Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/59

F A S F A T 49 of other duties, and to the fitness of things. In this last aspect, however, habitual temperance will generally be found to be much more beneficial than occasional fasting. It is extremely questionable, in particular, whether fasting be so efficient as it is sometimes supposed to be in pro tecting against temptation to fleshly sin. The practice has a well ascertained tendency to excite the imagination ; and in so far as it disturbs that healthy and well-balanced interaction of body and mind which is the best or at least the normal condition for the practice of virtue, it is to be deprecated rather than encouraged (Theologische Ethik, sec. 873-875). Mahometan Fasts. Among the Mahometans, the month Ramadan, in which the first part of the Koran is said to have been received, is by command of the prophet observed as a fast with extraordinary rigour. No food or drink of any kind is permitted to be taken from daybreak until the appearance of the stars at nightfall. Extending as it does over the whole " month of raging heat," such a fast mani festly involves considerable self-denial ; and it is absolutely binding upon all the faithful whether at home or abroad. Should its observance at the appointed time be interfered with by sickness or any other cause, the fast must be kept as soon afterwards as possible, for a like number of days. It is the only one which Mahometanism enjoins ; but the doctors of the law recommend a considerable number of voluntary fasts, as for example on the tenth day of the month Moharram. This day, called the " Yom Ashoora," is held sacred on many accounts : " because it is believed to be the day on which the first meeting of Adam and Eve took place after they were cast out of paradise ; and that on which Noah went out from the ark ; also because several other great events are said to have happened on this day; and because the ancient Arabs, before the time of the prophet, observed it by fasting. But what, in the opinion of most modern Moslems, and especially the Persians, con fers the greatest sanctity on the day of Ashoora is the fact of its being that on which El-Hoseyn, the prophet s grand son, was slain a martyr at the battle of the plain of Kar- bala/ It is the practice of many Moslems to fast on this day, and some do so on the preceding day also. Mahomet himself called fasting the "gate of religion," and forbade it only on the two great festivals, namely, on that which immediately follows Ramadan and on that which succeeds the pilgrimage. See Lane, Modern Egyptians, chaps, iii., xxiv. (j. s. BL.) FASTING, CLAUS (1746-1791), a Danish poet, was born at Bergen in Norway on the 29th of October 1746. In 1762 he came to reside in Copenhagen. He very early took an active part in letters, and was among the foremost champions of the romantic revival against French taste and the overpowering affectation of Klopstock, then personally reigning in the Danish capital. Fasting edited a brilliant aesthetic journal, the Kritiske Tilskuer, or Critical Observer, and in 1772 he formed in Copenhagen the Norwegian Society, a sort of literary club, which included among its members all the best young talent of the time. Soon after this, however, he returned to his native town, and from 1778 to 1781 edited there a journal entitled Provinzialblade, or Provincial Pages, in which he published most of his poems. In 1783 he was made a member of the municipal council of Bergen, and there he died in 1791. His works were first edited in 1837, when they were issued in one volume, with a biographical study by Lyder Sagen. FATES, in Latin mythology, a name given to certain "beings who, by euphemism similar to that which gave to the Greek ERIXYES (q.v.) the name of Eumenides, were also known as Parae, or the Merciful. Originally the one Fatum, or spoken word of Jupiter, answered precisely to the single Aisa, the spoken word of Zeus, in the mythology of the Greeks. The conversion of one Fate into three had refer ence to the distinction of time into the past, present, and future ; and thus the Fates answer to the Teutonic Norns or Weird Sisters. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. Ecclesiastically the word " father " is used in a variety of secondary significa tions. In the Old Testament even, we find the name applied to priests (Judg. xvii. 10, xviii. 19), and to pro phets (2 Kings ii. 12, vi. 21, xiii. 14), as well as to kings (2 Kings v. 13) ; and in the days of later Judaism there was a definite office which was known as that of the Father of the Synagogue. 1 In the Christian church almost every kind of spiritual relationship in which age or authority was in any way implied came to be expressed by some word denoting paternity. Thus we find such names as abba, papa, pater, bestowed occasionally upon godfathers, con fessors, instructors, and almost invariably upon bishops and heads of monasteries. The decrees of the council of Nice are often referred to as those of the 318 fathers. The expression " church fathers " (patres ecclesiastic!), however, has come to be used in a comparatively definite and restricted sense, as denoting in the aggregate those teachers of the ancient church who, from the close of the apostolic age onwards, either orally or in writing expounded and de fended the orthodox faith, and came to be acknowledged, either by tacit consent or by express declaration of the church, as duly qualified exponents of her doctrines. Tho title of father is generally held to imply soundness of doc trine, holiness of life, the approval of the church, and un doubted antiquity (Perrone). The word itself is fitted to suggest the idea of age, and also some such notion as that which is expressed in 1 Cor. iv. 15. The patristic period of the church s history is generally held to begin with the close of the apostolic age ; but his torians are not agreed as to the date at which it may bo said to have closed. Some Roman Catholic writers speak of Bernard, who died in 1153, as having been the " last of the fathers," while Greek patristic is often brought down so far as to the council of ^Florence. But it is usual to speak of the scholastic period as having begun with Anselm ; and there seems to be no good reason for removing Bernard from the list of the schoolmen. As no very important author either in Latin or in Greek can be assigned to the centuries immediately preceding Anselm, it may therefore be said, roughly speaking, that the patristic period practi cally closed for the Eastern Church with Joannes Damascenus, and for the Western with Gregory the Great The patristic canon has never been quite definitely fixed, and no precise line of demarcation can be drawn between those ancient teachers of Christianity who are arid those who are not entitled to be reckoned " fathers." The name is often bestowed on some whose title when viewed from the standpoint of rigid orthodoxy cannot but be regarded as somewhat doubtful. While Arius and Eusebius of Nico- media have obviously no title to bo called " fathers," it has not been thought necessary to withhold the honourable appellation fromOrigen or Tertullian. 2 The authors usually named as fathers may be arranged according to chronology into three groups, called respectively the apostolic, the primitive, and the post-Nicene. The apostolic fathers, that is to say, the fathers who were to some extent contemporary with the apostles, are Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, the author of the Shepherd of Hernias, and the author of the Epistle of Barnabas (see APOSTOLIC FATHERS). The chief primitive or ante-Nicene fathers are Ireua;us, Justin 1 Sec the rescript of Constantino (in the Codex Theodosianus) referred to and discussed by Vitringa, T>e Syn. Vet. lib. ii. c. 5. 1 See Perrone, Loci Theoloyici, p. ii. sect. ii. cap. ii., De sanctis patribus.