Part 22 (1/2)

FASTING, the partial or total abstinence of mankind and animals from the ordinary requisite supply of aliment, by which it is to be understood that quant.i.ty which is adapted to preserve them in a healthy and vigorous condition. It would appear that various warm-blooded animals are capable of sustaining total abstinence much longer than human beings. Cats and dogs have survived for several weeks without nourishment of any kind, but it is probable that few human beings could survive such deprivation for more than a week. The use of water without solid food enables life to be sustained much longer than it could otherwise be.

FASTS, temporary abstentions from food, especially on religious grounds.

Abstinence from food, accompanied by signs of humiliation and repentance or grief, is to be found more or less in almost all religions. Among the Jews fasts were numerous, and we find many instances of occasional fasting in the Old Testament. Herodotus says that the Egyptians prepared themselves by fasting for the celebration of the great festival of Isis. So in the Thesmophoria at Athens, and in the rites of Ceres at Rome, it was practised. The Church of Rome distinguishes between days of fasting and of abstinence. The former are: (1) the forty days of Lent; (2) the Ember days, being the Wednesday, Friday, and Sat.u.r.day of the first week in Lent, of Whitsun week, of the third week in September, and of the third week in Advent; (3) the Wednesdays and Thursdays of the four weeks in Advent; (4) the vigils or eves of Whitsuntide, of the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul, of the a.s.sumption of the Virgin, of All Saints, and of Christmas Day. When any fasting day falls upon Sunday, it is observed on the Sat.u.r.day before.

The Greek Church observes four princ.i.p.al fasts: that of Lent, one beginning in the week after Whitsuntide, one for a fortnight before the a.s.sumption, one forty days before Christmas. In the East, however, the strict idea of a fast is more preserved than in the West. The Church of England appoints the following fixed days for fasting and abstinence, between which no difference is made: (1) the forty days of Lent; (2) the Ember days at the four seasons; (3) the three Rogation days before Holy Thursday; (4) every Friday except Christmas Day. The Church, however, gives no directions concerning fasting.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: L. d.u.c.h.esne, _Christian Wors.h.i.+p_; J.

Dowden, _The Church Year and Kalendar_; article _Fasting_ in Hastings'

_Encyclopaedia of Ethics and Religion_.

FAT, an oily concrete substance, a compound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, deposited in the cells of the adipose or cellular membrane of animal bodies. In most parts of the body the fat lies immediately under the skin. Fat is of various degrees of consistence, as in tallow, lard, and oil. It is generally white or yellowish, with little smell or taste. It consists of esters of glycerine with fatty and other acids, and these are generally termed glycerides. The commonest of these are stearin, a waxy solid, palmitin, a softer solid, and olein, an oil. Fats are insoluble in water. When boiled with caustic alkalies, e.g. caustic soda, they are decomposed (saponified), yielding an alkali salt of the fatty acid (soap) and glycerine. The consistency of any natural fat depends on the proportions in which these three substances are present, e.g. mutton suet consists mainly of stearin, and olive oil of olein. In the body fat serves as a packing, and helps to give roundness of contour. Being a bad conductor of heat, it is useful in retaining warmth, but its chief function is that of nutrition.

FA'TALISM, the belief in fate, or an unchangeable destiny, to which everything is subject, uninfluenced by reason, and pre-established either by chance or the Creator. Fatalism existed among the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, and is still prevalent among Mohammedans. The fact that many events in man's life seemed to be inevitable gave rise to the belief in fatalism.

Amongst notable historical examples of the belief in fate may be mentioned the old Greek conception of a fate which stood behind the G.o.ds themselves as a controlling power; the Mohammedan fatalism, which regards all things great and small as inexorably predetermined, so that no accident is possible. Fatalism is to be distinguished both from _determinism_ and _predestination_.

FATEGARH (f_a_t-e-g_a_r'), a town, United Provinces of India, on the Ganges, now munic.i.p.ally united with Farukhabad; the scene of a ma.s.sacre of upwards of 200 Europeans during the Mutiny of 1857. Pop. 12,500.

FATEHPUR (f_a_t-e-por'), a town of India, in district of the same name, Allahabad division, United Provinces, 50 miles S.E. of Cawnpore. Pop.

16,939.--The district has an area of 1639 sq. miles, and a pop. of 686,400.

FATEHPUR SIKRI, a town of India, district of Agra, United Provinces. It was the favourite residence of the Emperor Akbar, who enclosed and fortified it. It now chiefly consists of a vast expanse of magnificent ruins enclosed by a high stone wall some 5 miles in circuit. Pop. 6132.

