Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/463

 The Principles of Fasting. 421

of the fast-day is in the amount of charity distributed " ; ^ but fasting was sometimes declared to be even more meritorious than charity, because the former affects the body and the latter the purse only.^ And from Judaism this combination of fasting and almsgiving passed over into Christianity and Muhammedanism. According to Islam, it is a religious duty to give alms after a fast;^ if a person through the infirmity of old age is not able to keep the fast, he must feed a poor person;^ and the violation of an inconsiderate oath may be expiated either by once feeding or clothing ten poor men, or liberating a Muhammedan slave or captive, or fasting three days.^ In the Christian Church fasting was not only looked upon as a necessary accompaniment of prayer, but what- ever a person saved by means of it was to be given to the poor.^ St. Augustine says that man's righteousness in this life consists in fasting, alms, and prayer, that alms and fasting are the two wings which enable his prayer to fly upward to GodJ But fasting without almsgiving " is not so much as counted for fasting " ; ^ that which

^ Berakhoth, fol. 6 b, quoted by Greenstone, in Jewish Encyclopedia, V. 349.

"^ Berakhoth, fol. 32 b, quoted by Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud, p. 124.

" Sell, op. cit. p. 251, ^

'^ Ibid. p. 281. This opinion is based on a sentence in the Koran (ii. 180) which has caused a great deal of dispute. It is said there that "those who are fit to fast may redeem it by feeding a poor man." But the expression "those who are fit to fast" has been understood to mean those who can do so only with great difficulty.

^ Koran, v. 91. Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 313 si/. See also Koran, ii. 192 ; iv. 94 ; v. 96 ; Iviii. 5.

^Harnack, History of Dogma, i. 205, n. 5. Low, op. cit. i. 108.

'St. Augustine, Enarratio in Psalmum XLII. 8 (Migne, Patrologice cursus, xxxvi. 482).

8 St. Chrysostom, In Matthaum Homil. LXXVII. {al. LXXVIII.), 6 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, Iviii. 710). St. Augustine, Sermones supposititii, cxlii. 2, 6 (Migne, xxxix. 2023 j(/.).