Lent / The Great Fast
Forty days of fasting and penance to ready the soul for Pascha
Lent, called the Great Fast in the East, is the roughly forty-day season of fasting, penance, and preparation before Pascha or Easter. An early canon of Nicaea already references the Quadragesima. The season is kept across Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental, Anglican, and Lutheran traditions, though it is reckoned differently, beginning on Clean Monday in the East and Ash Wednesday in the West, while many Free churches do not observe it.
How it traveled
- The Church History of EusebiusCaesarea · c. 339 CEexplains
- The Canons of the Councils of Ancyra, Gangra, Neocæsarea, Antioch and Laodicea, which Canons were Accepted and Received by the Ecumenical Synods— · c. 360 CEapplies
- Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His LifeAlexandria · c. 373 CEexplains
- The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIVMarseille · c. 435 CEexplains
- The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates ScholasticusConstantinople (Istanbul) · c. 439 CEexplains
- The Letters and Sermons of Leo the GreatRome · c. 461 CEexplains
- The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext CouncilConstantinople (Istanbul) · c. 692 CEapplies
Key passages(20)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV · John Cassian
Rom. xii. 1. Lev. xix. 36. Prov. xx. 10, 11. Ib. 23. Of the time and measure of refreshment. So then we should keep the observance of the days mentioned in such a way that the relaxation allowed
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The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV · John Cassian
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)
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The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great · Pope Leo the Great
Sermon XXXIX. On Lent, I. I. The benefits of abstinence shown by the example of the Hebrews. In former days, when the people of the Hebrews and all the tribes of Israel were oppressed for their sca
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The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great · Pope Leo the Great
Sermon XL. On Lent, II. I. Progress and improvement always possible. Although, dearly-beloved, as the Easter festival approaches, the very recurrence of the season points out to us the Lenten fast,
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Book V · Constitutions of the Holy Apostles
XIII. Brethren, observe the festival days; and first of all the birthday which you are to celebrate on the twenty-fifth of the ninth month; after which let the Epiphany be to you the most honoured, in
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Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life · Athanasius of Alexandria
Again, my brethren, is Easter come and gladness; again the Lord hath brought us to this season; so that when, according to custom, we have been nourished with His words, we may duly keep the feast. Le
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The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus · Socrates Scholasticus
Chapter XXII.—The Author’s Views respecting the Celebration of Easter, Baptism, Fasting, Marriage, the Eucharist, and Other Ecclesiastical Rites. As we have touched the subject I deem it not unreason
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Book Fourth. of the Holy Catholic Church · John Calvin
19. But the first thing always to be avoided is, the encroachment of superstition, as formerly happened, to the great injury of the Church. It would have been much better to have had no fasting at all
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The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon LV. Since we understand that in the city of the Romans, in the holy fast of Lent they fast on the Saturdays, contrary to the ecclesiastical observance which is traditional, it seemed good to th
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The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon LVI. We have likewise learned that in the regions of Armenia and in other places certain people eat eggs and cheese on the Sabbaths and Lord’s days of the holy lent. It seems good therefore tha
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The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon LXXXIX. The faithful spending the days of the Salutatory Passion in fasting, praying and compunction of heart, ought to fast until the midnight of the Great Sabbath: since the divine Evangelist
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The Canons of the Councils of Ancyra, Gangra, Neocæsarea, Antioch and Laodicea, which Canons were Accepted and Received by the Ecumenical Synods · The Ecumenical Councils
Ancient Epitome of Canons XLVI. and XLVII. Whoso is baptised by a bishop or presbyter let him recite the faith on the fifth feria of the week. Also anyone baptized clinically a short while afterwards
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The Church History of Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
This epistle is no longer extant, but in addition to the fragments given in this chapter by Eusebius, a few other extracts from it are found in other writers; thus, in the Pseudo-Justinian Quæstiones
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Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life · Athanasius of Alexandria
The twentieth Letter, as far as it is extant, bears a great resemblance with this. In both, the comparison between natural and spiritual food is enlarged upon, and several of the same quotations are a
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Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life · Athanasius of Alexandria
Thanks be to Divine Providence for those things which, at all times, it vouchsafes to us; for it has vouchsafed to us now to come to the season of the festival. Having, therefore, according to custom,
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Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life · Athanasius of Alexandria
3. And what does this mean my brethren? For it is right for us to investigate the saying of the prophet, and especially on account of heretics who have turned their mind against the law. By Moses then
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Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life · Athanasius of Alexandria
3. So now, those who keep the Passover in like manner, the Lord again reproves, as He did those lepers who were cleansed, when He loved the one as thankful, but was angry with the others as ungrateful
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The Canonical Epistle, with the Commentaries of Theodore Balsamon and John Zonaras. · Peter of Alexandria
Canon XV. No one shall find fault with us for observing the fourth day of the week, and the preparation, Balsamon. Conformably to the sixty-fourth Apostolical canon, which decrees that we are not to
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The Canons of the Council in Trullo; Often Called The Quinisext Council · The Ecumenical Councils
Canon XXIX. A canon of the Synod of Carthage says that the holy mysteries of the altar are not to be performed but by men who are fasting, except on one day in the year on which the Supper of the Lor
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Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life · Athanasius of Alexandria
I. Festal Letters. Letter I.—For 329. Easter-day xi Pharmuthi; viii Id. April; Ær. Dioclet. 45; Coss. Constantinus Aug. VIII. Constantinus Cæs. IV; Præfect. Septimius Zenius; Indict. II. Of Fasting,
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