The origin and development of the moral ideas

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