The Origin of Lent by C. A. S. Temple

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 22, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 16.

The Origin of Lent.

By C. A. S. Temple

This great fast, so conspicuous among the many observances of the Roman church—and among those of some Protestants, as well—is upon us once more. Its claims of peculiar sanctity, the increasing respect for it among even Protestants, and that mysterious glamour with which it always seems invested, all demand the most searching investigation into its every feature, and that its merit, or demerit, be fully and thoroughly understood.

It is conceded by all concerned that there is no precept, or command, in the Old Testament or the New, requiring, or even approving any such observance. In no history, sacred or profane, have we any example of its observance, either by those holy men “to whom were committed the oracles of God,” by the ancient church, under the Old Testament dispensation, or by the “apostolic church,” of the New. Like every form of “festival,” therefore, its appearance in the Christian church is that of an interloper and an enemy.

Very early in the Christian era, the resurrection of Christ was annually commemorated, but for centuries that commemoration was preceded by no Lent. Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, says: “The observance of the forty days had no existence so long as the perfection of that primitive church remained inviolate.” This testimony is a most expressive intimation that the introduction of “the forty days” was the bitter fruit of a violation of the purity and integrity of “that primitive church.”

“Whence, then,” we ask, with another, “came this observance?” We answer: The forty days’ abstinence of Lent originated with the ancient pagans, formed a part of their worship, and is therefore a purely idolatrous observance. “Such a fast of forty days” in the spring of the year, “is now observed by the Yezidis, or devil worshipers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians.”—Layard’s Nineveh and Babylon, p. 73.

So, too, the pagan Mexicans, says Humboldt (“Mexican Researches,” Vol. 1, p. 404), “Three days before the vernal equinox, began a solemn fast of forty days in honor of the sun.” Wilkinson tells us in his “Egyptian Antiquities,” Vol. 1, p. 278, that such a fast of forty days was observed in Egypt.—Two Babylons, p. 169. Rome, too, whose paganism, both ancient and modern, was borrowed and perpetuated from the same ancient Babylonian model as that of Egypt, did not allow herself to overlook so conspicuous a feature as this, in that paganism, for under the pagan regime she too had her Lent. Probably this was the time which includes the “forty nights,” during which “the wailing of Proserpine continued.” It appears from the testimony of Arnobius, as represented by Hislop in “Two Babylons” (p. 170), that the Romans observed a “sacred” fast called “Castus,” which the Christians in his time believed was primarily in imitation of the long fast of Ceres, when for many days she refused to eat, on account of “excess of sorrow,” for the loss of her daughter Proserpine, who had been stolen and carried away by Pluto, the god of hell.

Whatever relation “the forty nights wailing for Proserpine,” “the long fast of Ceres,” and the “sacred fast” of “Castus” may or may not have sustained to each other, they show that, like the Egyptians, from whom they learned their paganism—and like the whole pagan world as well—the ancient Romans periodically observed a “sacred fast.”

The facts, as we shall see, answer the question as to the origin of this great observance. They reveal, as the source whence it has emanated, a fountain whose filthiness and pollutions no words but those “which the Holy Ghost speaketh,” can possibly describe,—a fountain whose waters, however clear and pellucid they may appear, are always charged to the full with the rankest, deadliest poison!

Just here another question presents itself, viz.: How and why did “Lent” find its way into the Christian church? Let us see. There is abundant evidence in history that, to propitiate the pagans, and to secure their assets to a “nominal Christianity,” the church of Rome, pursuing her usual policy, took measures, and found it no difficult matter, to get paganism and Christianity, now far sunk in idolatry—in this, as in so many other things—to shake hands.

Such a treasonable policy could be carried out only by treachery and fraud. But Rome, as usual, was equal to the occasion.

