In other Semitic religions we meet with various fasts which are in some way or other connected with astronomical changes. According to En-Nedîm, the Harranians, or “Sabians,” observed a thirty days’ fast in honour of the moon, commencing on the eighth day after the new moon of Adsâr (March); a nine days’ fast in honour of “the Lord of Good Luck” (probably Jupiter),153 commencing on the ninth day before the new moon of the first Kânûn (December); and a seven days’ fast in honour of the sun, commencing on the eighth or ninth day after the new moon of Shobâth (February).154 The thirty days’ fast seems to have implied abstinence from every kind of food and drink between sunrise and sunset,155 whereas the seven days’ fast is expressly said to have consisted in abstinence from fat and wine.156 In Manichæism—which is essentially based upon the ancient nature religion of Babylonia, though modified by Christian and Persian elements and elevated into a gnosis157—we meet with a great number of fasts. There is a continuous fast for two days when the sun is in Sagittarius (which it enters about the 22nd November) and the moon has its full light; another fast when the sun has entered Capricornus (which it does about the 21st December) and the moon first becomes visible; and a thirty days’ fast between sunrise and sunset commencing on the day “when the new moon begins to shine, the sun is in Aquarius (where it is from about the 20th January), and eight days of the month have passed,” which seems to imply that the fast cannot begin until eight days after the sun has entered Aquarius and that consequently, if the new moon appears during that period, the commencement of the fast has to be postponed till the following new moon. The Manichaeans also fasted for two days at every new moon; and our chief authority on the subject, En-Nedîm, states that they had seven fast-days in each month. They fasted on Sundays, and some of them, the electi or “perfect ones,” on Mondays also.158 We are told by Leo the Great that they observed these weekly fasts in honour of the sun and the moon;159 but according to the Armenian Bishop Ebedjesu their abstinence on Sunday was occasioned by their belief that the destruction of the world was going to take place on that day.160 There can be little doubt that the Harranian and Manichæan fasts were originally due, not to reverence, but to fear of evil influences; reverence can never be the primitive motive for a customary rite of fasting. The thirty days’ fast which the Harranians observed in the month of Adsâr finds perhaps its explanation in the fact that, according to Babylonian beliefs, the month Adar was presided over by the seven evil spirits, who knew neither compassion nor mercy, who heard no prayer or supplication, and to whose baneful influence the popular faith attributed the eclipse of the moon.161 But it may also be worth noticing that the Harranian fast took place about the vernal equinox—a time at which, as we have seen, the Brahmins of India are wont to fast, though only for a day or two.

It is highly probable that the thirty days’ fast of the Harranians and Manichæans is the prototype of the Muhammedan fast of Ramaḍân. During the whole ninth month of the Muhammedan year the complete abstinence from food, drink and cohabitation from sunrise till sunset is enjoined upon every Moslem, with the exception of young children and idiots, as also sick persons and travellers, who are allowed to postpone the fast to another time.162 This fast is said to be a fourth part of Faith, the other cardinal duties of religious practice being prayer, almsgiving, and pilgrimage. But, as a matter of fact, modern Muhammedans regard the fast of Ramaḍân as of more importance than any other religious observance;163 many of them neglect their prayers, but anybody who should openly disregard the rule of fasting would be subject to a very severe punishment.164 Even the privilege granted to travellers and sick persons is not readily taken advantage of. During their marches in the middle of summer nothing but the apprehension of death can induce the Aeneze to interrupt the fast;165 and when Burton, in the disguise of a Muhammedan doctor, was in Cairo making preparations for his pilgrimage to Mecca, he found among all those who suffered severely from such total abstinence only one patient who would eat even to save his life.166 There is no evidence that the fast of Ramaḍân was an ancient, pre-Muhammedan custom.167 On the other hand, its similarity with the Harranian and Manichæan fasts is so striking that we are almost compelled to regard them all as fundamentally the same institution; and if this assumption is correct, Muhammed must have borrowed his fast from the Harranians or Manichæans or both. Indeed, Dr. Jacob has shown that in the year 623, when this fast seems to have been instituted, Ramaḍân exactly coincided with the Harranian fast-month.168 In its Muhammedan form the fast extending over a whole month is looked upon as a means of expiation. It is said that by the observance of it a person will be pardoned all his past venial sins, and that only those who keep it will be allowed to enter through the gate of heaven called Rayyân.169 But this is only another instance of the common fact that customs often for an incalculable period survive the motives from which they sprang.

