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enee, but it is also possible that the fact was borne in mind that Cfajist lay forty hours in the tomb. On the other hand just as Pentecost (the fifty days) was a period during which Christians were j oy ous and praved 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 neces- sarily a period in which the faitliful fasted every day. Still, this principle was differently understood in dif- ferent localities, and great divergences of practice were the result. In Rome, in the fifth century, Lent lasted six weeks, but according to the historian Soc- rates there were only three weeks of actual fasting, exclusive even then of the Saturdav and Sunday, and, tf Duchesne's view may be trusted these weeks were not continuous, but were the first, the fourth, and the sixth of the series, being connected with the ordina- tions (Christian Worship, 213). Possibly, however, these three weeks had to do with the "scrutinies preparatory to Baptism (a. v.), for by some author- ities (e. g., A. J. Maclean in his " Recent Discoveries") the duty of fasting along with the candidate for bap- tism is put forward as the chief influence at work m 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 obtxiinod in Alex- andria, namely, the six weeks of Lent were only pre- paratory to a fast of exceptional severity maintamed during Holy Week. This is enjoined by the "Apos- tolic Constitutions" (V, xiii), and presupposed by St. Chrysostom (Horn, xxx in (jien.. i). But the number forty t having once established itself, produced other modifications. It seemed to many necessary that there should not only bo fasting during forty days but forty actual fasting days. Thus we find ^theria in her " Peregrinatio "speaking of a I/Cnt of eight weeks in all observed at Jerusalem, which, remcml>ering 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 (Am- brose, "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 bein^ ap- proximately 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 W^ednesday, but the ('hurch 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 I^ent speaks of "sacrifi- cium quadragesimalis initii", the sacrifice of the open- ing of Lent. Neither was. there originally less diver- gence regarding the nature of the favSt. For example, the historian ^crates (Hist. EccL, 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 fiving creatures eat of fish only. Others eat birds as well as fish, because, according to the Mosaic ac- count of the Creation, they too sprang from the water; others abstain from fruit covered with a hard shell and from eggs. Some eat dry bread only, others not even that; otJiers again when they have fasted to the ninth hour (three o?clock) partake of various kinds of food." .\mid this diversity some inclined to the extreme limits of rigour. Epiphanius, Palladius, and the au- thor of the " Life of St. Melania the Younger" seem to contemplate a st&te of things in which ordinary Christians were expected to pass twent v-four hours or more without food of any kind, especially during Holy

Week, while the more austere actually subsisted dur> ing part or the whole of Lent upon one or two meals 8 week (see RampoUa, "Vita di S. Melania Giuniore", appendix xxv, p. 478). But the ordinary rule on fast>- ing 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 xerophaaiay i. e. a diet of dry food, bread, salt, and vegetables. There does not seem at the beginning to have been any prohibition of laciiciniaf 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 con- sisting of " a little bread, a hen's egg, and a little milk mixed with water" (Hist. EccL, III, xxiii), while Theodulphus of Orl^ns in the eighth century re- garded 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 conunon law of the Church. Still exceptions were admitted, and dis- pensations to eat " lacticinia" were often granted upon condition of making a contribution to some pious work. These dispensations were known in Germany as Butlerhrie/e, and several churches are said to have been partly built by the proceeds of such exemptions. 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 panc-akes on Shrove Tuesday.

Relaxations of tfie Lenten Fast. — From 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 Sundavs. From the beginning to the end of that time all Aesh meat, and also, for the most part, "lacticinia", were forbidden even on Sun- days, while on all the fasting days only one meal was taken, which single meal was not permitted before evening. At a ver3r 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 re- past at 2 p. m. This gradual anticipation of the hour of dinner was facilitated by the fact that the canon- ical 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 after- noon, 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 beginninj^ at midday, and this point of view is perpetuated m our word noony 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 Ves- pers in Lent may be said at midday. In this way, al- though 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 usaf;e, pronounced that a man who took his dinner at mid- day did not break the lenten fast. Still more material was the relaxation afforded by the introduction of