Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/455

 The Principles of Fasting. 4 1 3

a fast once in vogue among the Jews on these occasions, but afterwards regarded as an illegitimate rite.^ Hooker long ago observed in his Ecclesiastical Polity that " it may be a question whether in some sort they did not always fast upon the Sabbath." He refers to a state- ment of Josephus, according to which the sixth hour " was wont on the Sabbath always to call them home unto meat," and to certain pagan writers who upbraided them with fasting on that day.'^ In Nehemiah there is an indication that it was a custom to fast on the first day of the seventh month,^ which is ** holy unto the Lord";^ and on the tenth day of the same month there was the great fast of atonement, combined with abstin- ence from every kind of work.^ I venture to think that all these fasts may be ultimately traced to a belief that the changes in the moon not only are unfavourable for work, but also make it dangerous to partake of food. The fact of the seventh day being a day of rest estab- lished the number seven as a sabbatical number. In the seventh month there are several days, besides Saturdays, which are to be observed as days of rest,'^ and in the seventh year there shall be " a sabbath of rest unto the land.'"^ In these Sabbatarian regulations the day of atone- ment plays a particularly prominent part. The severest punishment is prescribed for him who does not rest and

^ See Jaslrow, loc. cil. p. 325.

2 Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, v. 72 (1830), vol. ii. 338.

^Nehemiah, viii. 2, 10: — "Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared."

^ Ibid. viii. 6 sqq. See also Leviticus, xxiii. 24 sq.; Numbers, xxix. I. Among the Babylonians, too, the seventh month had a sacred character (Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 681, 683, 686).

'^Leviticus, xvi. 29, 31; xxiii. 27 sqq. Numbers, xxix. 7.

^Leviticus, xxiii. 24, 25, 35, 36, 39. Numbers, xxix. I, 12, 35.

^ Leviticus, xxv. 4. See also Exodus, xxiii. 10 sq.