Chapter XII: Part 12

_Later Practice of the Church._--According to an expression preserved by Eusebius (_H.E._ v. 18), Montanus was the first to give laws (to the church) on fasting. Such language, though rhetorical in form, is substantially correct. The treatise of Tertullian,--_Concerning Fasting: against the Carnal_,--written as it was under Montanistic influence, is doubly interesting, first as showing how free the practice of the church down to that time had been, and then as foreshadowing the burdensome legislation which was destined to succeed. In that treatise (c. 15) he approves indeed of the church practice of not fasting on Saturdays and Sundays (as elsewhere, _De corona_, c. 3, he had expressed his concurrence in the other practice of observing the entire period between Easter and Pentecost as a season of joy); but otherwise he evinces great dissatisfaction with the indifference of the church as to the number, duration and severity of her fasts.[15] The church thus came to be more and more involved in discussions as to the number of days to be observed, especially in "Lent," as fast days, as to the hour at which a fast ought to terminate (whether at the 3rd or at the 9th hour), as to the rigour with which each fast ought to be observed (whether by abstinence from flesh merely, _abstinentia_, or by abstinence from lacticinia, _xerophagia_, or by literal _jejunium_), and as to the penalties by which the laws of fasting ought to be enforced. Almost a century, however, elapsed between the composition of the treatise of Tertullian (_cir._ 212) and the first recorded instances of ecclesiastical legislation on the subject. These, while far from indicating that the church had attained unanimity on the points at issue, show progress in the direction of the later practice of catholicism. About the year 306 the synod of Illiberis in its 26th canon decided in favour of the observance of the Saturday fast.[16] The council of Ancyra in 314, on the other hand, found it necessary to legislate in a somewhat different direction,--by its 14th canon enjoining its priests and clerks at least to taste meat at the love feasts.[17] The synod of Laodicea framed several rules with regard to the observance of "Lent," such as that "during Lent the bread shall not be offered except on Saturday and Sunday" (can. 49), that "the fast shall not be relaxed on the Thursday of the last week of Lent, thus dishonouring the whole season; but the fast shall be kept throughout the whole period" (can. 50), that "during the fast no feasts of the martyrs shall be celebrated" (can. 51), and that "no wedding or birthday feasts shall be celebrated during Lent" (can. 52). The synod of Hippo (393 A.D.) enacted that the sacrament of the altar should always be taken fasting, except on the Thursday before Easter. Protests in favour of freedom were occasionally raised, not always in a very wise manner, or on very wise grounds, by various individuals such as Eustathius of Sebaste (c. 350), Aerius of Pontus (c. 375), and Jovinian, a Roman monk (c. 388). Of the Eustathians, for example (whose connexion with Eustathius can hardly be doubted), the complaint was made that "they fast on Sundays, but eat on the fast-days of the church." They were condemned by the synod of Gangra in Paphlagonia in the following canons:--Can. 19, "If any one fast on Sunday, let him be anathema."[18] Can. 20, "If any one do not keep the fasts universally commanded and observed by the whole church, let him be anathema." Jovinian was very moderate. He "did not allow himself to be hurried on by an inconsiderate zeal to condemn fasting, the life of celibacy, monachism, considered purely in themselves.... He merely sought to show that men were wrong in recommending so highly and indiscriminately the life of celibacy and fasting, though he was ready to admit that both under certain circumstances might be good and useful" (Neander). He was nevertheless condemned (390) both by Pope Siricius at a synod in Rome, and by Ambrose at another in Milan. The views of Aerius, according to the representations of his bitter opponent Epiphanius (_Haer._ 75, "Adv. Aerium"), seem on this head at least, though unpopular, to have been characterized by great wisdom and sobriety. He did not condemn fasting altogether, but thought that it ought to be resorted to in the spirit of gospel freedom according as each occasion should arise. He found fault with the church for having substituted for Christian liberty a yoke of Jewish bondage.[19]

Towards the beginning of the 5th century we find Socrates (439) enumerating (_H.E._ v. 22) a long catalogue of the different fasting practices of the church. The Romans fasted three weeks continuously before Easter (Saturdays and Sundays excepted). In Illyria, Achaia and Alexandria the quadragesimal fast lasted six weeks. Others (the Constantinopolitans) began their fasts seven weeks before Easter, but fasted only on alternate weeks, five days at a time. Corresponding differences as to the manner of abstinence occurred. Some abstained from all living creatures; others ate fish; others fish and fowl. Some abstained from eggs and fruit; some confined themselves to bread; some would not take even that. Some fasted till three in the afternoon, and then took whatever they pleased. "Other nations," adds the historian, "observe other customs in their fasts, and that for various reasons. And since no one can show any written rule about this, it is plain the apostles left this matter free to every one's liberty and choice, that no one should be compelled to do a good thing out of necessity and fear." When Leo the Great became pope in 440, a period of more rigid uniformity began. The imperial authority of Valentinian helped to bring the whole West at least into submission to the see of Rome; and ecclesiastical enactments had, more than formerly, the support of the civil power. Though the introduction of the four Ember seasons was not entirely due to him, as has sometimes been asserted, it is certain that their widespread observance was due to his influence, and to that of his successors, especially of Gregory the Great. The tendency to increased rigour may be discerned in the 2nd canon of the synod of Orleans (541), which declares that every Christian is bound to observe the fast of Lent, and, in case of failure to do so, is to be punished according to the laws of the church by his spiritual superior; in the 9th canon of the synod of Toledo (653), which declares the eating of flesh during Lent to be a mortal sin; in Charlemagne's law for the newly conquered Saxony, which attaches the penalty of death to wanton disregard of the holy season.[20] Baronius mentions that in the 11th century those who ate flesh during Lent were liable to have their teeth knocked out. But it ought to be remembered that this severity of the law early began to be tempered by the power to grant dispensations. The so-called Butter Towers (_Tours de beurre_) of Rouen, 1485-1507, Bourges and other cities, are said to have been built with money raised by sale of dispensations to eat _lacticinia_ on fast days.