In various religions we meet with fasting as a form of penance, as a means of appeasing an angry or indignant God, as an expiation for sin.170 The voluntary suffering involved in it is regarded as an expression of sorrow and repentance pleasing to God, as a substitute for the punishment which He otherwise would inflict upon the sinner; and at the same time it may be thought to excite His compassion, an idea noticeable in many Jewish fasts.171 Among the Jews individuals fasted in cases of private distress or danger: Ahab, for instance, when Elijah predicted his downfall,172 Ezra and his companions before their journey to Palestine,173 the pious Israelite when his friends were sick.174 Moreover, fasts were instituted for the whole community when it believed itself to be under divine displeasure, when danger threatened, when a great calamity befell the land, when pestilence raged or drought set in, or there was a reverse in war.175 Four regular fast-days were established in commemoration of various sad events that had befallen Israel during the captivity;176 and in the course of time many other fasts were added, in memory of certain national troubles, though they were not regarded as obligatory.177 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 depressing 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. Nay, even when fasting is resorted to as a cure in the case of distress or danger, as also when it is practised in commemoration of a calamity, there may be a vague belief that the food is polluted and should therefore be avoided. But in several cases fasting is distinctly a survival of an expiatory sacrifice. The sacrifice of food offered to the deity was changed into the “sacrifice” involved in the abstinence from food on the part of the worshipper. We find that among the Jews the decay of sacrifice was accompanied by a greater frequency of fasts. It was only in the period immediately before the exile that fasting began to acquire special importance; and the popular estimation of it went on increasing during and after the exile, partly at least from a feeling of the need of religious exercises to take the place of the suspended temple services.178 Like sacrifice, fasting was a regular appendage to prayer, as a means of giving special efficacy to the supplication;179 fasting and praying became in fact a constant combination of words.180 And equally close is the connection between fasting and almsgiving—a circumstance which deserves special notice where almsgiving is regarded as a form of sacrifice or has taken the place of it.181 In the penitential regulations of Brahmanism we repeatedly meet with the combination “sacrifice, fasting, giving gifts”;182 or also fasting and giving gifts, without mention being made of sacrifice.183 Among the Jews each fast-day was virtually an occasion for almsgiving,184 in accordance with the rabbinic saying that “the reward of the fast-day is in the amount of charity distributed”;185 but fasting was sometimes declared to be even more meritorious than charity, because the former affects the body and the latter the purse only.186 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;187 if a person through the infirmity of old age is not able to keep the fast, he must feed a poor person;188 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.189 In the Christian Church fasting was not only looked upon as a necessary accompaniment of prayer, but whatever a person saved by means of it was to be given to the poor.190 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 God.191 But fasting without almsgiving “is not so much as counted for fasting”;192 that which is gained by the fast at dinner ought not to be turned into a feast at supper, but should be expended on the bellies of the poor.193 And if a person was too weak to fast without injuring his health he was admonished to give the more plentiful alms.194 Tertullian expressly calls fastings “sacrifices which are acceptable to God.”195 They assumed the character of reverence offerings, they were said to be works of reverence towards God.196 But fasting, as well as temperance, has also from early times been advocated by Christian writers on the ground that it is “the beginning of chastity,”197 whereas “through love of eating love of impurity finds passage.”198

CHAPTER XXXVIII

RESTRICTIONS IN DIET (concluded)

