guage is found in the chapter of Apost. Const, just quoted, which thus combines the two ideas. It may not improbably be gathered from the evidence that the former point of view is the original one, and that the Lenten fast originated in tlie preparation for baptism, and that the second point of view was an afterthought.
The length of the fast was originally, as we liave seen, one day, or two days, or forty hours. But it was an absolute fast. Another custom grew up in some countries in the 3rd cent, of ob- serving the whole week before Easter, not as an absolute fast, but as a time of severe abstinence from food. It was called ' the week of xerophagy ' (for the name cf. TertuUian, de Jejun. 2, 9). This is mentioned in the Hippolytean Canons (§ 197), which allow bread and salt and water only, and by Dionysius of Alexandria in his Epistle to Basilides (can. 1). He says that 'all do not carry out the six days of fasting either equally or alike ; but some pass even all tlie days as a fast, remain- ing without food through the whole ; while others take but two, and others three, and others four, and others not even one.' It is possible, as many think, that Dionysius is the author of the Hippoly- tean Canons, and that they represent Alexandrian usage, not Roman. The Montanists observed a two weeks' fast, a custom which they kept up till the 5th cent., when, as Sozomen tells us (HE vii. 19), tliey were distinguished by fasting less than their neighbours ; formerly they had fasted longer, when Holy Week had been the maximum (cf. TertuUian, de Jejun. 15, when he says that the Montanists offered to God two weeks of xerophagies in the year, Saturday and Sunday being excepted). Epiphanius says that the Catholic Church ob- served a whole week, as opposed to the Quarto- decimans, who observed only one day (Hair. 1. 3, lib. ii. tom. 1).
Fasting for forty days was unknown till the 4th century. To maintain this proposition we must, with Achelis, eliminate ' et quadraginta 'if rom Can. Hippol. 154 (the canons having obviously suflfered interpolations), unless these words could refer to the ' forty hours' ' absolute fast mentioned by Irensus ; and simi- larly we must, with almost all scholars, reject the words in Origen'a tenth Hmniln on Leviticus : ' Habemus enini quadra- gesimaj dies jejuniis consecratos,' which come speaks of the Wednesday and Friday fasts, homily in Rufinus' translation only, and Rufinus was notori- ously lax in interpolating and altering Origen's words. These
"belo
: the
forty days'
to fasting. Duchesne seems to have overlooked this point, which adds to his argument (prigines, viii. § 4). In the Testa- nnent of our Lord (ii. 8) the ' forty days of Pascha " are spoken of as a time of vigil and prayer, specially used for the preparation of catechumens for baptism, but it is not a fast. On the other hand, in the Apostolic Canons (69 or 68), c. 400 A.D., we r«ad of njn kyioiv TurffxpnttuirTr.v Ttu vuirx* as a compujsory fast. This is one of the indications of a comparatively early date for the Testament. Duchesne (I.e.) has traced in Athanasius' ' Festal Letters ' the growth of the fast. At first we read of the time of Lent and of the week of the fast, but later on of the fast of Lent and the Holy Week of Pascha.
In the Edessene Canons (can. 7 ; see ' Syriac Documents ' in the Ante-A'icene Christ. Libr. p. 39) a forty days' fast is pre- scribed ; * and then celebrate the day of the Passion and the day of the Resurrection : because our Lord . . . fasted forty days, and likewise Moses and EUjah.' . . . Can this " of the observance of the Passion and the Resurrection < same day ?
In Apost. Const, t. 13 the forty days are exclusive of Holy Week, and so in pseudo - Ignatius (Phitipp. 13), and in St. Chrysostom (Bom. 30 in Gen. § 1). In the Testament o/our Lord they include Holy Week.
Socrates (UE v. 22) says that the fasts before Easter differed in his day. At Rome they fasted for three continuous {truvr.fj.- fj.i>ci!) weeks, save on Saturday and Sunday ; in Illyricum and Greece and Alexandria for six weeks, which they called rttrtrctfiu- xtiTT-i ; others, beginning their fast seven weeks before Easter, fasted three periods of five days only, but still called it Tirrtpx- KoiTTYi. A difficulty is seen in this passage because Socrates had fast at Rome. Duchesne Socrates'as far as the word ' continuous ' iposes that the three weeks were the first, fourth, and sixth weeks of Lent. He justly remarks that the
be a relic
260 CALENDAR, THE CHRISTIAN
CALENDAR, THE CHRISTIAN
divergence of fasting, while the same m kept, points to the fact that the ' forty days * were introduced for another purpose than that of fasting. In fact, the preva- lence of forty days is due largely to the fact that catechumens were under instruction for that tinie. The catechumenate was indeed often longer, though St. Jerome (Ep. 61) says that in his time forty days was the usual period. We find two years ai Elvira, three years in the Kguptian Church Order and the Testament o/ot/r iorrf, though a good deal of discretion was allowed. But in any case, at the beginning of the forty days the selected candidates for baptism (competentes) were put ■ through special instruction, with prayers. length in the