[11] There is, as Graf (Gesch. Bücher des A.T. p. 41) has pointed out, no direct evidence that the fast on the 10th of the 7th month was ever observed before the exile. But the inference which he draws from this silence of the historical books is manifestly a precarious one at best. Bleek calls Lev. xvi. “ein deutliches Beispiel Mosaïscher Abfassung” (Einleitung, p. 31, ed. 1878).
[12] The allusion to the ark warns us to be cautious in assuming the laws of the Mishna to have been ever in force.
[13] The idea, however, is found in the Clementine Homilies, ix. 9. Compare Tertullian De jejuniis, c. 8: “Docuit etiam adversus diriora daemonia jejuniis praeliandum.”
[14] On the manuscript evidence the words “I was fasting,” in Acts x. 30, must also be regarded as doubtful. They are rejected by Lachmann, Tregelles and Tischendorf.
[15] Quinam isti (adversarii) sint, semel nominabo: exteriores et interiores botuli psychicorum.... Arguunt nos quod jejunia propria custodiamus, quod stationes plerumque in vesperam producamus, quod etiam xerophagias observemus, siccantes cibum ab omni carne et omni jurulentia et uvidioribus quibusque pomis, nec quid vinositatis vel edamus vel potemus; lavacri quoque abstinentiam congruentem arido victui.
[16] The language of the canon is ambiguous; but this interpretation seems to be preferable, especially in view of canon 23, which enacts that jejunii superpositiones are to be observed in all months except July and August. See Hefele, Councils, i. 148 (Engl. trs.).
[17] Compare the 52nd [51st] of the Apostolical canons. “If any bishop or presbyter or deacon, or indeed any one of the sacerdotal catalogue, abstains from flesh and wine, not for his own exercise but out of hatred of the things, forgetting that all things were very good ... either let him reform, or let him be deprived and be cast out of the church. So also a layman.” To this particular canon Hefele is disposed to assign a very early date.
[18] Compare canon 64 of the (supposed) fourth synod of Carthage: “He who fasts on Sunday is not accounted a Catholic” (Hefele, ii. 415).
[19] Priscillian, whose widespread heresy evoked from the synod of Saragossa (418) the canon, “No one shall fast on Sunday, nor may any one absent himself from church during Lent and hold a festival of his own,” appears, on the question of fasting, not to have differed from the Encratites and various other sects of Manichean tendency (c. 406).
[20] Cap. iii. pro partib. Saxoniae: “Si quis sanctum quadragesimale jejunium pro despectu Christianitatis contempserit et carnem comederit, morte moriatur. Sed tamen consideretur a sacerdote ne forte causa necessitatis hoc cuilibet proveniat, ut carnem comedat.” See Augusti, Christliche Archäologie, x. p. 374.