Origin of the word
The Teutonic word Lent, which we employ to denote the forty days' fast preceding Easter, originally meant no more than the spring season. Still it has been used from the Anglo-Saxon period to translate the more significant Latin term quadragesima (French carême, Italian quaresima, Spanish cuaresma), meaning the "forty days", or more literally the "fortieth day". This in turn imitated the Greek name for Lent, tessarakoste (fortieth), a word formed on the analogy of Pentecost (pentekoste), which last was in use for the Jewish festival before New Testament times. This etymology, as we shall see, is of some little importance in explaining the early developments of the Easter fast.
Origin of the custom
Some of the Fathers as early as the fifth century supported the view that this forty days' fast was of Apostolic institution. For example, St. Leo (d. 461) exhorts his hearers to abstain that they may "fulfill with their fasts the Apostolic institution of the forty days" — ut apostolica institutio quadraginta dierum jejuniis impleatur (P.L., LIV, 633), and the historian Socrates (d. 433) and St. Jerome (d. 420) use similar language (P.G., LXVII, 633; P.L., XXII, 475).
But the best modern scholars are almost unanimous in rejecting this view, for in the existing remains of the first three centuries we find both considerable diversity of practice regarding the fast before Easter and also a gradual process of development in the matter of its duration. The passage of primary importance is one quoted by Eusebius (Church History V.24) from a letter of St. Irenaeus to Pope Victor in connection with the Easter controversy. There Irenaeus says that there is not only a controversy about the time of keeping Easter but also regarding the preliminary fast. "For", he continues, "some think they ought to fast for one day, others for two days, and others even for several, while others reckon forty hours both of day and night to their fast". He also urges that this variety of usage is of ancient date, which implies that there could have been no Apostolic tradition on the subject. Rufinus, who translated Eusebius into Latin towards the close of the fourth century, seems so to have punctuated this passage as to make Irenaeus say that some people fasted for forty days. Formerly some difference of opinion existed as to the proper reading, but modern criticism (e.g., in the edition of Schwartz commissioned by the Berlin Academy) pronounces strongly in favor of the text translated above. We may then fairly conclude that Irenaeus about the year 190 knew nothing of any Easter fast of forty days.
And there is the same silence observable in all the pre-Nicene
Fathers, though many had occasion to mention such an
Apostolic institution if it had existed. We may note for example that there is no mention of Lent in
St. Dionysius of Alexandria (ed. Feltoe, 94 sqq.) or in the
"Didascalia", which
Funk attributes to about the yearkú yet both speak diffusely of the
paschal fast.
Further, there seems much to suggest that the
Church in the
Apostolic Age designed to commemorate the
Resurrection of Christ, not by an annual, but by a weekly celebration (see "The Month", April 1910, 337 sqq.). If this be so, the
Sunday liturgy constituted the weekly memorial of the
Resurrection, and the Friday
fast that of the
Death of Christ. Such a theory offers a natural explanation of the wide divergence which we find existing in the latter part of the second century regarding both the proper time for keeping
Easter, and also the manner of the
paschal fast.
Christians were at one regarding the weekly observance of the
Sunday and the Friday, which was primitive, but the annual
Easter festival was something superimposed by a process of natural development, and it was largely influenced by the conditions locally existing in the different
Churches of the
East and
West. Moreover, with the
Easter festival there seems also to have established itself a preliminary
fast, not as yet anywhere exceeding a week in duration, but very severe in character, which
commemorated the Passion, or more generally, "the days on which the
bridegroom was taken away".
Be this as it may, we find in the early years of the fourth century the first mention of the term tessarakoste. It occurs in the fifth
canon of the
Council of Nicea (A.D. 325), where there is only question of the proper time for celebrating a
synod, and it is conceivable that it may refer not to a period but to a definite
festival, e.g., the
Feast of the Ascension, or the
Purification, which Ætheria calls quadragesimæ de
Epiphania. But we have to remember that the older word, pentekoste (
Pentecost) from meaning the fiftieth day, had come to denote the whole of the period (which we should call
Paschal Time) between
Easter Sunday and
Whit-Sunday (cf.
Tertullian,
On Idolatry 14, — "pentecosten implere non poterunt"). In any case it is certain from the "Festal Letters" of
St. Athanasius that in 331 the
saint enjoined upon his flock a period of forty days of
fasting preliminary to, but not inclusive of, the stricter
fast of
Holy Week, and secondly that in 339 the same
Father, after having traveled to
Rome and over the greater part of
Europe, wrote in the strongest terms to urge this observance upon the people of
Alexandria as one that was universally practiced, "to the end that while all the world is
fasting, we who are in
Egypt should not become a laughing-stock as the only people who do not
fast but take our pleasure in those days". Although
Funk formerly maintained that a Lent of forty days was not known in the
West before the time of
St. Ambrose, this is evidence which cannot be set aside.