Thus among the Australian aborigines the younger members of a tribe are, as it seems universally, subject to a variety of such restrictions, from which they are only gradually released as they grow older.1 In the Wotjobaluk tribe in South-Eastern Australia, for instance, boys are forbidden to eat of the kangaroo and the padi-melon, being told that if they transgress these rules they will fall sick, break out all over with eruptions, and perhaps die. If a man under forty eats the tail part of the emu or bustard, he will turn grey, and if he eats the freshwater turtle he will be killed by lightning. If young men or women of the Wakelbura tribe eat emu, black-headed snake, or porcupine, they will become sick and probably die, uttering the sounds peculiar to the creature in question, the spirit of which is believed to have entered into their bodies.2 In the Warramunga tribe in Central Australia a man is usually well in the middle age before he is allowed to eat wild turkey, rabbit-bandicoot, and emu.3 According to certain writers, the object of these restrictions is to reserve the best things for the use of the elders, and, more especially, of the older men;4 but, on the other hand, it has been remarked that, in looking over the list of animals prohibited, one fails to see any good reasons for the selection, unless they may be assumed to have chiefly sprung from superstitious beliefs.5 Among the Land Dyaks the young men and warriors are debarred from venison for fear it should render them as timid as the hind.6 The Moors believe that if a young person before the age of puberty eats wolf’s flesh he will have troubles afterwards.

There are, further, numerous instances of certain kinds of food being permanently forbidden to certain individuals. In Unyamwezi, south of Victoria Nyanza, women are not permitted to eat fowl, a food which is reserved for the men.7 Among the Mandingoes of Teesee no woman is allowed to eat an egg, and this prohibition is so rigidly adhered to that “nothing will more affront a woman of Teesee than to offer her an egg”; the men, on the other hand, eat eggs without scruple, even in the presence of their wives.8 Among the Bayaka, a Bantu people in the Congo Free State, both fowls and eggs are forbidden to women; “if a woman eats an egg she is supposed to become mad, tear off her clothes and run away into the bush.”9 The Bahima of Enkole, in the Uganda Protectorate, allow men to eat beef and the meat of certain antelopes and of buffalo, whereas women are generally allowed to eat beef only.10 The people of Darfur, in Central Africa, prohibit their women from eating an animal’s liver, because they think that a person may increase his soul by partaking of it, and women are believed to have no souls.11 The Miris of Northern India prize tiger’s flesh as food for men, but consider it unsuitable for women, as “it would make them too strong-minded.”12 In the Australian tribes some articles of food are entirely interdicted to females.13 The natives inhabiting the neighbourhood of Cape York forbid women to eat various kinds of fish, including some of the best, “on the pretence of causing disease in women, although not injurious to the men.”14 In the Sandwich Islands, again, women were not allowed to eat hog’s flesh, turtle, and certain kinds of fruit, as cocoa and banana.15 Many of these prohibitions have been represented as signs of the low condition of the female sex; but a more intimate knowledge of the facts connected with them would perhaps show that they have some other foundation than the mere selfishness of the men. For sometimes the latter also are subject to very similar restrictions. Among the Bahuana, in the Congo Free State, “women are forbidden to eat owls or other birds of prey, but are permitted to eat frogs, from which men are obliged to abstain under penalty of becoming ill.”16 With reference to the natives of New Britain, Mr. Powell states that, whilst in one place the women are prohibited from eating pigs or tortoises, the men are, in another place, prohibited from eating anything but human flesh, fowls, or fish.17 In the Caroline Islands the men are forbidden to eat a common blackbird, Lamprothornis—which is a favourite food of the women—because it is believed that anyone who did so, and afterwards climbed a cocoa-tree, would fall down and perish.18 In some Dyak tribes on the Western branch of the river of Sarawak, goats, fowls, and the fine kind of fern (paku), which forms an excellent vegetable, are forbidden food to the men, though the women and boys are allowed to partake of them.19