Taking advantage of the fact that fasting, though not commanded, was expressly approved by the Master, and practiced by his apostles and “the Apostolic Church,” it was easy for her, under some plausible pretext, to recommend, and, at last, to bring in this ancient and revered pagan fast. To the church, “now far sunk in idolatry,” this—like certain popular defections of the present time—was but another backward and downward step in her much boasted “progress” and “advanced thought”! Of course, it was in every sense a loss to her, while to the pagans it was a positive gain.

Side by side with the Christians, they still fasted and worshiped in honor of Bacchus, their false messiah; while the Christians, in their “progressive” but false “liberty,” kept the same fast, and to great extent in the same way, in honor professedly of the true! Thus, at length, Lent had found its place among other “abominations,” as an ordinance of the Christian religion! In all this the pagans yielded absolutely nothing, yet the church, conceding everything, yielding everything, took, in this one act, a long step in that long career of concessions and compromises, by which at last she became thoroughly and hopelessly metamorphosed into what is now called the “Roman Catholic church,” a living, loathsome embodiment of the ancient Babylonian paganism!

As we have seen, for some hundreds of years after Christ no fast before Easter was observed, and until long after its adoption it had no connection with the “Lent” of the pagans. Just when the “forty days” were adopted, does not clearly appear, but it is certain that it was not for a considerable time after the Council of Nice, which assembled in A. D. 325. About the year 450, Socrates, the eminent historian, wrote: “Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s day.” “At last,” says Hislop (“Two Babylons,” p. 172), “when the worship of Astarte was rising into the ascendant, steps were taken to get the whole Chaldean Lent of forty days made imperative on all within the Roman Empire of the West. The way was soon opened. A council was held at Aurelia, in the time of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, about the year 519, which decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter.”

The beautiful “simplicity that is in Christ,” which at first characterized the celebration of his resurrection, was already eclipsed and superseded by the pompous flummeries of the pagan Easter, and now, after such a mandate, from such “infallible” authority, the tendency toward paganism, which had fully become the rule, in everything ecclesiastical, made the acceptance and adoption of “Lent,” a “foregone conclusion.” Accordingly, the observance of this great pagan monstrosity became, in time, the law and custom of “the universal church!”

This new order of things cursed the church with the rankest superstitions and the grossest abominations.

Let any one read the atrocities that were commemorated during the “sacred fast,” or pagan Lent, as described by Arnobius, or Clemens Alexandrinus (“Clem. Alex. Protrepticos,” p. 13), and surely he must blush for the Christianity of those who, with the full knowledge of all these abominations, “went down to Egypt for help” to stir up the languid devotion of a degenerate church! “That Christians should never think of introducing the pagan abstinence of Lent, was a sign of evil. It showed how low they had fallen. It was also a cause of evil. It inevitably led to deeper degradation.”—Two Babylons, pp. 171, 172.

“Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned?” If the introduction of the pagan festivals and the “Lent” has been attended with such fearful cost to the integrity and purity of the Christian church in by-gone ages, how can she now do the same thing without a repetition of the same consequences? Her present insensate zeal for pagan feasts of Saturn and the old Greco-Roman Aphrodisia under their specious but deceitful aliases (“Christmas” and “Easter”), often celebrating them with a hundred-fold more earnestness, more passionate ardor, than she bestows upon the legitimate observances of any true, Christian ordinance, is already bringing forth its inevitable fruit. Corruptions in both doctrine and practice are fast finding their way into the church, and are accepted and cherished there with a heartiness, and unction even, which is appalling, and the growing favor with which this other paganism, Lent, is even now regarded and treated, is a sure indication that the great defection is most alarmingly on the increase! It shows, too, that, as with Christmas and Easter, the adoption and observance of “Lent” by the Roman church, and its cunning, crafty insinuation into the Christian church, is an important link in that long chain of “sorceries” with which “that arrant whore of Rome,” even now “deceives” and binds “the nations.” As therefore God commands that we “be not partakers of her sins,” participation in this, as in any other of her paganisms, must be open treason against the “King of kings.” See Jer. 10: 2; 2 Cor. 6: 16, 17; Rev. 18: 4; Deut. 12: 32.