Duration of the fastIn determining this period of forty days the example of
Moses,
Elias, and
Christ must have exercised a predominant influence, but it is also possible that the fact was borne in mind that
Christ lay forty hours in the
tomb. On the other hand just as
Pentecost (the fifty days) was a period during which
Christians were
joyous and
prayed standing, though they were not always engaged in such
prayer, so the
Quadragesima (the forty days) was originally a period marked by
fasting, but not necessarily a period in which the
faithful fasted every day. Still, this principle was differently understood in different localities, and great divergences of practice were the result. In
Rome, in the fifth century, Lent lasted six weeks, but according to the historian
Socrates there were only three weeks of actual
fasting, exclusive even then of the Saturday and
Sunday and if Duchesne's view may be trusted, these weeks were not continuous, but were the first, the fourth, and sixth of the series, being connected with the ordinations (Christian Worship, 243). Possibly, however, these three weeks had to do with the
"scrutinies" preparatory to
Baptism, for by some authorities (e.g., A.J. Maclean in his "Recent Discoveries") the
duty of
fasting along with the candidate for
baptism is put forward as the chief influence at work in the development of the forty days. But throughout the
Orient generally, with some few exceptions, the same arrangement prevailed as
St. Athanasius's "Festal Letters" show us to have obtained in
Alexandria, namely, the six weeks of Lent were only preparatory to a
fast of exceptional severity maintained during
Holy Week. This is enjoined by the
"Apostolic Constitutions" (V.13), and presupposed by
St. Chrysostom (Hom. xxx in Gen., I). But the number forty, having once established itself, produced other modifications. It seemed to many necessary that there should not only be
fasting during the forty days but forty actual
fasting days. Thus we find Ætheria in her "Peregrinatio" speaking of a Lent of eight weeks in all observed at
Jerusalem, which, remembering that both the Saturday and
Sunday of ordinary weeks were exempt, gives five times eight, i.e., forty days for
fasting. On the other hand, in many localities people were content to observe no more than a six weeks' period, sometimes, as at
Milan,
fasting only five days in the week after the
oriental fashion (
Ambrose, "De Elia et Jejunio", 10). In the time of
Gregory the Great (590-604) there were apparently at
Rome six weeks of six days each, making thirty-six
fast days in all, which
St. Gregory, who is followed therein by many
medieval writers, describes as the spiritual
tithing of the year, thirty-six days being approximately the tenth part of three hundred and sixty-five. At a later date the wish to realize the exact number of forty days led to the practice of beginning Lent upon our present
Ash Wednesday, but the
Church of Milan, even to this day, adheres to the more primitive arrangement, which still betrays itself in the
Roman Missal when the
priest in the
Secret of the Mass on the first
Sunday of Lent speaks of "sacrificium quadragesimalis initii", the
sacrifice of the opening of Lent.
Nature of the fast
Neither was there originally less divergence regarding the nature of the
fast. For example, the historian
Socrates (
Church History V.22) tells of the practice of the fifth century: "Some
abstain from every sort of creature that has
life, while others of all the living creatures eat of fish only. Others eat birds as well as fish, because, according to the
Mosaic account of the Creation, they too sprang from the water; others
abstain from fruit covered by a hard shell and from eggs. Some eat dry bread only, others not even that; others again when they have
fasted to the ninth hour (three o'clock) partake of various kinds of food". Amid this diversity some inclined to the extreme limits of rigor.
Epiphanius,
Palladius, and the author of the "Life of St. Melania the Younger" seem to contemplate a state of things in which ordinary
Christians were expected to pass twenty-four hours or more without food of any kind, especially during
Holy Week, while the more austere actually subsisted during part or the whole of Lent upon one or two meals a week (see Rampolla, "Vita di. S. Melania Giuniore", appendix xxv, p. 478). But the ordinary rule on
fasting days was to take but one meal a day and that only in the evening, while meat and, in the early centuries, wine were entirely forbidden. During
Holy Week, or at least on
Good Friday it was common to enjoin the xerophagiæ, i.e., a diet of dry food, bread, salt, and vegetables.
