254 farming
court. Al-Farabi might have agreed to stay but perhaps
soon began traveling again, supposedly to discover the
secret of the Philosopher’s Stone. He left but was attacked
and killed by robbers in the woods near DAMASCUSin
Syria in 950.
Al-Farabi was among the first to try to reconcile sci-
ence or philosophy with revealed religion, especially the
ideas of ARISTOTLE and his Greek commentators. He
innovatively concentrated on natural understanding as
opposed to what had already become customary legal
opinions and beliefs. He had great influence on the later
philosophers IBNRUSHD(Averroës), IBNSINA(Avicenna),
and Moses MAIMONIDES.
Further reading: al-Farabi, Short Commentary on
Aristotle’s Prior Analytics,trans. Nicholas Rescher (Pitts-
burgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963); al-Farabi,
Fusul al-madani: Aphorisms of the Statesman,ed. D. M.
Dunlop (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press,
1961); Ralph Lerner and Muhsin Mahdi, eds., Medieval
Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1963), 22–94; Muhsin Mahdi,
“Alfarabi” History of Political Philosophy, eds.Les Strauss
and Joseph Cropsey, 2d ed. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1963), 182–202.
farming SeeAGRICULTURE; FOOD, DRINK, AND NUTRI-
TION; ANIMALS AND ANIMAL HUSBANDRY; PEASANTRY.
fasts, fasting, and abstinence During the Middle
Ages fasting for Christians consisted of eating nothing at
all, whereas abstinence meant not eating certain foods,
such as meat, eggs, or dairy products. Fasting and absti-
nence were religious and penitential disciplines used to
intensify spiritual experience, to atone for sin, or to peti-
tion God. The one was a matter of time, in that one
deferred one’s meal for several hours or several days. The
other was a matter of menu, in that one freely forbade
oneself to consume this or that dish or drink. To such
modes of chronology and content was added rationing, or
limiting quantity. These three types of renunciation often
overlapped in practice but should be distinguished.
Christian fasting had its roots in the Bible. The
Mosaic law prescribed an annual fast on the Day of Atone-
ment, but the historical and prophetic books also
described occasional fasts, usually prompted by some
grave event or sad commemoration. Fasting could be
undertaken by an individual or by a group of people. At
the beginning of the Christian era, JUDAISMhad promoted
habitual and rigorous fasting clearly ascetic in purpose,
such as fasting twice a week. Christianity took up this
custom, changing only the days to link fasting to the com-
memoration of Christ’s Passion. On Wednesdays and Fri-
days, only a single meal was to be taken in the middle of
the afternoon. This observance became the fast observed
on the EMBER DAYS.LENThad its origins in the Easter eve
fast, observed by the whole church, initially only on Holy
Saturday and in union with those about to be baptized
that evening. This fast was gradually extended to include
the previous 40 days and corresponded to Christ’s fast in
the desert for that period. This meant taking the only
daily meal in the evening. The avowed goals of such
Christian fasting and abstinence were to master the pas-
sions and control the appetites of the body.ISLAM AND JUDAISM
Fasting or Sawmduring RAMADANwas and has remained
one of the five pillars of ISLAM. It was expected of every
Muslim. This meant no drinking, eating, or sexual activ-
ity during the daylight activities. Ascetic groups within
Islam added other days for this practice and ways of aton-
ing for transgressions. Judaism expected fasting on reli-
gious occasions such as the commemoration of tragic
historical events and the Day of Atonement for sin and
was called afflicting one’s soul. Aspects of fasting also
included practices related to bathing, harsh clothing, and
conjugal relations.
See alsoADVENT; ASCETICISM; EMBER DAYS;LENT.
Further reading:Alexander Fenton and Eszter Kis-
bán, eds., Food in Change: Eating Habits from the Middle
Ages to the Present Day(Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Human-
ities Press, 1986); Veronika Grimm, From Feasting to
Fasting, the Evolution of a Sin: Attitudes to Food in Late
Antiquity(London: Routledge, 1996); Teresa M. Shaw,
The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early
Christianity(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998).fathers of the church In the Middle Ages, they were
the recognized, but never formally named, authors who
became associated with the traditional ideas, doctrines,
and teachings of the church. Thomas AQUINASin the 13th
century established that in the practice of arguing theologi-
cal questions there was a distinction between Scripture and
tradition. Tradition was mainly embodied in the writings
and ideas of the fathers from before the seventh century.
The Lateran Council of 649 decreed that the term
fatherswas canonized to designate the authorities of tra-
dition, as the “holy Fathers recognized, and received” by
the church, whose teaching was consonant with that of
contemporary and later councils. The fathers were valued
primarily as commentators on the BIBLE. Medieval
authors highly valued the interpretations of the fathers as
authorities, but they were selective, suppressing at times
conflicting or unorthodox interpretations found in
almost all of the so-called fathers, but above all, integrat-
ing the Fathers into their pre-Scholastic and Scholastic
speculations. Medieval writers turned them more in the
direction of philosophical arguments, the relationship
between philosophy and theology and FAITHand reason.
This was not necessarily the original aim or perspective
of the writers of the patristic era.