Talk:Ember days

Quarter Days
Is there any connection to the Quarter Days? Rojomoke (talk) 13:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * No. Though based in the religious calendar the Quarter Days are civil observances ant the Ember Days are periods of religious fast and abstinence. Nick Breakspeare (talk) 03:34, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Hostility
There seems to be a tone of hostility to the subject in this article. Lines like:


 * The correspondence is forced.
 * frank indifference to quantity and meter
 * equally clumsy old English rhyme

don't seem encyclopedic to me. I'm going to try to tone down the rhetoric. Rwflammang (talk) 17:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC) 

Why not Thursdays?
The article could use this information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.89.68.24 (talk • contribs) 05:01, 16 September 2011


 * Since the origins of Ember days are unknown, the information you seek is simply not available. Rwflammang (talk) 09:07, 16 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Wish it was though. It's a damn good question. Carlo (talk) 18:22, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

According to Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, the custom of the Jews was to fast on Tuesday and Thursdays, while the Christians kept Wednesdays and Fridays as fast days instead. I don't know the origin of the Jewish Tuesday-Thursday fast, but I suppose that the shift of one day to Wednesday-Friday was related to the Christian week being centered on the Lord's Day which was one day later than the Sabbath. Friday is a natural fast day for Christians since it was the day of the crucifixion, whereas Friday would be an extremely inconvenient day for a Jew to fast, since it was the preparation day for the Sabbath, which I imagine meant lots of cooking. On the other hand, Thursday might be an unlikely day for a Christian to fast since it was the day of the Last Supper. Astrologers also considered Thursday, or Jupiter-Day, an auspicious day for a feast, so secular culture was incompatible with a fasting Thursday. All of this is mere conjecture, of course. I know of no evidence showing a weekly celebration of the Last Supper, nor of any evidence of Christians feasting on Thursday, although any day sandwiched between two fast days is a natural day to feast.

In Rome, and Rome only, the early Christians also fasted on Saturday. This peculiarity of Roman custom was much remarked on by the early Christians. It was as much a mystery to them as it is to us. Rwflammang (talk) 09:58, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The Modern Irish word for Thursday, Déardaoin, etymologically means "day between two fasts". Angr (talk) 10:21, 17 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The 1st Century Didache shows that Wednesday-Friday fasting was already an established part of Christian practice at that time. Wednesday-Friday fasting continued through the Middle Ages and into the modern period as normative, and it is the source of the Irish day-name "between the fasts" for Thursday, referenced above.  The Eastern Orthodox Churches have Wednesday-Friday fasting but not Saturday fasting, because Saturday is the Sabbath even if it is not the weekly rest-day of the Eastern Orthodox Church; however Saturday fasting is a well established practice in the West.  (It can be seen, for example, in the medieval and Renaissance "Sabbatine privilege," a former institution of of popular religion which included a requirement of fasting on Wednesdays and Saturdays.)  The addition of Saturday to the weekly Wednesday-Friday pattern at times of the year corresponding the the Ember Days is clearly established in the rubrics to the Wessex Gospels, a tenth century Old English translation of the Gospels in which each passage is preceded by a heading to indicate a time of the year on which it should be read.  Indeed, it is probably much older.  While we do not know the origin of the Ember Days, it is noteworthy that the traditional readings for Ember Days in September include a reading from Leviticus as to the establishment of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), as well as a reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews explaining the doctrine that the Day of Atonement observance was not required of Christians.  Just as Leviticus associates the ordination of Aaron by Moses with the Sukkot holidays immediately following Yom Kippur, so the Ember Days used to be reserved for Roman Catholic ordinations.  The other Ember Days include the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday after Pentecost (Pentecost being analogous to Shavuot, another obligatory observance in Leviticus), as well as the Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays after the third Sunday in Advent and after the first Sunday in Lent.  -- Bob (Bob99 (talk) 19:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC))

All good info - some should be put in the article, properly edited with sources. The idea that Thursday was the day of the Last Supper is interesting, how did that come about, or is it an old tradition, or what? Is it related to the skipping of Thursday during the Ember Days? 73.70.250.164 (talk)


 * The idea of Thursday being the day of the Last Supper is based on the tradition that the Last Supper happened on a Thursday, with the crucifixion (Good Friday) the next day.


 * There is no clear evidence that the observance of Wednesday-Friday fasting bore a relationship to the Last Supper or Good Friday, but it cannot be ruled out. The early church observed fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, as opposed to the Pharisaic practice of fasting on Mondays and Thursdays (which appears to be referenced in, for example, Matthew 9:14-15). We know that Wednesday-Friday fasting practice was already established by the time of the Didache, which is generally believed to be a late first or early second century work:


 * And let not your fastings be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and the fifth day of the week [Monday and Thursday]; but do ye keep your fast on the fourth and on the preparation (the sixth) day [Wednesday and Friday].


 * Didache 8:1-2 


 * As noted above, the Irish (and Scottish and Manx Gaelic) names for Wednesdays and Fridays reflect this practice, since they are translated "first fast" for Wednesday and "fast" for Friday. Wednesday-Friday fasting practice continued to be part of Christian observance through the medieval period, and the setting aside of Wednesdays and Fridays as periods of penance can even be seen in the Book of Common Prayer, where the Litany (a penitential rite) is to be said on Wednesdays and Fridays. The contribution of Callixtus which is discussed in the article appears to be that of adding a Saturday fast three times in the year. The justification for this is not known, but it may have been justified by Leviticus 23:14-15. -- Bob Bob99 (talk) 19:01, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

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Ember days in the news

 * Here
 * here
 * here
 * and here

Merger proposal
I suggest merging Quarter tense into Ember days. The article on "Quarter tense" says that it's the Irish name for ember days, and there's minimal content there. — Moriwen (talk) 00:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * A complication is Quarter Days, with slightly more than minimal content. Sparafucil (talk) 20:16, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * AFAICT the two are unrelated if similarly named? But I could easily be missing something.— Moriwen (talk) 20:32, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Quarter tense end Ember Days are the same thing. The former term is of Latin origin and the latter term is of Old English or possibly Welsh origin. They should not be confused with the Quarter Days, which, though based in the religious calendar, are civil observances. The Ember Days are periods of religious fast and abstinence to beg God's blessing and give thanks for the various harvests. Nick Breakspeare (talk) 03:42, 5 December 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 13:23, 24 December 2023 (UTC)