It is probable that the apparent severity of the medieval Latin Church on this subject was largely due to the real strictness of the Greek Church, which, under the patriarch Photius in 864, had taken what was virtually a new departure in its fasting praxis. The rigour of the fasts of the modern Greek Church is well known; and it can on the whole be traced back to that comparatively early date. Of the nine fundamental laws of that church ([Greek: ennea parangelmata tes ekklesias]) two are concerned with fasting. Besides fasts of an occasional and extraordinary nature, the following are recognized as of stated and universal obligation:--(1) The Wednesday and Friday fasts throughout the year (with the exception of the period between Christmas and Epiphany, the Easter week, the week after Whitsunday, the third week after Epiphany); (2) The great yearly fasts, viz. that of Lent, lasting 48 days, from the Monday of Sexagesima to Easter eve; that of Advent, 39 days, from November 15 to Christmas eve; that of the Theotokos ([Greek: nesteia tes Theotokou]), from August 1 to August 15; that of the Holy Apostles, lasting a variable number of days from the Monday after Trinity; (3) The minor yearly fasts before Epiphany, before Whitsunday, before the feasts of the transfiguration, the invention of the cross, the beheading of John the Baptist. During even the least rigid of these the use of flesh and lacticinia is strictly forbidden; fish, oil and wine are occasionally conceded, but not before two o'clock in the afternoon. The practice of the Coptic church is almost identical with this. A week before the Great Fast (Lent), a fast of three days is observed in commemoration of that of the Ninevites, mentioned in the book of Jonah. Some of the Copts are said to observe it by total abstinence during the whole period. The Great Fast continues fifty-five days; nothing is eaten except bread and vegetables, and that only in the afternoon, when church prayers are over. The Fast of the Nativity lasts for twenty-eight days before Christmas; that of the Apostles for a variable number of days from the Feast of the Ascension; and that of the Virgin for fifteen days before the Assumption. All Wednesdays and Fridays are also fast days except those that occur in the period between Easter and Whitsunday. The Armenians are equally strict; but (adds Rycaut) "the times seem so confused and without rule that they can scarce be recounted, unless by those who live amongst them, and strictly observe them, it being the chief care of the priest, whose learning principally consists in knowing the appointed times of fasting and feasting, the which they never omit on Sundays to publish unto the people."[21]

At the council of Trent no more than a passing allusion was made to the subject of fasting. The faithful were simply enjoined to submit themselves to church authority on the subject; and the clergy were exhorted to urge their flocks to the observance of frequent jejunia, as conducive to the mortification of the flesh, and as assuredly securing the divine favour. R.F.R. Bellarmine (_De jejunio_) distinguishes _jejunium spirituale_ (_abstinentia a vitiis_), _jejunium morale_ (_parsimonia et temperantia cibi et potus_), _jejunium naturale_ (_abstinentia ab omni prorsus cibo et potu, quacunque ratione sumpto_), and _jejunium ecclesiasticum_. The last he defines simply as an abstinence from food in conformity with the rule of the church. It may be either voluntary or compulsory; and compulsory either because of a vow or because of a command. But the definition given by Alexander Halensis, which is much fuller, still retains its authority:--"Jejunium est abstinentia a cibo et potu secundum formam ecclesiae, intuitu satisfaciendi pro peccato et acquirendi vitam aeternam." It was to this last clause that the Reformers most seriously objected. They did not deny that fasting might be a good thing, nor did they maintain that the church or the authority might not ordain fasts, though they deprecated the imposition of needless burdens on the conscience. What they protested against was the theory of the opus operatum et meritorium as applied to fasting. As matter of fact, the Reformed churches in no case gave up the custom of observing fast days, though by some churches the number of such days was greatly reduced. In many parts of Germany the seasons of Lent and Advent are still marked by the use of emblems of mourning in the churches, by the frequency of certain phrases (Kyrie eleison, Agnus Dei) and the absence of others (Hallelujah, Gloria in excelsis) in the liturgical services, by abstinence from some of the usual social festivities, and by the non-celebration of marriages. And occasional fasts are more or less familiar. The Church of England has retained a considerable list of fasts; though Hooker (_E.P._ v. 72) had to contend with some who, while approving of fastings undertaken "of men's own free and voluntary accord as their particular devotion doth move them thereunto," yet "yearly or weekly fasts such as ours in the Church of England they allow no further than as the temporal state of the land doth require the same for the maintenance of seafaring men and preservation of cattle; because the decay of the one and the waste of the other could not well be prevented but by a politic order appointing some such usual change of diet as ours is."

