Fast

Fast (a word common to the Teutonic tongues, which Grimm derives from a root signifying primarily to hold, keep, observe, and hence to restrain one's self; Lat. jejunium, Gr. nêstcia, Heb. tsom) is the word used to express a certain self-imposed restraint with respect to the nourishment of the body. The abstinence enforced may be either partial, when the restriction is confined to certain articles of food, or total, when all sustenance is dispensed with for a specified time. The origin of the custom seems to be coeval with man's first experience of the salutary influence which abstinence exercises on the health, and with his more or less instinctive consciousness of the necessity of retaining the body in due subjection to the soul. By degrees, the self-mortification which it implied raised it into a sacrifice offered to the Deity; it became a religious observance, was surrounded with rites and ceremonies, and finally bore the stamp of a divine law. Climate, the habits of a people, and their creed gave it at different periods different characteristics; but it may be pronounced to have been a recognised institution with all the more civilised nations, especially those of Asia, throughout all historic times. We find it in high estimation among the ancient Persians of Iran. It formed a prominent feature in the ceremonies of the Mysteries of Mithras, and found its way, together with these, over Armenia and Asia Minor, to Palestine, and northward to the wilds of Scythia. The ancient Hindus, in accordance with their primeval view—which they held in common with the Parsees—of heaven and hell, salvation and damnation, of the transmigration of the soul, and of the body as the temporary prison of a fallen spirit, carried fasting to an unnatural excess. Egypt seems to have had few or no compulsory general fasts; but it is established beyond doubt that for the initiation into the mysteries of Isis and Osiris temporary abstinence was rigorously enforced. (For Buddhist usages, see BUDDHISM.) That Greece observed and gave a high place to occasional fast-days, such as the third day of the festival of the Eleusinian mysteries, and that, for instance, those who came to consult the oracle of Trophonius had to abstain from food for twenty-four hours, is well known. It need hardly be added that the Romans did not omit so important an element of the festivals and ceremonies which they adopted from their neighbours, though with them the periods of fasting were of less frequent recurrence.

As to the Semitic races, although we find the people of Nineveh undergoing occasional fasts, to which even animals were made to conform, yet the Mosaic law set apart one day only in the whole year for the purpose of fasting. The 10th day of the seventh month (Tishri), called 'the Day of Atonement' (Yom Kippur), or, as the holiest of the whole year, 'the Sabbath of Sabbaths,' was ordained for 'the chastening of the Nephesh,' which the traditional law explains as meaning the strictest and most rigorous abstinence from all food or drink, as also from washing, anointing, the putting on of sandals, &c., from the sunset of the ninth to the rising of three stars on the evening of the tenth day. In process of time, five days of compulsory fasting were added, in commemoration of certain days of humiliation and national misfortune—viz. the 17th of the fourth month (Tamus), as the anniversary of the taking of Jerusalem both by Nebuchadnezzar and Titus; the 3d of the seventh month (Tishri), when Ishmael had killed Gedaliah, the Jewish governor appointed by the Babylonians; the 10th of the tenth month (Tebeth), in remembrance of the siege of Nebuchadnezzar; the 13th of the twelfth month (Adar), the fast of Esther, and the day most rigorously kept next to the great Day of Atonement; and the 9th of the fifth month (Ab), the anniversary of the destruction of the first temple by Nebuchadnezzar and of the second by Titus. The community loved to express their penitence for sin, or their grief on the death of great men, by occasional fastings, which were also considered an efficient means of averting the divine wrath, of insuring victory over an enemy, or of bringing down rain from heaven. Besides, fasting was not unfrequently resorted to by those who wished to free their minds from all hindrances to meditation, as in the forty days of Moses (Exod. xxxiv. 28), or the fast of Daniel. In later times, when, after the destruction of the temple, sacrifices had ceased, fasting, as causing a decrease in the flesh and fat of the individual, was considered to be in some degree a substitute for the animal which had formerly been offered up by the priest. From a means to repentance and inward purification, it became an end and a virtue in itself, an abuse, indeed, neither unknown nor undenounced even in the days of the prophets. Many new fasts were superadded from time to time, but they soon fell into oblivion; and over and above the six already mentioned but few entire days are now observed by the orthodox, and these merely of a local character. Fasting, with the Jews, always implies entire abstinence, and lasts, except on the Day of Atonement and the 9th of Ab—when the sunset of the previous evening is the sign for its commencement—from the break of the day to the appearance of the first three stars. Sackcloth and ashes, the garb of the penitent in ancient times, are no longer worn; but the deepest mourning is visibly expressed by many ceremonies in the Jewish synagogues and homes on the 9th of Ab. Several half-days of fasting have also survived. The individual is bound to celebrate by fasting the anniversary of the death of his parents, his own wedding-day until the performance of the marriage-ceremony, and the birth of his first-born male child (up to its thirteenth year, when the duty falls upon the latter himself), and on the day preceding the Pesach (Pascha), in commemoration of the sparing of the Israelite first-born in Egypt. The Sabbath causes the postponement of any fast—that of the Day of Atonement and the Fast of Esther excepted—which happens to coincide with it; and children—girls up to their twelfth, boys to their thirteenth year—women with child, and the sick are exempted from the observance.

