In the fourth century we meet with the term τεσσαρακοστή, or Quadragesima. In the fifth canon of the Council of Nicaea it is ordered that one of the two annual provincial Synods should be held before ‘the tessarakoste.’ The sense of the term is assumed to be known, and is not explained. But it must not be inferred that the word necessarily signifies here forty days, or that forty days were assigned to fasting.
The classical authority for the variations of later usages is the passage of Socrates[116], where he describes many differences of practice in his own day (c. A.D. 440) and the varieties in the length of the fast in different countries. At Rome, he says, there was a fast of three weeks, excepting Saturdays and Sundays; at Alexandria and in Achaia and Illyricum a fast of six weeks; in other places the fast began seven weeks before Easter, but was limited to fifteen days, with an interval between each five days[117]. Not long after his time there were two prevailing usages—that of the Churches which deducted from the fasting days Sundays and Saturdays (always excepting the Saturday in Holy Week), and that of the Churches which deducted only the Sundays. The former was the prevailing usage in the East; the latter, in the West. The seven weeks in the East, with thirteen days deducted (seven Sundays and six Saturdays), and the six weeks of the West, with only six days deducted, agree precisely in each having only thirty-six fasting days.
At the time of the Peregrinatio Silviae (about the end of the fourth century), if we may trust the writer, at Jerusalem eight weeks of fasting preceded Easter, which, deducting eight Sundays and seven Saturdays, gave, as she expressly says, forty-one days of fasting. This is highly exceptional, if not unique. At any rate, the practice did not long continue.
The number 36 is nearly the tenth of 365—the number of the days of the year; and this thought struck the fancy of more than one writer. We were bound, they urged, to offer to God the holy tithe, not only of our increase, but of our time. And in the fifth century John Cassian presses this point, and attempts to bring the length of the fast to correspond more closely with the tithe of the year by observing that the fast was prolonged for some hours, ‘usque in gallorum cantum,’ on Easter morning[118].
At a later period the thought of the fasts of Moses and Elijah, and more particularly of the Lord’s fast of forty days in the wilderness, seems to have suggested that the fast of the faithful should correspond in length. The addition of four days—the Wednesday and three following days immediately preceding the first Sunday in Lent—has been frequently attributed to Gregory the Great. But the writings of Gregory testify to his knowing only thirty-six fasting days. And it is now generally acknowledged that no support for the supposition can be based on the language of the collects for Feria IV and Feria VI in the week begun on Quinquagesima, which speak of the beginning of the fast, and are to be found in the Gregorian Sacramentary[119]. The Sacramentary, as we now possess it, abounds in additions later than the time of Gregory.
It is impossible to say precisely when, or by whom, the additional four days were introduced. Approximately we may assign this change to about the beginning of the eighth century, and to Rome. It did not obtain everywhere. It was not till near the close of the eleventh century that the Scottish Church, at the persuasion of the Saxon princess, Queen Margaret of Scotland, fell into line with most of the other Western Churches, by accepting the four fasting days in the week before the first Sunday in Lent[120]. The Mozarabic Liturgy adopted it only at the instance of Cardinal Ximenes about the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Church of Milan still preserves, among its interesting survivals, the commencement of the rigorous Lenten Fast on the Monday after the first Sunday. But in 1563 St Charles Borromeo, then archbishop of Milan, succeeded, against vigorous local protests, in making the first Sunday in Lent a day of abstinence.
The term caput jejunii was applied sometimes to the Wednesday, known as Ash Wednesday, and frequently in service-books to the period of the four days preceding the first Sunday in Lent. Thus, these days are designated ‘Feria IV, Feria V, Feria VI, et Sabbatum, in capite jejunii.’ The distribution of ashes on the Wednesday in the Western Church is a much modified survival and relic of the ancient penitential discipline.
In the Orthodox Church of the East at the present day ‘the great and holy Tessarakoste’ contains, as in the West, six Sundays. But the Lenten offices commence at Vespers on the Sunday (known as Tyrinis, or Tyrophagus) preceding the first Sunday in Lent. In the week preceding this Sunday (corresponding to the Western Quinquagesima) the faithful give up the use of flesh meat, and confine themselves to cheese (τυρός) and other lacticinia. And it may be observed, in passing, that in the Greek Church there are other examples of the week being named from the Sunday which follows it. Thus, ‘the week of Palms’ is the week followed by Palm Sunday[121]. The Sunday (our Sexagesima) preceding Tyrinis is called Apocreos (Dominica carnisprivii). It is the last day upon which flesh may be eaten. After the Sunday ‘Tyrinis’ a more rigorous fast is prescribed; but Sundays and Saturdays (except the Saturday in Holy week) are exempted, so that there are only thirty-six days of rigid fasting; five days in each of the first six weeks, and six days in the last week[122].
The word quadragesima is the source of the Italian quaresima, and the French carême (in old French, quaresme); while our English word, Lent, is simply indicative of the season of the year when the fast occurs, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon Lencten, the spring-time.