ECCLESIASTICAL PENALTIES. 117 Gregory the Great, or alternatively Pope Gregory the Second in the eighth century, completed the full number of forty fasting-days; since the time of which addition, Lent has always dated its commencement from Ash-Wednesday. The practice of fasting, which had at first been of voluntary observance in the Church, passed successively through the stages of pious and prevailing custom-to which, so late as the fourth century, the people were exhorted with entreaties-and finally of binding enactment. The Council of Orleans, A.D. 541, decreed that any one who should neglect to observe the stated times of abstinence, should be treated as an offender against the laws of the Church. The eighth Council of Toledo, A.D. 653, ordained that those persons who, without apparent necessity, should have eaten flesh during Lent, 'should be deprived of it all the rest of the year, and should be forbidden to communicate at Easter.' In the eighth century, fasting began to be regarded as a meritorious work; and the breach of its observance at the stated seasons, subjected the offender to excommunication. In the earlier part of the eleventh century, persons who ate flesh during the appointed time of abstinence, are stated by Baronius to have been punished with the loss of their teeth. The first of the English kings to decree the observance of Lent in his dominions, was Earconbert, the seventh King of Kent (640664), who, of his supreme authority commanded the idols, throughout his whole kingdom, to be forsaken and destroyed, and the fast of forty days before Easter to be observed. And, that the same might not be neglected, he appointed proper and condign punishments for the offenders.' * It was decreed by the Council of Trent, that confession should be enjoined as peculiarly fit and applicable to this season. 'Grace,' says the late Dr. Faber, in the spirit of his adopted Church, as illustrated in the last sentence 'Grace is plentiful in Lent ;' a proposition which becomes wholesome and encouraging when it is read simply as a particular statement of the general hortatory promise, 'Seek, and ye shall find.' The more abundant supplies await the more abundant supplications. The time of extraordinary contrition must be a time of extraordinary absolution; and Lent, by hypothesis, and ecclesiastical order, is such a time. The confession of the awakened and repentant soul, 'I have sinned against Heaven,' is anticipated by the Fatherly longing and readiness to receive, to reinstate, and to pardon. It is a characteristic of George Wither's Hymns and Songs of the Church,' that they exhibit in abstract almost the entire body of doctrine and the philosophy of the particular seasons about which * Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England. they are conversant. The following poem on 'Lent' is an example of his nearly exhaustive method : Thy wondrous fasting to record, Ánd our rebellious flesh to tame, A holy fast to Thee, O Lord, We have intended in Thy name: Thy Church's ordinance obey; To purchase of themselves Thy grace, (By Thy deservings) shall have place. It is Thine abstinence, or none, For when our glorioust works are done, After such lines, the product of modern times and of the homebred muse, which set forth so well the spiritual uses and advantages of Lent, it may be of interest to revert to a more ancient statement of the practical benefits for the securing of which that season was instituted. 'Why,' asks St. Chrysostom, 'do we fast these forty days? Many, heretofore, were used to come to the Communion indevoutly and inconsiderately, especially at this time, when Christ first gave it to His disciples. Therefore, the fathers, considering the mischiefs arising from such careless approaches, meeting together, appointed forty days for fasting and prayer, and hearing of sermons, and for holy assemblies; that all men in these days being carefully purified by prayers and almsdeeds, and fasting, and watching, and tears, and confession of sins, and other the like exercises, might come according to their capacity with a pure conscience to * Forty, nominally, and in round numbers. LENTEN THOUGHTS, 119 the holy table.' * And Cassian, who was a disciple of St. Chrysostom, and in whose time the term of Lent was still fixed at thirtysix days, has a kindred passage :- So long as the perfection of the Primitive Church remained inviolable, there was no observation of Lent; for they who fasted, as it were, all the year round, were not tied up by the necessity of this precept, nor confined within the strict bonds of such a fast, as by a legal sanction: but when the multitude of believers began to decline from the apostolic fervour of devotion, and to give themselves overmuch to worldly affairs; when, instead of imparting their riches to the common use of all (Acts iv.), they laboured only to lay them up and augment them for their own private expenses, not content to follow the example of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts v.), then it seemed good to all the bishops, by a canonical induction of fasts to recall men to holy works, who were bound with secular cares, and had almost forgotten what continence and compunction meant, and to compel them by the necessity of a law to dedicate the tenth of their time to God.'+ The thoughts of Lent are not to terminate in a selfish solicitude for our own well-being, even when that solicitude takes the commendable form of humble and hearty confession with a view to the forgiveness of sin. Whilst men are prostrating themselves before the Throne of Justice, and lifting up streaming eyes to the Throne of Mercy, it especially becomes them to have a large-hearted care for the sorrows, and even a large-hearted charity for the offences, of their brethren. In ancient times there was, during Lent, a state tenderness exercised towards the criminal. At this season, when men expected mercy and pardon from God, it seemed reasonable to them that they should exhibit more eminently than usual the quality of mercy towards their fellows. Upon this account the imperial laws forbade all prosecution of men in criminal actions, which might bring them to corporal punishment and torture, during this whole season. Two laws of the code of Theodosius the Great were enacted to this purpose:-'In the forty days, which by the laws of religion are solemnly observed before Easter, let the examination and hearing of all criminal questions be superseded' (Cod. Theod. 1. 9. tit. 35, de Quæstionibus leg. 4); and 'in the holy days of Lent, let there be no punishments of the body, when we expect the absolution of our souls' (Ib. leg. 5.). All public games and stage-plays were likewise prohibited, as well as the celebration of all festivals, birth-days, and marriages, as being unsuitable to the grave solemnity of the Lenten fast, That which was clemency in the government, appeared as charity in private life. The early Christians made a practice of giving to * Chrysostom, Orationes adversus Judæos; Orat. 3. + Cassian, Collationes; xxi., cc. 30 and 25. ̧ |