In the practice of modern Roman Catholicism the following are recognized as fasting days, that is to say, days on which one meal only, and that not of flesh, may be taken in the course of twenty-four hours:--The forty days of Lent (Sundays excepted), all the Ember days, the Wednesdays and Fridays in Advent, and the vigils of certain feasts, namely, those of Whitsuntide, of St Peter and St Paul, of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of All Saints and of Christmas day. The following are simply days of abstinence, that is to say, days on which flesh at all events must not be eaten:--The Sundays in Lent, the three Rogation days, the feast of St Mark (unless it falls in Easter week), and all Fridays which are not days of fasting. In the Anglican Church, the "days of fasting or abstinence" are the forty days of Lent, the Ember days, the Rogation days, and all the Fridays in the year, except Christmas day. The evens or vigils before Christmas, the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Easter day, Ascension day, Pentecost, St Matthias, the Nativity of St John Baptist, St Peter, St James, St Bartholomew, St Matthew, St Simon and St Jude, St Andrew, St Thomas, and All Saints are also recognized as "fast days." By the 64th canon it is enacted that "every parson, vicar or curate, shall in his several charge declare to the people every Sunday at the time appointed in the communion-book [which is, after the Nicene creed has been repeated] whether there be any holy-days or fast-days the week following." The 72nd canon ordains that "no minister or ministers shall, without licence and direction of the bishop under hand and seal, appoint or keep any solemn fasts, either publicly or in any private houses, other than such as by law are or by public authority shall be appointed, nor shall be wittingly present at any of them under pain of suspension for the first fault, of excommunication for the second, and of deposition from the ministry for the third." While strongly discouraging the arbitrary multiplication of public or private fasts, the English Church seems to leave to the discretion of the individual conscience every question as to the manner in which the fasts she formally enjoins are to be observed. In this connexion the homily _Of Fasting_ may be again referred to. By a statute of the reign of Queen Elizabeth it was enacted that none should eat flesh on "fish days" (the Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays throughout the year) without a licence, under a penalty. In the Scottish Presbyterian churches days of "fasting, humiliation and prayer" are observed by ecclesiastical appointment in each parish once or twice every year on some day of the week preceding the Sunday fixed for the administration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. In some of the New England States, it has been usual for the governor to appoint by proclamation at some time in spring a day of fasting, when religious services are conducted in the churches. National fasts have more than once been observed on special occasions both in this country and in the United States of America.

On the subject of fasting the views of Aerius are to a large extent shared by modern Protestant moralists. R. Rothe, for example, who on this point may be regarded as a representative thinker, rejects the idea that fasting is a thing meritorious in itself, and is very doubtful of its value even as an aid to devotional feeling. Of course when bodily health and other circumstances require it, it becomes a duty; and as a means of self-discipline it may be used with due regard to the claims 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 protecting 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).

_Mahommedan Fasts._--Among the Mahommedans, 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 manifestly 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 Mahommedanism 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, confers the greatest sanctity on the day of Ashoora is the fact of its being that on which El-Hoseyn, the prophet's grandson, was slain a martyr at the battle of the plain of Karbala." 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.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "The Fathers assembled there ... decreed in that council that
every person, as well in his private as public fast, should continue
all the day without meat and drink, till after the evening prayer.
And whosoever did eat or drink before the evening prayer was ended
should be accounted and reputed not to consider the purity of his
fast. This canon teacheth so evidently how fasting was used in the
primitive church as by words it cannot be more plainly expressed"
(_Of Good Works; and first, of Fasting._)

[2] As indeed they are, etymologically; but, prior to the
Reformation, a conventional distinction between _abstinentia_ and
_jejunium naturale_ had long been recognized. "Exceptio eduliorum
quorundam portionale jejunium est" (Tertullian).

[3] Confucianism ought perhaps to be named as one. Zoroastrianism is
frequently given as another, but hardly correctly. In the Liber
_Sad-der_, indeed (Porta xxv.), we read, "Cavendum est tibi a
jejunio; nam a mane ad vesperam nihil comedere non est bonum in
religione nostra"; but according to the Pere de Chinon (Lyons, 1671)
the Parsee religion enjoins, upon the priesthood at least, no fewer
than five yearly fasts. See Hyde, _Veterum Persarum religio_, pp.
449, 548 (ed. 1700).

[4] During the middle ages the prevalent notion was that it had its
origin in paradise. The germ at least of this idea is to be found in
Tertullian, who says: "Acceperat Adam a Deo legem non gustandi de
arbore agnitionis boni et mali, moriturus si gustasset; verum et ipse
tunc in psychicum reversus ... facilius ventri quam Deo cessit,
pabulo potius quam praecepto annuit, salutem gula vendidit,
manducavit denique et periit, salvus alioquin si uni arbusculae
jejunare maluisset" (_De jejuniis_, c. 3).

