Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/461

 The Principles of Fasting. 419

threatened, when a great calamity befell the land, when pestilence raged or drought set in, or there was a reverse in war.^ Four regular fast-days were established in com- memoration of various sad events that had befallen Israel during the captivity;" and in the course of time many other fasts were added, in memory of certain national troubles, though they were not regarded as obligatory.^ The law itself enjoined fasting for the great day of atonement only.

It may be asked why this particular kind of self- mortification became such a frequent and popular form of penance as it did both in Judaism and in several other religions. One reason is, no doubt, that fasting is a natural expression of contrition, owing to the depress- ing effect which sorrow has upon the appetite. Another reason is that the idea of penitence, as we have just observed, may be a later interpretation put upon a fast which originally sprang from fear of contamination. When an act is supposed to be connected with super- natural danger, the evil (real or imaginary) resulting from it is readily interpreted as a sign of divine anger, and the act itself is regarded as being forbidden by a god. If then the abstinence from it implies suffering, as is in some degree the case with fasting, the conclusion is drawn that the god delights in such suffering. The same inference is, moreover, made from the fact that such abstinence is enjoined in connection with religious worship, though the primary motive for this injunction was fear of pollution. Nay, even when fasting is resorted to as a cure in the case of distress or danger, as also when it is practised in commemora- tion of a calamity, there may be a vague belief that the food is polluted and should therefore be avoided.

^Judges, XX. 26. I Samuel, vii. 6. 2 Chronicles, xx. 3. Nehemiah, ix. I. /eremiah, xxxvi. 9. Joel, i. 14 ; ii. 12.

"^ Zechariah, viii. 19. -'Greenstone, \n Jewish Encyclopedia, v. 347.