There does not seem at the beginning to have been any prohibition of lacticinia, as the passage just quoted from
Socrates would show. Moreover, at a somewhat later date,
Bede tells us of
Bishop Cedda, that during Lent he took only one meal a day consisting of "a little bread, a hen's egg, and a little milk mixed with water" (
Church History III.23), while
Theodulphus of Orleans in the eighth century regarded
abstinence from eggs, cheese, and fish as a mark of exceptional
virtue. None the less
St. Gregory writing to
St. Augustine of England laid down the rule, "We
abstain from flesh meat, and from all things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese, and eggs." This decision was afterwards enshrined in the
"Corpus Juris", and must be regarded as the
common law of the
Church. Still exceptions were admitted, and
dispensations to eat "lacticinia" were often granted upon condition of making a contribution to some pious work. These
dispensations were known in
Germany as Butterbriefe, and several
churches are said to have been partly built by the proceeds of such exceptions. One of the steeples of
Rouen cathedral was for this reason formerly known as the Butter Tower. This general prohibition of eggs and milk during Lent is perpetuated in the popular custom of
blessing or making gifts of eggs at
Easter, and in the
English usage of eating pancakes on
Shrove Tuesday.
Relaxations of the lenten fastFrom what has been said it will be clear that in the early
Middle Ages Lent throughout the greater part of the
Western Church consisted of forty weekdays, which were all
fast days, and six
Sundays. From the beginning to the end of that time all flesh meat, and also, for the most part, "lacticinia", were forbidden even on
Sundays, while on all the
fasting days only one meal was taken, which single meal was not permitted before evening. At a very early period, however (we find the first mention of it in
Socrates), the practice began to be tolerated of breaking the
fast at the hour of
none, i.e., three o'clock. We learn in particular that
Charlemagne, about the year 800, took his lenten repast at 2 p.m. This gradual anticipation of the hour of dinner was facilitated by the fact that the
canonical hours of
none,
vespers, etc., represented rather periods than fixed points of time. The ninth hour, or
none, was no
doubt strictly three o'clock in the afternoon, but the
Office of
none might be recited as soon as
sext, which, of course, corresponded to the sixth hour, or midday, was finished. Hence
none in course of
time came to be regarded as beginning at midday, and this point of view is perpetuated in our word noon which means midday and not three o'clock in the afternoon. Now the hour for breaking the
fast during Lent was after
Vespers (the evening service), but by a gradual process the recitation of
Vespers was more and more anticipated, until the principle was at last officially recognized, as it is at present, that
Vespers in lent may be said at midday. In this way, although the author of the
"Micrologus" in the eleventh century still declared that those who took food before evening did not observe the lenten
fast according to the
canons (P.L., CLI, 1013), still, even at the close of the thirteenth century, certain theologians, for example the Franciscan Richard Middleton, who based his decision in part upon contemporary usage, pronounced that a
man who took his dinner at midday did not break the lenten
fast.
Still more material was the relaxation afforded by the introduction of "collation". This seems to have begun in the ninth century, when the
Council of Aix la Chapelle sanctioned the concession, even in
monastic houses, of a draught of water or other beverage in the evening to quench the thirst of those who were exhausted by the manual labor of the day. From this small beginning a much larger indulgence was gradually evolved. The principle of parvitas materiae, i.e., that a small quantity of nourishment which was not taken directly as a meal did not break the
fast, was adopted by
St. Thomas Aquinas and other
theologians, and in the course of centuries a recognized quantity of solid food, which according to received authorities must not exceed eight ounces, has come to be permitted after the midday repast. As this evening drink, when first tolerated in the ninth-century
monasteries, was taken at the hour at which the "Collationes" (Conferences) of
Abbot Cassian were being read aloud to the brethren, this slight indulgence came to be known as a "collation", and the name has continued since.
Other mitigations of an even more substantial character have been introduced into lenten observance in the course of the last few centuries. To begin with, the custom has been tolerated of taking a cup of liquid (e.g., tea or coffee, or even chocolate) with a fragment of bread or toast in the early morning. But, what more particularly regards Lent, successive
indults have been granted by the
Holy See allowing meat at the principal meal, first on
Sundays, and then on two, three, four, and five weekdays, throughout nearly the whole of Lent. Quite recently,
Maundy Thursday, upon which meat was hitherto always forbidden, has come to share in the same indulgence. In the
United States, the
Holy See grants faculties whereby working men and their
families may use flesh meat once a day throughout the year, except Fridays,
Ash Wednesday,
Holy Saturday, and the
vigil of
Christmas. The only compensation imposed for all these mitigations is the prohibition during Lent against partaking of both fish and flesh at the same repast. (See
ABSTINENCE;
FAST;
CANONICAL IMPEDIMENTS;
LAETARE SUNDAY;
SEPTUAGESIMA;
SEXAGESIMA;
QUINQUAGESIMA;
QUADRAGESIMA;
VESTMENTS).
~~~fav pic yg sa capture on dat day~~~
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