[5] _Principles of Sociology_, i. pp. 170, 284, 285. Compare the
passage in the appendix from Hanusch, _Slavischer Mythus_, p. 408.

[6] Spencer, _Prin. of Sociology_, i. 256, &c.; E.B. Tylor,
_Primitive Culture_, i. 277, 402; ii. 372, &c.

[7] Hooker, E.P. v. 72. In the Westminster Assembly's Larger
Catechism fasting is mentioned among the duties required by the
second commandment.

[8] The Brahmans themselves on the eleventh day after the full moon
and the eleventh day after the new "abstain for sixty hours from
every kind of sustenance"; and some have a special fast every Monday
in November. See Picart, _The Religion and Manners of the Brahmins_.

[9] [Hebrew: nefesh] is here to be taken as substantially equivalent
to "desire," "appetite."

[10] See Judith viii. 6. "And yet it may be a question whether they
(the Jews) did not always fast upon Sabbath," says Hooker (_E.P._ v.
72, 7), who gives a curious array of evidence pointing in this
direction. He even makes use of Neh. viii. 9-12, which might be
thought to tell the other way. Justinian's phrase, "Sabbata Judaeorum
a Mose in omne aevum jejunio dicata" (l. xxxvi. c. 2; comp.
Suetonius, _Augustus_, 76) may be accounted for by the fact that the
day of atonement is called Sabbat Sabbaton ("a perfect Sabbath").

[11] There is, as Graf (_Gesch. Bucher 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
Mosaischer 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 Archaologie_, x. p. 374.

[21] See Fink's article "Fasten" in Ersch and Gruber's
_Encyclopadie_; Lane, _Modern Egyptians_; and Rycaut, _Present State
of the Armenian Church_.

FASTOLF, SIR JOHN (d. 1459), English soldier, has enjoyed a more lasting reputation as in some part the prototype of Shakespeare's Falstaff. He was son of a Norfolk gentleman, John Fastolf of Caister, is said to have been squire to Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, before 1398, served with Thomas of Lancaster in Ireland during 1405 and 1406, and in 1408 made a fortunate marriage with Millicent, widow of Sir Stephen Scrope of Castle Combe in Wiltshire. In 1413 he was serving in Gascony, and took part in all the subsequent campaigns of Henry V. in France. He must have earned a good repute as a soldier, for in 1423 he was made governor of Maine and Anjou, and in February 1426 created a knight of the Garter. But later in this year he was superseded in his command by John Talbot. After a visit to England in 1428, he returned to the war, and on the 12th of February 1429 when in charge of the convoy for the English army before Orleans defeated the French and Scots at the "battle of herrings." On the 18th of June of the same year an English force under the command of Fastolf and Talbot suffered a serious defeat at Patay. According to the French historian Waurin, who was present, the disaster was due to Talbot's rashness, and Fastolf only fled when resistance was hopeless. Other accounts charge him with cowardice, and it is true that John of Bedford at first deprived him of the Garter, though after inquiry he was honourably reinstated. This incident was made unfavourable use of by Shakespeare in _Henry VI._ (pt. i. act iv. sc. i.). Fastolf continued to serve with honour in France, and was trusted both by Bedford and by Richard of York. He only came home finally in 1440, when past sixty years of age. But the scandal against him continued, and during Cade's rebellion in 1451 he was charged with having been the cause of the English disasters through minishing the garrisons of Normandy. It is suggested that he had made much money in the war by the hire of troops, and in his later days he showed himself a grasping man of business. A servant wrote of him:--"cruel and vengible he hath been ever, and for the most part without pity and mercy" (_Paston Letters_, i. 389). Besides his share in his wife's property he had large estates in Norfolk and Suffolk, and a house at Southwark, where he also owned the Boar's Head Inn. He died at Caister on the 5th of November 1459. There is some reason to suppose that Fastolf favoured Lollardry, and this circumstance with the tradition of his braggart cowardice may have suggested the use of his name for the boon companion of Prince Hal, when Shakespeare found it expedient to drop that of Oldcastle. In the first two folios the name of the historical character in the first part of _Henry VI._ is given as "Falstaffe" not Fastolf. Other points of resemblance between the historic Fastolf and the Falstaff of the dramatist are to be found in their service under Thomas Mowbray, and association with a Boar's Head Inn. But Falstaff is in no true sense a dramatization of the real soldier.

The facts of Fastolf's early career are to be found chiefly in the
chronicles of Monstrelet and Waurin. For his later life there is much
material, including a number of his own letters, in the _Paston
Letters_. There is a full life by W. Oldys in the _Biographia
Britannica_ (1st ed., enlarged by Gough in Kippis's edition). See also
Dawson Turner's _History of Caister Castle_, Scrope's _History of
Castle Combe_, J. Gairdner's essay _On the Historical Element in
Shakespeare's Falstaff_, ap. _Studies in English History_, Sidney
Lee's article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, and D.W.
Duthie, _The Case of Sir John Fastolf and other Historical Studies_
(1907). (C. L. K.)