In the time of Christ, fasting, as we have seen, was held in high estimation. The Mondays and Thursdays—the market-days, on which the judges sat, and the law was read in the synagogues—were especially set aside for this purpose by the Pharisees. The Essenes fasted even more frequently. The Sadducees alone took exception to this rite, and were therefore considered ungodly. Christ himself neither approved nor disapproved of the custom, but, as in all matters of ceremony, allowed his disciples, Jews and Gentiles, to act according or contrary to their old habits. He is distinctly against such a commandment, and even excuses those who did not fast; his own abstinence from food for forty days was like that of Moses, entirely an individual act. Roman Catholics maintain that all the words of our Lord, which to Protestants appear to discountenance the obligation of fasting, are directed exclusively against the ostentatious and self-reliant fasts of the Pharisees. They even understand the language which he used in condemning the practice of the Pharisee fasters as containing a direct exhortation to his own disciples—not that they should abstain from fasting, but that they should fast with suitable dispositions. They hold, moreover, that in exempting his disciples from fasting he had regard only to the actual time of his own presence among them. It was incongruous, he said, that the children of the marriage should fast as long as the bridegroom was with them; but, he added, 'the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days' (Mark, ii. 20; Matt. ix. 15). Hence they infer that from the time of our Lord's ascension the practice of fasting became obligatory on his disciples, the temporary cause of the exemption hitherto existing having ceased.

During the first centuries of Christianity voluntary fasts were frequent enough; and fasts were considered a befitting preparation for holy acts and feasts, for ordination and baptism. An annual fast generally observed by all from a very early date was that of the forty hours, from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, during which Christ lay in the sepulchre. But during the first six centuries the difference in the various Christian communities in this matter was very great. The Montanist heretics were especially rigorous in their fasts. Bishops and councils gradually fixed the times and seasons for the whole of Christendom. The forty hours had gradually become forty days, called the Quadragesima; and the Council of Orleans in 541 made it binding upon every Christian not to eat any meat during this time, save only on the Sundays. The eighth council at Toledo in the 7th century declared those who ate meat during Lent sinners unworthy to partake in the resurrection. From the 8th century to the 11th, when a gradual reaction set in, the laws of fasting and the punishments awarded to the transgressors became stricter and stricter; interdict and excommunication were among the penalties. By degrees fasts had become so numerous and different in kind that they were divided into—(1) Jejunium generale (a fast binding for all); (2) Consuetudinarium (local fast, &c.); (3) Penitentiale (atonement for all transgressions); (4) Votivum (consequent upon a vow); (5) Voluntare (for the better carrying out of an undertaking). These, again, were kept as either (1) Jejunium naturale (an entire abstinence from food or drink, especially in preparation for the reception of the Eucharist); (2) Abstinentia (certain food only being allowed, but several times a day); (3) Jejunium cum abstinentia (the same food, but which must be taken once a day only); or (4) Jejunium sine abstinentia (all kinds of food, but only once a day). The food prohibited on partial fast-days included, during certain periods, not only the flesh of quadrupeds, fowl, and fish, but also the 'lactinicia'—i.e. all that comes from quadruped and bird, as butter, eggs, milk, &c.

