How Lent Began

You should know, however, that as long as the early church kept its perfection unbroken, this observance of Lent did not exist. For they were not bound by the requirements of this rule or by any legal enactment, nor confined within the very narrow limits of this fast, since their fasting took in the whole year alike. But the multitude of believers began, day by day, to fall away from that apostolic fervor and to look after their own wealth. Instead of sharing it out for the good of all the faithful, as the apostles had arranged, they had an eye to their own private spending and tried not only to keep it but even to increase it, not content with following the example of Ananias and Sapphira. Then all the priests decided that people tangled up in worldly cares, and almost ignorant, if I may say so, of abstinence and a broken heart, should be called back to this devout duty by a fast laid down by the canons, and be compelled to pay the legal tithes. This would certainly be good for the weak brothers and sisters, and could do no harm to the perfect, who were living under the grace of the gospel and going beyond the law by their voluntary devotion, so as to attain the blessedness the apostle speaks of: “For sin will not have dominion over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.” For truly sin cannot have dominion over one who lives faithfully in the freedom of grace. [a]