FATES (in Lat. _Parcae_, in Gr. _Moirai_), in Greek and Latin mythology, the inexorable sisters who spin the thread of human life. The appellation _Clotho_ (the spinner) was probably at first common to them all among the Greeks. As they were three in number, and poetry endeavoured to designate them more precisely, _Clotho_ became a proper name, as did also _Atr[)o]pos_ and _Lach[)e]sis_. Clotho means she who spins (the thread of life); Atropos signifies unalterable fate; Lachesis, lot or chance; so that all three refer to the same subject from different points of view. They know and predict what is yet to happen. Lachesis is represented with a spindle, Clotho with the thread, and Atropos with shears, with which she cuts it off. We find also in the northern mythology three beautiful virgins, the _Nornen_, who determine the fate of men. Their names are _Urd_ (the past), _Varande_ (the present), and _Skuld_ (the future).

FATHERLASHER, or BULL-HEAD, a fish of the genus Cottus (_Cottus bub[)a]lis_), from 8 to 10 inches in length. The head is large, and is furnished with several formidable spines. The fish is found on the rocky coasts of Britain, and near Newfoundland and Greenland. In the latter regions it attains a much larger size, and is a considerable article of food.

FATHERS OF THE CHURCH, THE.

1. _The term 'Fathers'._--This term, as used in the sense of spiritual parents of the Christian faith and life, appears to have become current in the fourth century. It was so used by Christian teachers, who cited as authoritative the great teachers and guides who were their predecessors. By the 'Fathers' they meant, specifically, the earlier writers who carried on the work of instruction which was begun by Peter and John and the rest of the Apostles. As employed nowadays, the term has a great fluidity of meaning. In the widest sense it signifies all ecclesiastical writers (i.e.

all writers within the Christian Church who treat of matters of Christian belief and practice) belonging to the older post-Apostolic period. In the narrower and more frequent sense it signifies only those ecclesiastical writers of the older post-Apostolic period who conform, more or less, to the Catholic tradition. As St. Vincent of Lerins lays it down, ”Those alone should be named 'Fathers' who have been staunch in the communion and faith of the One Catholic Church, and have received ecclesiastical approbation as teachers”.

2. _Fathers and Doctors._--To such among the Fathers as were regarded as the most eminent the distinguis.h.i.+ng t.i.tle of 'Teachers' (_doctores_) was given. Thus in the Western Church Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory I were the four great Teachers or Doctors; while in the Eastern Church a similar position was a.s.signed to Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of n.a.z.ianzus, and Chrysostom. But others also have been acknowledged as Doctors, as Hilary of Poitiers, Cyril of Alexandria, John of Damascus, and our one English Father (born out of due season) the Venerable Bede--not to speak of the application of the term to some of the mediaeval Schoolmen.

3. _The Patristic Period._--While it is universally agreed that the Apostolic Age is succeeded by the Age of the Fathers, there is a difference of view as to when the Age of the Fathers terminates. Gregory I (the Great) is usually regarded as the last of the Latin or Western Fathers and the first of the Schoolmen, and John of Damascus as the last of the Greek or Eastern Fathers. But where the term 'Fathers' is broadly used to designate the older Church writers in general, the tendency is--and it is logically defensible--to extend the Patristic period far beyond the Age of the Great Fathers (325-451), and to include among the later Fathers many mediaeval writers. Thus the Abbe Migne, who in the middle of last century issued a monumental edition of the original Greek and Latin texts of the Fathers, carried the Latin Fathers as far as Innocent III in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and the Greek Fathers down to the Council of Florence and the fall of Constantinople in the middle of the fifteenth century.

4. _Division and Cla.s.sification._--The broadest division of the Fathers is according to locality, and is into Eastern and Western. To this the division according to language, into Greek and Latin, largely corresponds.

But it is to be remembered that in the early Patristic Age, or before Tertullian, Latin was not used by ecclesiastical writers. It is also to be remembered that among the Eastern Fathers there were writers in Syriac, Armenian, and Coptic, as well as Greek. Another broad and general division is into ante-Nicene, Nicene, and post-Nicene; which is according to the principle that the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) marks the transition from a simple and unsystematized to a unified doctrinal testimony. But it is usual in Church history, while observing the aforesaid general divisions, to arrange the Fathers in certain historical groups, representing for the most part distinct schools of thought. There are, however, great names that cannot be conveniently treated under any historical group, such names as Irenaeus, Athanasius, Jerome, Leo the Great, and Gregory the Great. Keeping this in view, we might cla.s.sify the Fathers in accordance with the following scheme: (1) the _Apostolic Fathers_ (the best known of whom are Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp), who received their t.i.tle not only as being younger contemporaries and perhaps personal disciples of Apostles, but also for their nearness and faithfulness to the Apostolic tradition; (2) the _Greek Apologists_ (the most notable of whom is Justin Martyr), who sought to defend Christian truth on rational and philosophical grounds against both Jew and pagan; (3) the _Alexandrians_ (outstanding among whom are Clement and Origen), who greatly furthered the development of Christian theology in general, but whose names are specially a.s.sociated with the allegorical and mystical type of Scriptural interpretation; (4) the _North African School_ (to which Tertullian and Cyprian belong), who shaped Christian Latinity, as well as the theology and ecclesiastical polity of the West; (5) the _Cappadocians_ (in which group the most prominent members are Basil, Gregory of n.a.z.ianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa), who caught up the theology of Athanasius, providing it with well-defined terms, and so laying broad the foundations of the Greek orthodoxy; (6) the _Antiochians_ (among whom Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Theodoret are the greatest), who were opposed to the Alexandrian mysticism and held by the literal and historical mode of Scriptural interpretation; (7) the _Western Nicene Group_ (counting in their number eminent teachers like Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrose), who followed the Alexandrians in their exegetical method, and in their dogmatic theology Athanasius and the Cappadocians; (8) the _School of Augustine_, in which the Western theological tradition set by Tertullian and Cyprian culminated; (9) the _School of Lerins_ (leading members of which are Hilary of Arles and Vincentius), which attempted to mitigate the extreme Augustinian doctrines of sin and grace.