FAT (O.E. _faett_; the word is common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dutch _vet_, Ger. _Fett_, &c., and may be ultimately related to Greek [Greek: pion] and [Greek: piaros], and Sanskrit _pivan_), the name given to certain animal and vegetable products which are oily solids at ordinary temperatures, and are chemically distinguished as being the glyceryl esters of various fatty acids, of which the most important are stearic, palmitic, and oleic; it is to be noticed that they are non-nitrogenous. Fat is a normal constituent of animal tissue, being found even before birth; it occurs especially in the intra-muscular, the abdominal and the subcutaneous connective tissues. In the vegetable kingdom fats especially occur in the seeds and fruits, and sometimes in the roots. Physiological subjects concerned with the part played by fats in living animals are treated in the articles CONNECTIVE TISSUES; NUTRITION; CORPULENCE; METABOLIC DISEASES. The fats are chemically similar to the fixed oils, from which they are roughly distinguished by being solids and not liquids (see OILS). While all fats have received industrial applications, foremost importance must be accorded to the fats of the domestic animals--the sheep, cow, ox and calf. These, which are extracted from the bones and skins in the first operation in the manufacture of glue, are the raw materials of the soap, candle and glycerin industries.

FATALISM (Lat. _fatum_, that which is spoken, decreed), strictly the doctrine that all things happen according to a prearranged fate, necessity or inexorable decree. It has frequently been confused with determinism (q.v.), which, however, differs from it categorically in assigning a certain function to the will. The essence of the fatalistic doctrine is that it assigns no place at all to the initiative of the individual, or to rational sequence of events. Thus an oriental may believe that he is fated to die on a particular day; he believes that, whatever he does and in spite of all precautions he may take, nothing can avert the disaster. The idea of an omnipotent fate overruling all affairs of men is present in various forms in practically all religious systems. Thus Homer assumes a single fate ([Greek: Moira]), an impersonal power which makes all human concerns subject to the gods: it is not powerful over the gods, however, for Zeus is spoken of as weighing out the fate of men (_Il._ xxii. 209, viii. 69). Hesiod has three Fates ([Greek: Moirai]), daughters of Night, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. In Aeschylus fate is powerful even over the gods. The Epicureans regarded fate as blind chance, while to the Stoics everything is subject to an absolute rational law.

The doctrine of fate appears also in what are known as the higher religions, e.g. Christianity and Mahommedanism. In the former the ideas of personality and infinite power have vanished, all power being conceived as inherent in God. It is recognized that the moral individual must have some kind of initiative, and yet since God is omnipotent and omniscient man must be conceived as in some sense foreordained to a certain moral, mental and physical development. In the history of the Christian church emphasis has from time to time been laid specially on the latter aspect of human life (cf. the doctrines of election, foreordination, determinism). Even those theologians, however, who have laid special stress on the limitations of the human will have repudiated the strictly fatalistic doctrine which is characteristic of Oriental thought and is the negation of all human initiative (see PREDESTINATION; AUGUSTINE, SAINT; WILL). In Islam fate is an absolute power, known as _Kismet_, or _Nasib_, which is conceived as inexorable and transcending all the physical laws of the universe. The most striking feature of the Oriental fatalism is its complete indifference to material circumstances: men accept prosperity and misfortune with calmness as the decree of fate.

FATE, in Roman mythology, the spoken word (_fatum_) of Jupiter, the unalterable will of heaven. The plural (_Fata_, the Fates) was used for the "destinies" of individuals or cities, and then for the three goddesses who controlled them. Thus, Fata Scribunda were the goddesses who wrote down a man's destiny at his birth. In this connexion, however, Fata may be singular, the masculine and feminine _Fatus_, _Fata_, being the usual forms in popular and ceremonial language. The Fates were also called Parcae, the attributes of both being the same as those of the Greek Moerae.

FATEHPUR, FATHIPUR or FUTTEHPOOR, a town and district of British India, in the Allahabad division of the United Provinces. The town is 73 m. by rail N.W. of Allahabad. Pop. (1901) 19,281. The district has an area of 1618 sq. m. It is situated in the extreme south-eastern corner of the Doab or tract of country between the Ganges and the Jumna, which respectively mark its northern and southern boundaries. The whole district consists of an alluvial plain formed by the deposits of the two great rivers. The central part is almost perfectly level, and consists of highly cultivated land interspersed with jungle and with tracts impregnated with saltpetre (_usar_). A ridge of higher land, forming the watershed of the district, runs along it from east to west at an average distance of about 5 m. from the Ganges. Fatehpur therefore consists of two inclined planes, the one 5 m. broad, sloping down rapidly to the Ganges, and the other from 15 to 20 m. broad, falling gradually to the Jumna. The country near the banks of the two rivers is cut up into ravines and nullahs running in all directions, and is almost entirely uncultivable. Besides the Ganges and Jumna the only rivers of importance are the Pandu, a tributary of the Ganges, and the Arind and Nun, which both fall into the Jumna. The climate is more humid than in the other districts of the Doab, and although fevers are common, it is not considered an unhealthy district. The average annual rainfall is 34 in.

