^yivt rir K^rfict, 0u fAn iupr.Ti rr,i i^xftXiix* rev 9uv. The construction and the meaning of the saying are both difficult : Ilarnack (Die jujujut entihckten Spriiche Jesu, 8ff.) contends for a meta- phorical sense of the word ' fast.' Amongst other discussions of the sense of this IjOginn we niav refer to Orenfell and Hunt's nfifiopHnwpjofthe AOriA IlIiOT (lOtT.), lledpath(A'j-pn»i(or, Sept. 18U7, p. 225), Heinrici in ThL (2l8t Aug. 1887), Swcte (Kxpol. Times, Sept. 1897, p. 548 f.).
V. H. Stanton. FAT.— See Food and Sacrifice.
FAT. — Asa verb 'fat' is now nearly displaced by ' fatten.' It occurs in Sir 26" 'The grace of a wife delighteth her husband, and her discretion will fat his bones ' (iriovci, RV 'fatten'); and the ptcp. ' fatted' in 1 K 4=^ ('fatted fowl,' Hcb. o-i:-i;, see Fowls), Jer 40'-" ('fatted bullocks,' RV 'calves of the stall'), Lk 15'^-^ "»; to which RV adds 1 S 28" 'a fatted calf (AV 'a fat calf ').
J. Hastings.
FAT. — Fat, meaning a larce vessel for holding liquids, has been displaced Dy 'vat' in literary
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FATE
FAVOUR
English. The difference between the spellings, says Skeat [Etymol. Diet, s.v.) is one ot dialect only, ' fat ' being northern and ' vat ' southern. Fat occurs in A V , Jl 2^ ' the fats shall overllow with wine and oil,' and 3" (both :i5;) ; in the com- pound 'winefat' in Is 63^ (ni), Mk 12' (u7roX7)>'ioi', AV 1611 ' wine fat' as two words) ; and ' pressfat' (1611 ' presse-fat ') Hag 2'« (3,r).
RV gives ' vats ' in Jl (see Driver's note, ad toe), though in Pr 3'° it changes ' presses ' of A V into ' fats ' (3i3;). ' Winefat ' of Mk 12' is made ' wine- press,' and 'pressfat' of Hag 2'* 'winefat' (not by Amer. R V). Amer. KV prefers ' winevat ' to winefat in Is 63^ See Wink. J. Hastings.
FATE —See Will.
FATHER.— See Family and God.
FATHOM — See Weights and Measitbes.
FATLING. — A fatlin" is an animal, especially a young animal, fattened for slaughter. It is the tr° of three Heb. and one Greek word. (1) Miri', plu. Tniri'im, 2S 6", Is 11«, Ezk 39'^: which is elsewhere tr^ 'fat cattle' (RV 'fatlings'), 1 K !»•'»• 2»; 'fed beasts' (so RV), Is 1" ; 'fat beasts' (so RV), Am 5". (2) Mrhim, Ps 66"> : which else- where occurs only Is 5" tr'' 'fat ones,' AV and KV. (3) Mishnim, IS 15', which means 'seconds,' of a second, inferior sort (as AVm). But that is plainly not the meaning here. Hence the text is generally amended into mashmanniin (D"j:jf?), whicli is found in Neh 8'", and means ' fat things,' 'delicacies' (EV 'the fat'). This is the read- ing followed by EV, and it has tlie support of Targ. Syr. and Arab. VSS. But Driver [Notes on Sam. p. 94) prefers to read hassh^nienim, which occurs (in the sing.) in Ezk 34" (and elsewhere), aiid is tr'' ' the fat.' He then renders ' the best of the flocks and the herds, even the fat ones and the lambs' (Dlj.i) D'3?!f*n). (4) aiTurri (lit. 'fed with
frain '), Mt 22^ ' my oxen and my fatlings are illed' (TindaJe's tr°; Wye. 'my bolis [bulls] and my volatUis [fowls],' alter Vulg. tauri mei et cUtilin). To tliose RV adds (5) blndh, Ezk 34' ' the fatlings ' for AV ' them that are fed ' : the word is an ad j . , and is tr^ ' fat ' in v. * (' fat cattle ' AV and RV), it is the 'fat' kine of Pharaoh's dream (Gn 41). J. HASTINGS.
FAOCHION Jth 13« 'she . . . took Ao-vra his
fauchion from thence,' and 16' ' the fauchion passed through his neck' (AV 1611 'fauchin,' RV 'scimitar'). The Greek is dxiydicTjs (in 16" A has dKixdMs, to which Hatch and Redpath give a sep. entry in their Concord to the Sept., but with a query), found only here. The d/t. , a word of Persian origin, is often used in Herodotus to describe a short sword. See SwoRD. The Eng. word was originally the name of ' a broad sword more or less curved on the convex side ' ; but in later use and in poetry signified a sword of any kind.
J. Hastings.
FAULT. — A fault is properly a defect or short- coming (fallitus, late Lat. ptcp. of /allere, to fail, come short, Old Fr. /aute *) either of material things, as Ld. Bemers, Froissart, I. clix. 193, ' They had gret faut in their boost of vita3'le ' ; or from a recognized standard of physical beauty, workmanship, or moral rectitude. The defect expressed by ' fault ' is in A V almost always moral, but the larger meaning, shortcoming in any sense, is