Ans. Christ's and the Church's discipline 117 And for minds likewise, the Church well knows that there will in all ages be some babes in Christ, some young men, some fathers; some buds, some blossoms, some ripe fruits; 156 some old, some new bottles and garments. Hence it is from the Church's tenderness and condescension, and not from the uncertainty or variety of tradition, that we read in all ancient authors that variety allowed or indulged; so that though it was required of all who had strength of body to fast some days, or weeks, in those days of the Bridegroom's taking from us, in the Paschal fast, yet witness Irenæus, and Tertullian, and St. Augustine for the western Church; Dionysius bishop of Alexandria, Epiphanius of Cyprus, and Socrates for the east, there are clear records how in this Paschal fast some fasted more days or weeks, some fewer; some within the abstinence of the forty days choosing out fifteen days, in the east: others, in the west, twenty-one for more strict fasting; yet so as that from all, of both Churches, abstinence from pleasures and feasts, otherwise lawful, was expected through all the forty days, in honourable memory of the Bridegroom's own forty days' fast for us; and some days' proper fasts; whilst others also among them, as stronger vessels, held the stronger liquor of forty days' fast; and generally by all was observed continentia quadraginta dierum, as Leo the Great speaks, Serm. iii. de Quadrages.,ut ad Paschale festum quadraginta dierum se continentia præpararet populus Christianus, "that the Christian people might by some sort of abstinence through the forty days prepare themselves for the Paschal feast." Which same author yet in his very next Sermon of Lents contents himself for his auditors with three days' fast only in the week through the weeks of Lent. Our Church also prays to Him "who for our sakes did fast forty days and 157 forty nights, that He would give us grace to use such abstinence, that our flesh being subdued to the spirit, we may ever obey His godly motions," &c.; not such miraculous fasting as His. "In those days shall they fast;" our holy and tender Mother, the Church, considers her children's strength, as Christ the children of His bride-chamber: she hath her exceptions, relaxations for the sick or weak, for children and [P. 37.] [Ad fin. "Secunda―et quarta et sexta feria jejunemus.”] 118 tender and considerate throughout, aged, prisoners and labourers, women with child and travellers, and in her compassion seems even to bear about another passion with that of her own fastings of Lent. There are wont to be reckoned four reasons, which excuse from fasting: 1. impotentia corporis, 2. ex paupertate indigentia ordinaria ciborum, 3. necessitas laboris majoris, 4. pietas boni melioris; to which some add, intempestas caloris, in some regions, for some hotter months of the year: three of them the eighth Council of Toledo, can. 9. recounts, Illi vero, quos aut ætas incurvat, aut languor extenuat, aut necessitas arctat, non ante prohibita violare præsumant, quam a sacerdote permissum accipiant. The four excusations are, either bodily infirmity, or ordinary penury of diet from their poverty, or necessity of greater toil and bodily labour, or zeal of some greater good offering itself upon the dispensing with their fast; and yet even in such cases take St. Chrysostom's advertisement with you', εἰ γὰρ καὶ νηστεύειν οὐ δύνασαι, ἀλλὰ μὴ τρυφᾷν δύνασαι· οὐ μικρὸν δὲ καὶ τοῦτο·ἀλλ ̓ ἱκανὸν μὲν καὶ τοῦτο κατασπάσαι τὴν τοῦ διαβόλου μανίαν· καὶ γὰρ οὐδὲν οὕτως ἐκείνῳ τῷ δαίμονι φίλον, ὡς τρυφὴ καὶ μέθη—εἰ ἀσθενές σοι τὸ σῶμα, ὥστε νηστεύειν διηνεκώς, ἀλλ ̓ οὐκ εἰς εὐχὴν ἀσθενὲς, οὐδὲ πρὸς ὑπεροψίαν γαστρὸς ǎTOVOV "for although thou canst not fast, yet canst thou 158 forbear pampering thy body with delicacies and fulness; nor is this of little moment, but oft avails to the weakening of the devil's temptations, to whom nothing is so pleasing as epicurean diet and drunkenness.