The tract in which this district is comprised was conquered in 1194 by the Pathans; but subsequently, after a desperate resistance, it was wrested from them by the Moguls. In the 18th century it formed a part of the _subah_ of Korah, and was under the government of the wazir of Oudh. In 1736 it was overrun by the Mahrattas, who retained possession of it until, in 1750, they were ousted by the Pathans of Fatehpur. In 1753 it was reconquered by the nawab of Oudh. In 1765, by a treaty between the East India Company and the nawab, Korah was made over to the Delhi emperor, who retained it till 1774, when it was again restored to the nawab wazir's dominions. Finally in 1801, the nawab, by treaty, reconveyed it to the Company in commutation of the amount which he had stipulated to pay in return for the defence of his country. In June 1857 the district rose in rebellion, and the usual murders of Europeans took place. Order was established after the fall of Lucknow, on the return of Lord Clyde's army to Cawnpore. In 1901 the population was 686,391, showing a decrease of 2% in the decade. The district is traversed by the main line of the East Indian railway from Allahabad to Cawnpore. Trade is mainly agricultural, but the town of Fatehpur is noted for the manufacture of ornamental whips, and Jafarganj for artistic curtains, &c.

FATEHPUR SIKRI, a town in the Agra district in the United Provinces of India, on the road from Agra to Jaipur. Pop. (1901) 7147. It is a ruined city, and is interesting only from an archaeological point of view. It was founded by Akbar in 1569 as a thank-offering for the birth of a son, Selim, afterwards the emperor Jahangir, foretold by Selim Chisti, a famous Mahommedan saint. The principal building is the great mosque, which is said by Fergusson to be hardly surpassed by any in India. "It measures 550 ft. east and west by 470 ft. north and south, over all. The mosque itself, 250 ft. by 80 ft., is crowned by three domes. In its courtyard, which measures 350 ft. by 440 ft., stand two tombs. One is that of Selim Chisti, built of white marble, and the windows with pierced tracery of the most exquisite geometrical patterns. It possesses besides a deep cornice of marble, supported by brackets of the most elaborate design. The other tomb, that of Nawab Islam Khan, is soberer and in excellent taste, but quite eclipsed by its surroundings. Even these parts, however, are surpassed in magnificence by the southern gateway. As it stands on a rising ground, when looked at from below its appearance is noble beyond that of any portal attached to any mosque in India, perhaps in the whole world." Among other more noteworthy buildings the following may be mentioned. The palace of Jodh Bai, the Rajput wife of Akbar, consists of a courtyard surrounded by a gallery, above which rise buildings roofed with blue enamel. A rich gateway gives access to a terrace on which are the "houses of Birbal and Miriam"; and beyond these is another courtyard, where are Akbar's private apartments and the exquisite palace of the Turkish sultana. Here are also the Panch Mahal or five-storeyed building, consisting of five galleries in tiers, and the audience chamber. The special feature in the architecture of the city is the softness of the red sandstone, which could be carved almost as easily as wood, and so lent itself readily to the elaborate Hindu embellishment. Fatehpur Sikri was a favourite residence of Akbar throughout his reign, and his establishment here was of great magnificence. After Akbar's death Fatehpur Sikri was deserted within 50 years of its foundation. The reason for this was that frequent cause in the East, lack of water. The only water obtainable was so brackish and corroding as to cause great mortality among the inhabitants. The buildings are situated within an enclosure, walled on three sides and about 7 m. in circumference. They are all now more or less in ruins, and their elaborate painting and other decoration has largely perished, but some modern restoration has been effected.

See E.B. Havell, _A Handbook to Agra and the Taj, Sikandra, Fatehpur
Sikri_, &c. (1904).

FATHER, the begetter of a child, the male parent. The word is common to Teutonic languages, and, like the other words for close family relationship, mother, brother, son, sister, daughter, appears in most Indo-European languages. The O. Eng. form is _faeder_, and it appears in Ger. _Vater_, Dutch _vader_, Gr. [Greek: pater], Lat. _pater_, whence Romanic Fr. _pere_, Span. _padre_, &c. The word is used of male ancestors more remote than the actual male parent, and of ancestors in general. It is applied to God, as the Father of Jesus Christ, and as the Creator of the world, and is thus the orthodox term for the First Person of the Trinity. Of the transferred uses of the word many have religious reference; thus it is used of the Christian writers, usually confined to those of the first five centuries, the Fathers of the Church (see below), of whom those who flourished at the end of, or just after the age of, the apostles are known as the Apostolic Fathers. One who stands as a spiritual parent to another is his "father," e.g. godfather, or in the title of bishops or archbishops, Right or Most Reverend Father in God. The pope is, in the Roman Church, the Holy Father. In the Roman Church, father is strictly applied to a "regular," a member of one of the religious orders, and so always in Europe, in English usage, often applied to a confessor, whether regular or secular, and to any Roman priest, and sometimes used of sub-members of a religious society or fraternity in the English Church. Of transferred uses, other than religious, may be mentioned the application to the first founders of an institution, constitution, epoch, &c. Thus the earliest settlers of North America are the Pilgrim Fathers, and the framers of the United States constitution are the Fathers of the Constitution. In ancient Rome the members of the senate are the _Patres conscripti_, the "Conscript fathers." The senior member or doyen of a society is often called the father. Thus the member of the English House of Commons, and similarly, of the House of Representatives in the United States, America, who has sat for the longest period uninterruptedly, is the Father of the House.

FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. The use of the word "father" as a title of respect is found in the Old Testament, where it is applied to patriarchs (Gen. l. 24 (Septuagint); Exod. iii. 13, 15; Deut. i. 8), priests (Judg. xvii. 10, xviii. 19), prophets (2 Kings ii. 12, vi. 21, xiii. 14), and distinguished ancestors (_Ecclus_. xliv. 1). In the time of our Lord the scribes claimed the name with an arrogance which He disapproved (Matt. xxiii. 9); in the rabbinic literature "the fathers" are the more eminent of the earlier rabbis whose sayings were handed down for the guidance of posterity.[1] The Christian Church, warned perhaps by the words of Christ, appears at first to have avoided a similar use of the term, while St Paul, St Peter and St John speak of their converts as spiritual children (1 Cor. iv. 14 f., Gal. iv. 19, 1 Pet. v. 13, 1 John ii. 12); they did not assume, so far as we know, the official style of "fathers in God." Nor is this title found in the age which succeeded to that of the apostles. When Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was martyred (A.D. 155), the crowd shouted, "This is the father of the Christians"[2]; but the words were probably prompted by the Jews, who took a prominent part in the martyrdom, and who naturally viewed Polycarp in the light of a great Christian rabbi, and gave him the title which their own teachers bore. In the next century members of the episcopal order were sometimes addressed in this manner: thus Cyprian is styled _papas_ or _papa_ by his Roman correspondents.[3] The bishops who sat in the great councils of the 4th century were known as "the 318 fathers" of Nicaea, and "the 150 fathers" of Constantinople. Meanwhile the custom was growing up of appealing to eminent Church writers of a past generation under this name. Thus Athanasius writes (_ad Afros_ vi.): "We have the testimony of fathers (the two Dionysii, bishops of Alexandria and Rome, who wrote in the previous century) for the use of the word [Greek: homoousios]." Such quotations were multiplied, as theologians learnt to depend increasingly upon their predecessors, until the testimony of "our holy father" Athanasius, or Gregory the Divine, or John the Golden-mouthed, came to be regarded as decisive in reference to controverted points of faith and practice.

In the narrower sense thus indicated the "fathers" of the Church are the great bishops and other eminent Christian teachers of the earlier centuries, who were conspicuous for soundness of judgment and sanctity of life, and whose writings remained as a court of appeal for their successors. A list of fathers drawn up on this principle will begin with the Christian writers of the 1st century whose writings are not included in the New Testament: where it ought to end is a more difficult point to determine. Perhaps the balance of opinion is in favour of regarding Gregory the Great (d. 604) as the last of the Latin fathers, and John of Damascus (d. c. 760) as the last of the fathers of the Greek Church. A more liberal estimate might include John Scotus Erigena or even Anselm or Bernard of Clairvaux in the West and Photius in the East. The abbe Migne carried his Latin patrology down to the time of Innocent III. (d. 1216), and his Greek patrology to the fall of Constantinople (1453); but, while this large extension of the field is much to the advantage of his readers, it undoubtedly stretches the meaning of _patrologia_ far beyond its natural limits. For ordinary purposes it is best to make the patristic period conterminous with the life of the ancient Catholic Church. In the West the Church enters the medieval stage of its history with the death of Gregory, while in the East even John of Damascus is rather a compiler of patristic teaching than a true "father."

A further question arises. Are all the Christian writers of a given period to be included among the "fathers," or those only who wrote on religious subjects, and of whose orthodoxy there is no doubt? Migne, following the example of the editors of _bibliothecae pat-rum_ who preceded him, swept into his great collection all the Christian writings which fell within his period; but he is careful to state upon his title-page that his patrologies include the ecclesiastical writers as well as the fathers and doctors of the Church. For a comprehensive use of the term "ecclesiastical writers" he has the authority of Jerome, who enumerates among them[4] such heresiarchs or leaders of schism as Tatian, Bardaisan, Novatus, Donatus, Photinus and Eunomius. This may not be logical, but long usage has made it permissible or even necessary. It is often difficult, if not impracticable, to draw the line between orthodox writers and heterodox; on which side, it might be asked, is Origen to be placed? and in the case of a writer like Tertullian who left the Church in middle life, are we to admit certain of his works into our patrology and refuse a place to others? It is clear that in the circumstances the terms "father," "patristic," "patrology" must be used with much elasticity, since it is now too late to substitute for them any more comprehensive terms.

