30. Chap. XIII.

The reason why the Church prefers to appoint the fourth and sixth days of the week for fasting, is found by considering the gospel narrative. There we find that on the fourth day of the week ¹ the Jews took counsel to put the Lord to death. One day having intervened,--on the evening of which, at the close, namely, of the day which we call the fifth day of the week, the Lord ate the passover with His disciples,--He was thereafter betrayed on the night which belonged to the sixth day of the week, the day (as is everywhere known) of His passion. This day, beginning with the evening, was the first day of unleavened bread. The evangelist Matthew, however, says that the fifth day of the week was the first of unleavened bread, because in the evening following it the paschal supper was to be observed, at which they began to eat the unleavened bread, and the lamb offered in sacrifice. From which it is inferred that it was upon the fourth day of the week that the Lord said, "You know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified;" ² and for this reason that day has been regarded as one suitable for fasting, because, as the evangelist immediately adds: "Then assembled together the chief priests and the scribes and the elders of the people unto the palace of the high priest, who is called Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty and kill Him." ³ After the intermission of one day,--the day, namely, of which the evangelist writes: ⁴ "Now, on the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto Him, Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the passover? "--the Lord suffered on the sixth day of the week, as is admitted by all: wherefore the sixth day also is rightly reckoned a day for fasting, as fasting is symbolical of humiliation; whence it is said, "I humbled my soul with fasting." ⁵