[145] 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.”
[146] Nehemiah, viii. 9 sqq. See also Leviticus, xxiii. 24 sq.; Numbers, xxix. 1. Among the Babylonians, too, the seventh month had a sacred character (]astrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 681, 683, 686).
[147] Leviticus, xvi. 29, 31; xxiii. 27 sqq. Numbers, xxix. 7.
[148] Leviticus, xxiii. 24, 25, 35, 36, 39. Numbers, xxix. 1, 12, 35.
[149] Leviticus, xxv. 4. See also Exodus, xxiii. 10 sq.
[150] Leviticus, xxiii. 29 sq.
[151] Ibid. xxv. 9.
[152] Nehemiah, ix. 1.
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 gnosis[157]—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.
[153] Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier, ii. 226, n. 247.