Public fasts expresslj' on account of unseasonable weather and of famine may perhaps be traced in the first and second chapters of Joel. In later times they assumed great imi)ortance, and form tlie main subject of the treatise Taanith in the Mishna. The Sanhe- drim ordered general fasts when the nation was threat- ened with any great evil, such as drought or famine (Josephus, Life, § 56 ; Taanilh, i, 6), as was usual with the Romans in their supplications (Livy, iii, 7 ; x, 23).
3. Private occasional fasts are recognised in one passage of the law (Numb, xxx, 13). Tlie instances given of individuals fasting under the influence of grief, vexation, or anxiety are numerous (1 Sam, i, 7; XX, 34; 2Sam. iii, 35; xii, 16; 1 Kings xxi, 27 ; Ezra X, 6 ; Neh. i, 4 ; Dan. x, 3). The fasts of forty daj'S of Moses (Exod. xxiv, 18 ; xxxiv, 28 ; Dent, ix, 18) and of Elijah (1 Kings xix, 8) are, of course, to be re- garded as special acts of spiritual discipline, faint
1 though wonderful shadows of that fast in the wildei*-
FAST
489
FAST
ness of Judaea, in which all true fasting finds its mean- ing (Matt, iv, 1, 2).
After the exile private fasts became ver}' frequent (Lightfoot, p. 318), awaiting the call of no special oc- casion, Ijut entering as a regular part of the current religious worship (Sueton. Avr/. 76; Tacit. Hist, v, 4, 3). In Judith viii, G we read that Judith fasted all the days of her widowhood, "save the eves of the sabbaths, and tlie sabbaths, and the eves of the new moons, and tlie new moons, and the feasts and the solemn days of tha house of Israel." In Tobit xii prayer is de- clared to be good with fasting ; see also Luke ii, 37 ; Matt, ix, 14. The parable of tlig Pharisee and Publi- can (Luke xviii, 9; comp. Matt, ix, 14) shows how much the Pharisees were given to voluntary and pri- vate fasts — " I fast twice a week." The tirst was on the fifth day of the week, on which Closes ascended to the top of Mount Sinai; the second was on the sec- ond daj^ on which he came dowij (Taanith, ii, 0; Hi- eros. Megillah, 75, 1). Tliis bi-weekly fasting has also been adopted in the Christian Churcli ; but Monday and Thursday were changed to Wednesday and Friday (^ferid quarta et sextii), as commemorative of the be- trayal and crucifixion of Christ. Of a similar semi- occasional character was the First-born sons'' fast (^123 r"^;"!^), on the day preceding the feast of Pass- over, in commemoration of the fact that while God on that occasion smote all the first-born of the Egyptians, lie spared those of the house of Israel (comp. Exod. xii, 29, etc. ; Soj^herim, xxi, 3). See Fiust-borx. The Essenes and the Therapeutaj also were much given to such observances (Philo, Vit. Contemfl. p. G13 ; Euseb. Prcpp. Evan, ix, 3). Fasts were considered a useful exercise in preparing the mind for special religious impressions; as in Dan. x, 2 sq. (see also Acts xiii, 3; xiv, 23). From Matt, xvii, 21 : " Howbeit this kind (of dromons) goeth not out l)Ut by praj'er and fasting," it would appear that the practice under consideration was considered in the days of Christ to act in certain special cases as an exorcism.
Fasting (as stated above) was accompanied \yy the ordinar}' signs of grief among the Israelites, as may be seen in 1 Mace, iii, 47. The abstinence was either partial or total. In the case of the latter food was en- tirely foregone, but this ordinarily took place only in fasts of short duration ; and abstinence from food in Eastern climes is more easy and less detrimental (if not in some cases positively useful) than keei)ing from food would be with us in these cold, damp Northern regions (Esth. iv, IG). In the case of partial absti- nence the time was longer, the denial in degree less. When Daniel (x, 2) was " mourning three full weeks," he ate no '■^■pleasant bread, neither came Jksh nor wine in his mouth." There does not appear to have been any fixed and recognised periods during which these fasts endured. From one day to forty days fasts were observed. The latter period appears to have been re- garded with feelings of peculiar sanctity, owing, doubt- less, to tlie above instances in Jewisli liistory. There are monographs, entitled Be f'Juniu Hehrcr.orum, bv Opitz (Kil. 1G80), Peringer (Holm. 1684), and Lund (Abose, 1C96).
II. In Nev) Testament. — We have already seen how qualified the sanction was which Bloses gave to the observance of fasting as a religious duty. In the same spirit wliich actuated him, the prophets bore testimony against the lamentable abuses to which the iiractic'e ■was turned in the lapse of time and witli tlie increase of social corruption (Isa. Iviii, 4 sq. ; Jer. xiv, 12; Zech. vii, 5). Continuing the same species of influ- ence and perfecting tliat spirituality in religion whicli Moses began, our Lord rebuked the Pharisees sternh' for their outward and hypocritical pretences in the fasts which they observed (Matt, vi, IG sq.), and actu- ally abstained from appointing any fast whatever as a part of his own religion. In Matt, ix, 14, the question