5. _Value of Patristic Study._--Among the Fathers are many great thinkers and writers (not to say orators, organizers, and statesmen) who should be studied for their own sake, and for the influence they have wielded. We would only indicate here some of the various uses of patristic study. (1) The _student of the Bible_ turns to the Fathers, and especially the earlier of them, for light upon the problem of the true or original text of the Bible--although very few of the Fathers knew the Hebrew tongue, and only Origen and Jerome can throw direct light upon the Old Testament text. To the Fathers also, especially great exegetes like Origen, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine, the Biblical student turns for light upon the meaning of the sacred text, and for knowledge of the history of its interpretation. (2) The _student of Church history_ finds first-hand material in the Fathers for the older post-Apostolic period. This material is supplied in the tractates and letters of the Fathers generally. But patristic writers from Eusebius downwards furnish us also with formal histories of the Church of both a general and special character. Patristic histories, as indeed all histories, are to be used with critical caution.

And not only do the Fathers inform us as to the course of events; we are dependent upon them for our knowledge of the development of creed and liturgy, ritual and order, and other Christian inst.i.tutions. (3) The _student of ecclesiastical dogma and Christian theology in general_ cannot dispense with the study of the Fathers. The patristic was the formative and, in a sense, conclusive period of Christian theology. In the ancient Greek theology the idea of G.o.d was developed, and in the so-called Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Definition the doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Christ respectively received their final Greek dogmatic expression. Landmarks in the history of this dogmatic development are the names of Origen, Athanasius, Basil and the Gregories, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Leo the Great. In the ancient Latin theology, in accordance with the more practical genius of the Westerns, the doctrine of man was developed, and of sin and grace. With this anthropological or soteriological, as distinguished from the other more strictly theological movement, the names of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine are princ.i.p.ally a.s.sociated. It was left to the mediaeval theologians to work out the doctrine of the Work of Christ.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. W. Farrar, _Lives of the Fathers_; E. Leigh-Bennett, _Handbook of the Early Christian Fathers_; S.P.C.K., _The Fathers for English Readers_ (a series of biographies); also _Early Church Cla.s.sics_ (a series of translations); H. B. Swete, _Patristic Study_ (1902: an excellent introduction to the field of patristic learning, with useful bibliographies); W. Bright, _The Age of the Fathers_.

FAT'IMITE DYNASTY, a line of caliphs claiming descent from Fatima, the favourite daughter of Mohammed, and of Ali her cousin, to whom she was married. In the year 909 Abu-Mohammed Obeidalla, giving himself out as the grandson of Fatima, endeavoured to pa.s.s himself off as the Mahdi or Messiah predicted by the _Koran_. Denounced as an impostor by the reigning Caliph of Bagdad, he fled into Egypt, became Caliph of Tunis, and soon conquered all Northern Africa from the Straits of Gibraltar to the borders of Egypt.

His son wrested Egypt from the Abbasides in 970 and founded Cairo. The Fatimite dynasty was extinguished in 1171, on the death of Al Adid, the fourteenth caliph, and a new line began with Saladin.

FATTY ACIDS, the h.o.m.ologues of formic and acetic acid; so called because the members first studied were obtained from fats and oils, e.g. butyric acid from b.u.t.ter, stearic acid from stearin, palmitic acid from palm-oil.

These acids are present united with glycerol in the fats as glycerides, and are obtained from them by saponification with superheated steam or mineral acids, when the fatty acid is liberated, floats to the surface, and glycerol remains in solution. They are all mon.o.basic acids; the lower members are colourless liquids, and the higher members from C_7H_{15}COOH upwards are colourless solids. The general formula for the series is C_nH_{2n + 1}COOH (where n = the number of carbon atoms in the alkyl group).

FATTY DEGENERATION, an abnormal condition found in the tissues of the animal body, in which the healthy protoplasm is replaced by fatty granules.

It is a sign of defective nutrition, and is common in old age, affecting the muscles, the heart, arteries, kidneys, &c. It is accompanied by great muscular flabbiness and want of energy, the sufferer looking at the same time fat and comparatively well.