—If thou hast a weak body, so that thou canst not continue such fastings, yet happily it is not weak to prayer, nor unable certainly to despise the pleasures of the full belly." Yea, perhaps thy body's health requires rather this fasting or abstinence, as well as the Church's law and thy soul's consideration. Theodoret on Dan. i. hath well advertised us from the example of the three children, who eating pulse and drinking water instead of their appointed meat and wine, their countenances appeared fairer and faster in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meal. Theodoretk thereupon observes, I say, μεμάθηκεν ὡς δυνατὸν καὶ νη [Vid. p. 67. sup.] i [In Matt. Hom. Ivii. vol. vii. p.581.] Cap. i. 12-14. [On ver. 16. vol. ii. p. 1074.] both in the law, and the remissions of it. 119 στείᾳ χρώμενον σωματικὴν ῥώμην καὶ εὐπρέπειαν κτήσαoba "we are lessoned that bodily strength and comeliness may gain by the use of fasting." And so Chrysologus saith', est jejunium pax corporis, membrorum decus,-robur mentium, vigor animarum,-castitatis murus, pudicitiæ propugnaculum, civitas sanctitatis,-magisteri magisterium, disciplinarum disciplina, Ecclesiasticæ viæ viaticum salutare; "fasting is peace to the body, the comeliness of limbs, the strength of minds, the vigour of souls,—a wall of chastity, a sconce of purity, a city of sanctity,—the instruction of instructions, the discipline of disciplines, the salutary provision for the Church's way." 9 Likewise St. Chrysostomw, ἐπιτρίβει γὰρ ἡμῖν τὸ σῶμα πρὸς τὴν ἀσθένειαν, φησιν. ̓Απόκρ. Μᾶλλον δὲ εἰ βουληθείης μετὰ ἀκριβείας ἐξετάσαι τὸ πρᾶγμα, καὶ εὐεξίας αὐτὴν εὑρή σεις μητέρα τυγχάνουσαν· καὶ εἰ τοῖς ἐμοῖς ἀπιστεῖς λόγοις, παῖδας ἰατρῶν περὶ τούτων ἐρώτησον, καὶ αὐτοὶ ταῦτα σαφέ στερov èρoûσι "will one say, But it doth inflict upon us weakness of body. Resp. Yea rather, if thou wouldest exactly search the matter, thou wilt find it the mother of health or a good habit of body; and if thou believest not my words, ask the sons of the physicians about it, and they will tell thee these things more clearly." Isa. 58. 5. Lastly, to fast is wont to be called in Scripture, to afflict Lev. 23.29. the soul; this being the end of fasting, that such chastening by affliction of the body may afflict the lower sensitive powers of the soul, that the inferior powers of the soul being afflicted, a troubled spirit and a humbled heart thence arising in us may be a sacrifice and burnt-offering unto God. Afflict certainly thy soul thou mayst, which is the end, if thou art not able to afflict thy body, which is the means; since therefore only thou mayst not perhaps safely afflict thy body, for that it is already afflicted. Nay, this itself, that we are not happily able in body to be susceptible of so salutary a medicine as fasting, ought and is apt to be one consideration wherethrough to afflict ourselves. Therefore said God of the day of expiation to that people, among whom yet, no doubt, there were many sick and infirm in body, as thou art; "Whatso- Lev. 23.29. ever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people." Certe qui jejunare 'De Jejunio, Serm. viii. [p. 8.] m De Pænit. Hom. v. [vol. ii. p. 315.] 120 6. As uncongenial to the time of year; non potest, non præsumat inducere novitatem; sed fateatur 160 If any yet look on this duty of fasting in Lent as disagreeing to their pleasures of Spring, and therefore with sour aversion do receive this meek and gentle law of this fast, I shall anon evidence the laws of it to be an easy yoke, and meanwhile say, that God seems to complain of such refractory ch.8. ver.7. stupidity by His prophet Jeremy, "Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times, and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but My people know not the judgment of the Lord." 