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41 Ps. xxxii. (xxxiii.) 5; Is. lxi. 8.
50 On the different uses in regard to the Lenten fast Socrates (H. E. V. xxii.) writes as follows: "Those at Rome fast three successive weeks before Easter, excepting Saturdays and Sundays. The Illyrians, Achaians, and Alexandrians observe a fast of six weeks, which they call the forty days' fast. Others commencing their fast from the seventh week before Easter, and fasting for fifteen days by intervals, yet call that time the forty days' fast." There are difficulties in the way of accepting the statement about the custom at Rome (see below), but the great variety of customs is fully confirmed by Sozomen (H. E. VII. xix.): "In some churches the time before Easter, which is called Quadragesima, and is devoted by the people to fasting, is made to consist of six weeks: and this is the case in Illyria, and the western regions, in Libya, throughout Egypt, and in Palestine: whereas it is made to comprise seven weeks at Constantinople, and in the neighbouring provinces as far as Phoenicia. In some churches the people fast three alternate weeks during the space of six or seven weeks; whereas in others they fast continuously during the three weeks immediately preceding the festival." The statement here made with regard to the West is true except as regards Milan, where Saturday was kept (as in the East) as a festival: while for the Constantinopolitan practice Chrysostom (Hom. xi. in Gen. § 2) confirms what Sozomen says: while Cassian's language in the text bears witness to the fact that both Egypt and Palestine agreed with the Roman practice. In either case, whether the fast began seven or six weeks before Easter, the number of days observed in the fast was the same, Saturdays (with the exception of Easter Eve which was always regarded as a fast) being excluded in the former case, while they were all included in the latter. Cf below, c. xxvi.
52 Ps. cxviii. (cxix.) 147, 148; lxxxvii. (lxxxviii.) 14.
53 Cassian here gives three suggestions why the fast of thirty-six days' duration was called Quadragesima. (1) As roughly corresponding to the forty days fast of Moses, Elijah, and the Lord Himself, (2) because "forty" is the number associated with a time of probation in Scripture, and (3) because of the analogy of a legal tribute of "Quadragesima" paid to the Sovereign. It is certainly a curious and difficult question why the name Quadragesima should have been so universally applied to the fast, when there is no evidence of its having been kept for forty days till sometime after the date of Gregory the Great, when Ash Wednesday and the three following days were prefixed to the six weeks expressly for the purpose of making the number forty. The name however, had as we see from Socrates, Sozomen, Cassian himself, and many other writers, existed long before this; and on the whole it appears probable that it originated in none of the reasons given above by Cassian but that in the first instance it was connected "with the period during which our Lord yielded to the power of death, which was estimated at forty hours; viz., from noon on Friday till 4 A.M. on Sunday." See Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Vol. ii. p. 973; and cf Irenaeus Ep. ad Victor. in Euseb. V. xxiv.; and Tertullian De Orat. c. 18; and De Jejuniis c. ii. and xiii.
56 Statio. Cf. note on the Institutes V. xxiv.
63 S. Luke xxiii. 29; xiv. 26; 1 Cor. vii. 29.
64 Exod. xxii. 29; S. Matt. xix. 21.
65 Exod. xxi. 24; S. Matt. v. 39, 40.
67 Heb. vii. 18, 19; Ezek. xx. 25.