Fasts gradually developed in the Roman Church into—(1) Weekly fasts, of which Friday, as the day of the crucifixion, seems to have been early and generally observed. To this was added the Wednesday, as the day on which the death of Christ was resolved upon. At a synod in Spain in the beginning of the 4th century the Saturday was superadded; but this innovation met with great opposition, especially in the East. (2) Vigils, originally night-services observed by the first Christians on the eve of Sundays and festivals, partly in imitation of the Jewish custom of celebrating the entrance of the Sabbath and of festivals on the evening of the previous day, and partly from fear of the danger to which a service in the daytime would have exposed the early converts. Although these night-services became unnecessary in the course of time, they were still continued up to the 4th century, when, owing to the abuses to which they led, they were abolished, or rather transformed into fast-days, kept on the eve of great festivals in honour of Christ, the Virgin, Saints, and Apostles. (3) The great or forty days' fast (Quadragesimal fast), the most important and most rigorously enforced of all. The forty hours of fast, in commemoration of the forty hours during which Christ's body lay in the tomb, gradually expanded to forty days, as mentioned before, in pious allusion to the forty days of Moses, Elijah, Christ, the forty years' sojourn in the desert, or the forty camps—all considered typical; and the fasting became severer the nearer Passion-week itself approached, in which many other signs of mourning and contrition were generally exhibited. (4) The Quatermonth fasts on the Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays in one week of each season, in imitation of the four Jewish fasts in the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months.—There were still many other fasts, such as those of ordination, &c., but these had only a temporary existence, and do not fall to be treated here. Nor can we enter into the various dispensations granted by the church, or the special pastoral letters generally issued before Quadragesima, nor into the variations in the observance of fasts and fasting in our own days; we can only add that they have in a great measure lost their former severity, and that only partial abstinence is the rule in all cases. More must not be taken than one full meal, and that not before mid-day, nor consisting of flesh meat. Besides this a collation of about eight ounces of fruit, vegetables, bread, or small fishes may be taken. The modern meaning of this word was originally due to the slight refreshment in the ancient monastic discipline, taken just before the reading of the 'collations'—i.e. conferences (of Cassian) and such other works. In spite of its diminution of the former severity in the practice of fasting, the opinion of the church held in former days, that fasting is meritorious and conducive to the salvation of the soul, has undergone no change.

In the Greek Church fasting was and is kept with much greater severity, the non-observance of it being the least venial of sins. The days here extend over almost three-quarters of the year. The principal ones are the Wednesdays and Fridays—with a few exceptions—throughout the whole year; the great Easter fast lasting forty-eight days; that of Christmas, thirty-nine days; that in honour of the Virgin, fourteen days; and that of the Apostles, beginning on Monday after Trinity, and extending to the 29th of June. Besides those smaller fasts of preparation, which correspond to the vigils of the Roman Church, they have many more occasional fasts, which we, however, must omit here.

The Church of England considers fasting a praiseworthy but by no means obligatory custom. Hook, in his Church Dictionary, explains the distinction between the Protestant and the Roman Catholic view of fasting as consisting in this, that the Roman Catholic regards the use of fasting as an imperative means of grace, the Protestant only as a useful exercise preparatory for the means of grace. In proof how much the Church of England has left the question of fasting to the conscience and discretion of her members, it may be observed that she has neither defined the mode or degree of fasting, nor anywhere given a positive command to fast. The days named by the English Church as seasons of fasting or abstinence are the forty days of Lent (q.v.), including Ash-Wednesday and Good Friday; the Ember (q.v.) days; the three Rogation (q.v.) days; all the Fridays in the year (unless Christmas Day fall on one); and the eves or vigils of certain festivals.

The sacramental fast-days so long observed in Scotland are now falling into disuse, and are already completely discontinued in such cities as Glasgow (1886) and Edinburgh (1887). The Scotch fast-day was instituted as a day for 'fasting, humiliation, and prayer,' and always fell upon some day of the week preceding the yearly or half-yearly Communion Sunday, or Sunday set apart in the Presbyterian churches for the dispensation of the Lord's Supper. It was observed exactly as a Sunday, with sermons in the churches and the complete cessation of business.

In the United Kingdom, on occasion of wars and public calamities, the sovereign has from time to time appointed by proclamation a day for a solemn national fast, humiliation, and prayer—as on 21st March 1855 (the Crimean war), and 7th October 1857 (the Indian Mutiny).

A few words remain to be said of the Mohammedan fasts. Islam, as an offspring of Judaism and Christianity, adopted this custom with many others from both churches. During the whole month of Ramadan, in which the Prophet brought the Koran from heaven, eating, drinking, smoking, smelling perfumes, &c. are strictly forbidden from daybreak till sunset; for the intervening nights, however, all these restrictions are removed. There are, besides, many voluntary fasts, expiatory like the 10th of Moharram, corresponding to the Jewish Day of Atonement, or for the averting of the divine wrath in sudden calamities, or as an indemnification for the omission of certain pious acts, as the pilgrimage, &c. See JEWS, MOHAMMEDANISM, MONACHISM, ASCETICISM.