'O Tŵs vnστείας καιρὸς [ἡ τεσσαρακοστὴ] τὸ πνευματικὸν τῶν ψυχῶν čap, saith Chrysostom"; "the season of fasting," Lent, "is the spiritual spring of our souls;" and the same in his second Homilyr, ἐν ἡμέραις νηστειῶν ἡδοναὶ σβέννυνται, καὶ ἀρεταὶ ἀνθοῦσι, καὶ σωφροσύνης τὸ κάλλος καθαρώτατον δείκνυται and again, ἰδοὺ ἐπέστη τεσσαρακοστὴ πνευματικήν σοι κοι λυμβήθραν δεικνύουσα, οὐχ ἕνα ἐτησίῳ κύκλῳ ἄῤῥωστον ἰατρεύουσαν, ἀλλ ̓ ὁλόκληρον λαόν " in the days of the fast pleasures do die, and virtues bud forth and are in their flower, and the most pure beauty of sobriety puts forth itself.”"Behold the fast of Lent is at hand, pointing out to thee the spiritual pool which cures not one sick soul only in each year's returning, but a whole people." When God bade His 161 prophet Ezekiel to bear on his right side the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days, "I have appointed thee," saith God, "each day for a year;" or as the Hebrew and your margin hath it, "a day for a year, a day for a year.-And behold I will lay bonds upon thee, and thou shalt not turn from that side." It may be to us, for our own sins, possibly each day for a million of years, and we may well be patient of the bonds then. Add to this, that these forty days on this Ezek. 4. 6, 8. "Serm, clxvi. de Quadrages. [p. 145.] • Vol. iv. λογ. α'. ἐν ἀρχῇ τῆς τεσσαρακοστῆς. [p. 645.] P [Vol. ix. p. 795.] [Ut sup. p. 794.] Ans. It has peculiar fitness 121 side Easter of mourning for the Bridegroom's taking from us, are answered by other forty, yea fifty, following Easter, of joy for the Bridegroom's presence returned. St. Augustine', Cum labore celebramus Quadragesimam ante Pascha; cum lætitia vero tanquam acceptâ mercede quinquagesimam post Pascha; "with labour we observe the quadragesimal or forty days' fast before Easter; but with joy the fifty days' celebrity after Easter, when we receive as it were a reward"." Forty days' fast, at least abstinence from pleasures, from full and pleasur2 able diet, is a number consecrated by God in the Old and New Testament, in the law by Moses, in the prophets by Elias, in the Gospel by Christ: Moses the type of Christ's mediation, Elias of His ascension, both the figures of His forty days' fast, and both they, and only they, appear with Him in glory at His transfiguration. Moses, by whose mediatory hand the law was given, yet fasted forty days; Elias, who did not trouble Israel, but was jealous for the Lord of hosts, yet fasted forty days, and troubled his own flesh; the Lord Christ, who knew no sin, yet fasted forty days; and thou who art a sinner, yet cum Domino penitus jejunante non observas quadragesima moderata jejunia? "with the Lord fasting wholly, dost thou not observe the moderate fasts of Lent?" saith St. Ambrose. We have sinned; and forty days was the number of days of God's judgment on the old world by waters for sin; forty days' fast the second time Moses undertook, to ask pardon for the people's sin; forty years Tractat. 17. in Joan. [vid. p. 93, sup. note d.] Ambros. lib. viii. in Luc. [vol. i. p. 1476.] Majores tradidere nobis Pentecostes omnes quinquaginta dies ut Paschæ celebrandos.--Per hos quinquaginta dies jejunium nescit Ecclesia, sicut Dominica qua Dominus resurrexit, et sunt omnes dies tanquam dominica. "Our ancestors have delivered unto us all the fifty days ending in Whit-Sunday to be celebrated as" a continued "Easter. Through these fifty days the Church knows no fasting, as neither on the Lord's day, whereon the Lord rose from the dead; and these" fifty "are all as it were a Lord's day." And in Serm. Ix. [vid. p. 39. sup.] Sic enim disposuit Dominus, ut sicut ejus passione in Quadragesimæ jejuniis contristaremur, ita ejus resurrectione in quinquagesimæ feriis lætaremur. Non igitur jejunamus in hâc quinquagesimâ; quia in his diebus nobiscum Dominus commoratur; non inquam jejunamus præsente Domino, quia ipse ait: Nunquid possunt filii sponsi jejunare, quamdiu cum illis est sponsus ? "For so hath the Lord disposed, that as we are to sorrow in His Passion by the fasts of Lent, so should we from His Resurrection rejoice in the fifty days' following celebrity. In these therefore we fast not, because in these days the Lord abideth with us. We fast not, I say, the Lord being present, because Himself said, 'Can the children of the bride-chamber fast, so long as the Bridegroom is with them?"" t Serm. xxiii. de Quadragesima, [vid. Serm. xxi. and xxiii. vol. ii. Append. coll. 418, 421, sq.] |