The Four Fasts, Concluded

by Fr. Mark Wojdelski, FSSP

(This is part of a series of articles, and will make little sense without the previous installments (1) , (2), (3) , (4), and (5).

Today we will look at the remaining two fasts, and how there could be vestigial echo of them in the traditional Roman liturgy. The first of these is 17 Tammuz, which on our calendar (check for yourself) would be the Thursday after the fifth Sunday after Pentecost. This is a bitter day for the Jews, as it marks a number of sad occurrences. The first goes all the way back to the time of the Exodus:

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, “Up, make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” And Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made a molten calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” And t

hey rose up early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down; for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves; they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people; now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; but of you I will make a great nation.”

But Moses begged the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent he brought them forth, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.’” And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.

And Moses turned, and went down from the mountain with the two tables of the covenant in his hands, tables that were written on both sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tables out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it upon the water, and made the sons of Israel drink it. (Ex 32:1-20)

According to Jewish tradition, 17 Tammuz is also the date when the twice-daily sacrifice (the Tamid) in the temple ceased because they ran out of sheep within the city due to the siege of the Babylonians (ca. 587 BC), the day an idol was placed in the second temple by the Greeks (1 Mac 1:54), and the date of the first breach of the city walls during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, and also the definitive end of the temple sacrifice (ca. 70 AD).

The source for some of these events comes from a work called the Mishnah Ta’anit. This is a very early rabbinic source that reflects some very old Jewish traditions, some of which, as we have previously seen, are mentioned in the Old Testament, only sometimes without specific dates. (cf. Zec 8:19) The text in bold is a translation of the original, and the plain text is inserted commentary:

Five calamitous matters occurred to our forefathers on the seventeenth of Tammuz, and five other disasters happened on the Ninth of Av. On the seventeenth of Tammuz the tablets were broken by Moses when he saw that the Jews had made the golden calf; the daily offering was nullified by the Roman authorities and was never sacrificed again; the city walls of Jerusalem were breached; the general Apostemos publicly burned a Torah scroll; and Manasseh placed an idol in the Sanctuary. On the Ninth of Av it was decreed upon our ancestors that they would all die in the wilderness and not enter Eretz Yisrael; and the Temple was destroyed the first time, in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and the second time, by the Romans; and Beitar was captured; and the city of Jerusalem was plowed, as a sign that it would never be rebuilt. Not only does one fast on the Ninth of Av, but from when the month of Av begins, one decreases acts of rejoicing.

During the week in which the Ninth of Av occurs, it is prohibited to cut one’s hair and to launder clothes, but if the Ninth of Av occurs on a Friday, on Thursday these actions are permitted in deference to Shabbat. On the eve of the Ninth of Av a person may not eat two cooked dishes in one meal. Furthermore, one may neither eat meat nor drink wine. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: One must adjust and decrease the amount he eats. (Mishnah Ta’anit 4:6)¹

We will look at the second date shortly, but first, take a look at part of the matins reading for what would correspond to 17 Tammuz, 40 days after Pentecost:

And they carried the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab which was on the hill; and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart  with the ark of God; and Ahio went before the ark. And David and all the house of Israel were making merry before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.

And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he put forth his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God. And David was angry because the Lord had broken forth upon Uzzah; and that place is called Perez-uzzah, to this day. (2 Sam 6:3-8)

The Hebrew word פֶּרֶץ (peretz) that is used in the name of the place is a word that is often applied to cracks or breaches in a wall (cf. Neh 6:1: “it was reported… and to the rest of our enemies that I had built the wall and that there was no breach (פֶּרֶץ) left in it.”) The Vulgate unfortunately renders the name of the place “Percussio Ozae,” or the “Striking of Uzzah,” but we can see that this misses the nuance of the Hebrew and the likely connection to the breaking of the tablets of the covenant, due to the Israelites’ “breach” of the covenant. Uzzah was punished in this way because he did not have the proper respect for the ark, which was supposed to be carried by hand, with the poles that are never supposed to be taken out of the rings, and certainly not on a cart being pulled by animals. (Ex 25:14)

This date begins a period of mourning for the Jews called the “Three Weeks,” culminating in the last of the four fast days, 9 Av. On this day the first and second temples were destroyed, the first by the Babylonians, and the second by the Romans. Most traditions observe a second day after 9 Av, since the tradition holds that the temple continued to burn for another day, and this harmonizes with the event as recorded in Jeremiah. (Mishnah Ta’anit 29a, cf. Jer 52:12-13) What is significant, however, is to note that the Sunday immediately after this event would be the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, i.e. 11 Av.² And what might the gospel reading be for that random Sunday after Pentecost, which just happens to be the closest one following after 9 Av, if we just count the Sundays from our starting point, Easter Sunday, which we define as 17 Nisan?

And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation.” And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.” And he was teaching daily in the temple. (Lk 19:41-47)

At this point, you can see (if you have not already) that we are not dealing with just a few random coincidences. Whether this was intentional or not, it cannot simply be dismissed.³

There is a further rather mysterious observance that is very ancient, but alluded to nowhere in scripture, most likely going back to before the destruction of the second temple. This day took on even greater significance after the destruction of the temple. Note that the Rabbi Shimon being quoted is the son of the great Gamaliel, at whose feet St. Paul studied. (Acts 22:3) This same Gamaliel was the one who persuaded the Jews to ignore the Christians, since if they were of God, they could not be opposed. (Acts 5:34-39) Thus, this would represent a very old tradition. Once again, the text in bold is a translation of the original, and the plain text is inserted commentary:

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: There were no days as joyous for the Jewish people as the fifteenth of Av and as Yom Kippur, as on them the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in white clothes, which each woman borrowed from another. Why were they borrowed? They did this so as not to embarrass one who did not have her own white garments. All the garments that the women borrowed require immersion, as those who previously wore them might have been ritually impure. And the daughters of Jerusalem would go out and dance in the vineyards. And what would they say? Young man, please lift up your eyes and see what you choose for yourself for a wife. Do not set your eyes toward beauty, but set your eyes toward a good family, as the verse states: “Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised” (Proverbs 31:30), and it further says: “Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates” (Proverbs 31:31). And similarly, it says in another verse: “Go forth, daughters of Zion, and gaze upon King Solomon, upon the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, and on the day of the gladness of his heart” (Song of Songs 3:11). This verse is explained as an allusion to special days: “On the day of his wedding”; this is the giving of the Torah through the second set of tablets on Yom Kippur. The name King Solomon in this context, which also means king of peace, is interpreted as a reference to God. “And on the day of the gladness of his heart”; this is the building of the Temple, may it be rebuilt speedily in our days. (Mishnah Ta’anit 4:8)

If we ignore the fact that lunar and solar months have different lengths, and simply say “April (the first spring month) = Nisan, May = Iyar, etc.” we find that August = Av.⁴  I am not saying this special, mysterious, joyful feast on 15 Av could have anything to do with the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but I leave you to ponder the possibility.

1https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Ta’anit.4

2Coincidentally, the day that mourning restrictions are lifted

3An excellent article was written on this topic some years ago. The only tiny point the author missed was that this Sunday is “literally” 11 Av. (https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/07/weeping-over-jerusalem-ninth-sunday.html)

4There is evidence that this is in fact how the Church regarded the solar months (as least as corresponding to the four seasons in this part of the year) if we take note of how, even though the old four-volume breviary changed to the “Pars Autumnalis” at the beginning of September, the invitatory and hymns for matins and lauds for the Sundays after Pentecost do not change until the first Sunday of October, and those hymns continue to be used for the Sundays after Epiphany, during the winter months.