Besides the Bible, Schulchan Aruch, Koran, and the Fathers generally, see Bingham, Origenes Ecclesiastica, vol. ix. (1708-22); Fabricius, Bibliogr. Antiquaria; Muratori, De Quatuor Temporum Jejunis, &c.; Siegel, Alchristl. Alterthümer; Walch, De Jejunio Quadragesimali (1727); Robert Nelson, Festivals and Fasts of the Church; and Liesmayr, Die Entwicklung der Christlichen Fasten-disziplin (1877).

FASTING.—By this term is meant the deprivation of food—the materials by which loss of matter and energy from the body is made good.

Food-stuffs may be divided into (1) oxygen, (2) water, (3) solid food-stuffs. For a discussion of the relationship of oxygen to the other food-stuffs, the reader is referred to the articles upon RESPIRATION, METABOLISM. There is now no doubt that it takes part in the constructive changes in the tissues, and for this reason it must be classified among the food-stuffs. Deprivation of oxygen rapidly results in death (see ASPHYXIA).

When water is withheld death occurs in the course of a few days. For the protoplasm of the tissues to undergo the chemical changes upon which its vitality depends, a certain proportion of water is essential, and when this is not present death ensues through the cessation of these changes.

It is more especially to the deprivation of solid food that the term Fasting is applied. The physiology of this condition has been most carefully studied in dogs, cats, and other of the lower animals, while one or two observations have also been accomplished in cases of voluntary fasts in man.

To understand the condition, it must be remembered that the energy required in the body is under normal conditions supplied by the various organic food-stuffs, which, entering the body in the condition of large and complex chemical molecules, are broken down and excreted as simpler bodies, and by their disintegration yield energy (see METABOLISM, NUTRITION). During fasting it is by the disintegration of the tissues of the body that the necessary energy is yielded. This energy is required not only for the production of mechanical work done by the body, but also for the production of heat, so that the temperature of the body may be maintained. Whenever, therefore, muscular exertion is severe, or when the individual is exposed to cold and has to produce large amounts of heat, then more energy must be forthcoming, and hence tissue waste is enormously increased. Whereas, if complete rest is maintained, and the animal is kept surrounded by air at a temperature approaching that of the body, the waste of tissue-substance is reduced to a minimum. From this it will be apparent that no conclusions of value with regard to the possible duration of life in the fasting state can be drawn from the records of those exposed to cold and hardships after shipwreck. It will be at once apparent that the amount of energy employed in maintaining the temperature of the body must be very much greater in warm-blooded than in cold-blooded animals. Indeed, in the latter class, where the temperature is at most only a few degrees above that of the surrounding atmosphere, waste of tissue for the production of heat is practically in abeyance. The same may also be said of hibernating animals, which may be regarded during their winter sleep as cold-blooded. For this reason, and because during certain periods their movements are by no means active, cold-blooded animals can endure very prolonged periods of inanition. In the case of some, months, and even apparently years, may pass without a cessation of the vital processes.

When we come to consider the physiology of fasting more closely, we find that the amount of waste of the various tissues of the body is by no means equal. The following figures, indicating the percentage loss of various tissues in an animal dying of starvation, are taken from Voit's article in Hermann's Handbuch der Physiologie:

We thus see that the more essential tissues feed upon the less essential, and that the fats of the body are the great source of nourishment during inanition. As long as a fair amount of fat remains in the body, the muscle can undergo its chemical changes, disintegrating and yielding energy, but always again undergoing a process of reconstruction. Whenever the fat is used up, we find that a rapid disintegration of muscle-substance without reconstruction occurs, and death rapidly ensues. The onset of this condition is indicated by a rise in the excretion of nitrogen in the Urine (q.v.). In dogs this stage is reached in about thirty days.

Jacques undertook a voluntary fast of thirty days at Edinburgh in 1888, and at London one of forty-two days in 1890, and of fifty in 1891. Succi fasted forty days in 1890.

In regard to the symptoms observed during starvation little need be said, since in most cases they are due rather to the conditions which have led to or which accompany the fast. The sensation of hunger is a prominent symptom during the earlier days, but appears to diminish. Emaciation is, of course, invariable—the skin feeling harsh and dry from the loss of subcutaneous fat. The temperature falls below the normal, and lassitude and finally torpor supervenes before death, which appears to occur simply from asthenia.

In treating such a case, food must be administered with care, in small quantities at a time, and in a digestible form.