By the "fathers," then, we understand the whole of extant Christian literature from the time of the apostles to the rise of scholasticism or the beginning of the middle ages. However we may interpret the lower limit of this period, the literature which it embraces is immense. Some method of subdivision is necessary, and the simplest and most obvious is that which breaks the whole into two great parts, the ante-Nicene and the post-Nicene. This is not an arbitrary cleavage; the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) is the watershed which actually separates two great tracts of Christian literature. The ante-Nicene age yields priceless records of the early struggles of Christianity; from it we have received specimens of the early apologetic and the early polemic of the Church, the first essays of Christian philosophy, Christian correspondence, Christian biblical interpretation: we owe to it the works of Justin, Irenaeus, the Alexandrian Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian. In these products of the 2nd and 3rd centuries there is much which in its own way was not surpassed by any of the later patristic writings. Yet the post-Nicene literature, considered as literature, reaches a far higher level. Both in East and West, the 4th and 5th centuries form the golden age of dogmatic theology, of homiletic preaching, of exposition, of letter-writing, of Church history, of religious poetry. Two causes may be assigned for this fact. The conversion of the empire gave the members of the Church leisure and opportunities for the cultivation of literary taste, and gradually drew the educated classes within the pale of the Christian society. Moreover, the great Christological controversies of the age tended to encourage in Christian writers and preachers an intellectual acuteness and an accuracy of thought and expression of which the earlier centuries had not felt the need.

The ante-Nicene period of patristic literature opens with the "apostolic fathers,"[5] i.e. the Church writers who flourished toward the end of the apostolic age and during the half century that followed it, including Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna and the author known as "Barnabas." Their writings, like those of the apostles, are epistolary; but editions of the apostolic fathers now usually admit also the early Church order known as the _Didache_, the allegory entitled the _Shepherd_, and a short anonymous apology addressed to one Diognetus. A second group, known as the "Greek Apologists," embraces Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras and Theophilus; and a third consists of the early polemical writers, Irenaeus and Hippolytus. Next come the great Alexandrians, Clement, Origen, Dionysius; the Carthaginians, Tertullian and Cyprian; the Romans, Minucius Felix and Novatian; the last four laid the foundations of a Latin Christian literature. Even the stormy days of the last persecution yielded some considerable writers, such as Methodius in the East and Lactantius in the West. This list is far from complete; the principal collections of the ante-Nicene fathers include not a few minor and anonymous writers, and the fragments of many others whose works as a whole have perished.

In the post-Nicene period the literary output of the Church was greater. Only the more representative names can be mentioned here. From Alexandria we get Athanasius, Didymus and Cyril; from Cyrene, Synesius; from Antioch, Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Chrysostom and Theodoret; from Palestine, Eusebius of Caesarea and Cyril of Jerusalem; from Cappadocia, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus. The Latin West was scarcely less productive; it is enough to mention Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, Leo of Rome, Jerome, Rufinus, and a father lately restored to his place in patristic literature, Niceta of Remesiana.[6] Gaul alone has a goodly list of Christian authors to show: John Cassian, Vincent of Lerins, Hilary of Arles, Prosper of Aquitaine, Salvian of Marseilles, Sidonius Apollinaris of Auvergne, Caesarius of Arles, Gregory of Tours. The period ends in the West with two great Italian names, Cassiodorus and Pope Gregory I., after Leo the greatest of papal theologians.

The reader to whom the study is new will gain some idea of the bulk of the extant patristic literature, if we add that in Migne's collection ninety-six large volumes are occupied with the Greek fathers from Clement of Rome to John of Damascus, and seventy-six with the Latin fathers from Tertullian to Gregory the Great.[7]

For a discussion of the more important fathers the student is referred to the articles which deal with them separately. In this place it is enough to consider the general influence of the patristic writings upon Christian doctrine and biblical interpretation. Can any authority be claimed for their teaching or their exegesis, other than that which belongs to the best writers of every age. The decree of the council of Trent[8] (_ut nemo ... contra unanimum consensum patrum ipsam scripturam sacram interpretari audeat_) is studiously moderate, and yet it seems to rule that under certain circumstances it is not permitted to the Church of later times to carry the science of biblical interpretation beyond the point which it had reached at the end of the patristic period. Roman Catholic writers,[9] however, have explained the prohibition to apply to matters of faith only, and in that case the Tridentine decree is little else than another form of the Vincentian canon which has been widely accepted in the Anglican communion: _curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est_. The fathers of the first six or seven centuries, so far as they agree, may be fairly taken to represent the main stream of Christian tradition and belief during the period when the apostolic teaching took shape in the great creeds and dogmatic decisions of Christendom. The English reformers realized this fact; and notwithstanding their insistence on the unique authority of the canon of Scripture, their appeal to the fathers as representatives of the teaching of the undivided Church was as wholehearted as that of the Tridentine divines. Thus the English canon of 1571 directs preachers "to take heed that they do not teach anything in their sermons as though they would have it completely held and believed by the people, save what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and what the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have gathered from that doctrine." Depreciation of the fathers was characteristic, not of the Anglican reformation, but of the revolt against some of its fundamental principles which was led by the Puritan reaction.[10]