Other early authorities for week-day fasts are Hernias, Tertulli.-ui, Hippolytns, the Hljipolytean C'ano».s-, and Origen. Hernias (,s7(/(. v. 1) does not mention the (biys ,,n iiliiih i( w.is usual to fa.st; but he says lli.ii \v w:,-. 1,1 iir .mhI seated on a ceilain niouiii , m : ■ 1 he Lord, when
he met the M 1 ! . 1 1 n i why he was
there. He ri'iil'ir-, iIkh !,.■ 1- Lr.|,iiig a 'station' (ffraWura ^x"), wliic-li In' cNpI.-iiiis as being a fast. Tertullian expressly mentions Wednesday and Friday (dc .Tcjuii. 2 and 14: ' stationibus quartam et sext.'im sabbati dicamus, et jeiuniis parasceuen ' — a difiicult phrase, since the sixth day and ' parasceue ' are one; perhaps the meaning is that Wednesday was a 'half- fast' [de Jcjun. 13] in Tertullian's time, and Friday a whole one, or perhaps Tertullian means Gooil Friday here by 'parasceue'). He says that the Eucharist was celebrated on those days {dc Orat. 19). For Hip- polytus, see below (§ 3) on the Srthivfl.ny f.-ist. The Hippolytean Canon.';, vliidi, ^Inl Inn' tiny repre- sent Roman usage or Al.xmnli inn. |.i elm My date from the first half of tinllnl r.nl., |n.-ri il.n fasts ' feria quarta et sexta [ct ipuuU;igiiiui.J, Uiuugli it
254 CALENDAR, THE CHRISTIAN
CALENDAR, THE CHRISTIAN
approves of individuals adding other fasts to these (§ 154 ; tlie bracketed words seem to be an inter- polation). Origen speaks of Wednesday and Friday as days 'quibus solemniter jejunamus' (m Lev. Mom. X., but see II. 1 c, below).
But hereafter there is a break, except that Peter of Alexandria gives evidence- for Egypt, and that in the Edessene Canons of the first half of the 4th cent, there are directions for the Eucharist on Sundays, for .service 'on the fourth day,' and for service ' on the eve ' [of the Sabbath] at the ninth hour (canons 2, 3). Apparently the observance of these two days was not universal, at any rate in the East, tiU towards the end of the 4th century. There is no mention of them in the Testament of our Lord (c. 350 A.D. ?), which alludes to the possi- bility of a fast day falling in the week (i. 22), but does not prescribe one. There is in this curious Church Order a regulation for bishops and pres- byters to fast three days a week, perhaps only for one year from their ordination, but they are not tied down to any fixed days, and the rule is ex- pressly said to be 'for the priests only.' The Arabic Didascalia (§ 38, c. 380 A.D.?), which is probably based on the Testament, mentions ex- plicitly Wednesday and Friday as the two fast days of the week, and says that when a festival falls on these days they shall pray and not receive the holy mysteries, and shall not interrupt the fasting till the ninth liour [see a German trans- lation of these later chapters in Funk's Ajmstol. Konstitutionen ; the rest is not published]. There is abundant evidence towards the end of the 4tli cent, for these days: Apost. Const, v. 15, vii. 23; Apost. Can. 69 (68) ; pseudo-Ignat. ad Phil. 13 ; Epiphanius, Hcer. Ixv. 6 (ed. Dionysius Petavius, lib. iii. 6, p. 910), and Expos. Fid. 21. The Apos- tolic Constitutions are here (vii. 23) based on the Didachc, and repeat its language about tlie change of day from those of the ' hypocrites. ' Tlie Apos- tolic Canon makes it incumbent on all, under penalty, to keep these days, unless in sickness. Pseudo-Ignatius, wlio is probably the Kanie as the author of the Apost. Con-stiiitfioiis [so Hani.ick, Brightman ; but Lightfoot (If/nntiu.^-, i. 205 f.) thinks otherwise] re-echoes their language. Epi- phanius says that these two days were "observed everywhere {ev -n-aai M/iaai t^s olKovnii/Ti^) ; he calls them Ttrpdi and irpocri^^aTov. Bp. J. Wordsworth conjectures that the restoration of the.se days in the East was largely due to Epiphanius {3Im. of Grace, ch. VI. ii.). Probably in Egypt and in many parts of the West their observance was continuous.
Usually the Eucharist was celebrated on Wednesdays and Fridays ; perhaps often (as the Arabic Didascalia may suggest) at a late hour, so that tlie fast might be preserved, though Ter- tullian speaks {de Orat. 19) of tlie service being during the hours of fasting on these days, and of scrupulous communicants reserving the elements in private so as not to break the fast. In ' Silvia ' (iv. 3, in Duchesne's Origines, Appendix) the ob- servance of Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent is spoken of : ' Diebus vero quadragesimarum . . . quarta feria ad nona in Syon [the traditional scene of the descent of the Holy Spirit, possibly the site of St. Mark's house, called by Epiphanius and St. Cyril of Jerusalem the Church of the Apostles] proceditur juxta consuetudinem totius anni, et omnia a"untur qu^ consuetudo est ad nonani agi prieter oblatio. . . . Sexta feria autem similiter omnia aguntur sicut quarta feria,' which must mean that the Eucharist was usually cil.lii.itiil on Mount Zion after none at 3 p.m i'\i;-\.\ in l.c m. tliough Duchesne seems to invert llii^ (iin( lu-ii.n (p. 130 n. 4, Eng. ed.). 'Sih-ia' say- that ,m tlu's,. days, unless a festival of the martyi.s full on one
of tliem, even the catechumens fasted. In the 5th cent, an exception to the Wednesday and Friday Eucharist is mentioned by Socrates (HE v. 22) in the case of the Wednesday and Friday before Easter.