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DIDJESUS
OBSERVE LENT?
by
Herman
L.
Hoeh
Where and when did the custom of observing Lent originate? Here are amazing FACTS
about this 40-day period of penitence that will surprise you!
B
ELIEVE
it or not, Lent
was observed 2,000
yea rs before Jesus was
born!
lt
was still being observed
during the lifetime of Jesus–
and in the days of the apostles.
Yet Christ did not inst itu te it
and he never observed it! The 12
apostles never observed it! The
Church Jesus built never ob–
served it.
How, then, did Lent-a 40-day
period of fasting and penitence–
enter the Christianity of our West–
ern world?
Isn't it time we pause to ask
ourselves
why
we observe the cus–
toms we do? We may have
sup–
posed
Lent was taught in the
Bible. But bave we ever looked
into the Bible to see what the
Bible really says?
Why Churches Observe Lent
The Lenten season is a period of 40
days' abstinence, beginning on Ash
Wednesday. Do you know what the
meaning of "Lent" is?
The word
Lent
comes from the
Old English word
Lencten
meaning
the "spring" of the year. The Lent–
en celebration .was originally asso–
ciated witb the
spring
of the year.
But today it begins in the winter!
Why?
Wbere did the springtime cele–
bratíon of Lent actually originate?
Here is the su rprising answer!
Let us first turn back the pages
of time till we reach the close of the
February 1982
second century. Thís was 100 years
after the death of the last of the 12
apostles. In a letter to the bishop of
Rome about Lent, written at this
time, we read:
"For the controversy is not only
concerning the day"-there was a
controversy over the time to cele–
brate the day called Easter-"but
also concerning the very manner of
the fast"- the fast of the Lenten
season. "For sorne think that they
should fast one day, others two, yet
others more, and sorne forty." This
letter was written by lrenaeus, a
bishop from Gaul (the old name of
France in the days of the Roman
Empire).
How did all this confusion over a
Lenten fast originate?
God is not the author of confu–
sion! Then who origínated this con–
fusion over Lent?
"And this variety in its obser–
vance," continued Irenaeus, "has
not originated in our time, but long
before in that of our ancestors. It is
líkely they did not hold to strict
accuracy, and thus
formed a cus–
tom
for their posterity according to
prívate fancy"- not
apostolic au–
tbor i ty or Christ's command!
(From Eusebius'
Church History,
book 5, chapter 24.)
Lent carne into th e church
through CUSTOM-through
PRI–
VATE FANCY. The churches ob–
served Lent, not because the Bible
commands it, but because profess–
ing Christians adopted the custom
from their gentile neighbors.
"As long as the perfection of the
primitive church [the inspired New
Testam~:<nt
Church] remained in–
violable," wrote Cassian, a Catholic
prelate of the fifth century,
"there
was no observance of Lent,
but
when men began to decline from
the apostolical fervour of devo–
tion ... then
the priests in general
agreed
to recall them from secular
cares by a canonical indiction of
fasting ... "
(Antiquities of the
Christian Church,
book 21, chap–
ter 1).
Fasting, or abstinence from cer–
tain foods, was imposed
after
tbe
days of the apostles- by the
authority of the priests!
Lent is not of apostolic origin. It
did not originate with Cbrist. It
entered the Christianity of the
Roman World in the second cen–
tury. l t entered at the same time
that Easter did! Lent is always asso–
cíated with Easter! But when did
the custom of celebrating Easter
originate?
What About Easter?
Here is what Socrates Scholasticus
wrote in his
Ecclesiastical History,
not long after Emperor Constan–
tine, in the fourth century after
Christ:
"Neither the apostles, therefore,
nor the Gospels, have anywhere
imposed ... Easter ... Wherefore
inasmuch as men love festivals,
because they afford them cessation
from labor: each individual in every
place, according to his own plea–
sure, has by a prevalent custom cel–
ebrated [Easter] ... The Saviour
and bis apostles have enjoined us by
(Continued on page 29)
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