A small but interesting textual
variant occurs at the end of Mark 9:29. A
veritable tsunami of Greek manuscripts and versional copies of Mark, constituting
over 99.9% of all extant witnesses to this verse, state that Jesus said, “This
kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.” In three Greek manuscripts – Aleph, B, and 0274 – and in Codex Bobiensis
(Old Latin k) and, according to the UBS4
apparatus, in an early stratum of the Old Georgian version represented by the
Adysh Codex (produced in 897), Jesus says, “This kind can come out by nothing
but prayer,” with no mention of fasting.
The
UBS4 and NA-27 text, echoing the 1881 WH text, adopted the
shorter reading here. Metzger summarized
the reasoning for this: “In light of the
increasing emphasis in the early church on the necessity of fasting, it is
understandable that και νηστεια is a gloss which found its way into most
witnesses. Among the witnesses that
resisted such an accretion are important representatives of the Alexandrian,
the Western, and the Caesarean types of text.”
The UBS committee gave the adoption of the shorter reading here an
“A” rating, implying that the committee-members felt that this text “is
virtually certain.”
The
NET supports the same conclusion: “Most witnesses, even early and excellent
ones (P45vid Aleph2
A C D L W Θ Ψ f1, 13 33 M lat co), have “and fasting” (και
νηστείᾳ, kai nēsteia), after “prayer”
here. But this seems to be a motivated
reading, due to the early church’s emphasis on fasting (TCGNT 85, cf., e.g. 2 Clem
16:4, Pol. Phil 7:2; Did. 1:3, 7:4). That the most important witnesses (Aleph* B),
as well as a few others (0274 2427 k) lack και νηστεια, when a good reason for
the omission is difficult to find, argues strongly for the shorter reading.”
Do
those references provide sufficient grounds for the theory that early copyists
considered fasting so important, and so commendable, that they would
deliberately supplement a saying of Jesus about prayer by adding “and
fasting”? Did everyone in the early
centuries of Christendom view fasting as an entirely positive activity (or
rather, non-activity)? For those who
might not have convenient access to the contents of Second Clement, Polycarp’s
Epistle to the Philippians, or the Didache, here are the references mentioned
in the NET’s note:
Second
Clement 16:4 says, “Know ye that the Judgment Day approaches like a
burning oven, and certain of the heavens and all the earth will melt, like lead
melting in fire; and then will appear the hidden and manifest deeds of men. Therefore alms-giving is good, as repentance
from sin; fasting is better than prayer, and alms-giving is better than both. ‘Charity covers a multitude of sins,’ and
prayer out of a good conscience delivers from death. Blessed is every one that shall be found
complete in these; for alms lightens the burden of sin.”
The
emphasis of this passage from Second Clement, in which the author loosely quotes
Tobit 12:8-9 before also quoting First Peter 4:8b, is on alms-giving, not fasting. Almsgiving, the author says, is more
praiseworthy than fasting or prayer. Yet
no copyists, as far as I know, saw fit to place “and almsgiving” after any mention of prayer in the Gospels.
In chapter
7 of his Epistle to the Philippians, Polycarp
wrote, “Forsaking the vanity of many, and
their false doctrines, let us return to the word which has been handed down to
us from the beginning, watching unto prayer, and persevering in fasting,
beseeching in our supplications the all-seeing God ‘not to lead us into
temptation.’ As the Lord has said, ‘The
spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.’”
This
casual statement is hardly evidence of the sort of association between prayer
and fasting that would lead a copyist to link them together like
bacon-and-eggs.
The Didache, in its opening paragraph, says,
“The way
of life, then, is this: first, you shall
love God who made you; second, love your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to
another what you would not want done to you. And of these sayings the teaching
is this: Bless those who curse you, and
pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute you.”
That’s more like it:
the author has paraphrased the fuller reading of Matthew 5:44. (This reference should be remembered when
evaluating that variant, especially inasmuch as it is not included in the UBS-4
apparatus.) In doing so, he interchanged
prayer and fasting, indicating that the two were conceptually linked in his
mind.
However,
that is not all that the author of Didache
had to say on the subject of fasting. Two
other statements from the Didache
should be considered. In the seventh
chapter, which gives instructions about baptism,
the author states, “Before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and
the baptized, and whoever else can; but you shall order the baptized to fast
one or two days before.” This does
not supply much of a basis for the idea that copyists felt obligated to
supplement Mark 9:29 by adding “and fasting.”
When we
turn to the eighth chapter of the Didache
(to which the NET’s notes did not draw attention), we find some interesting
additional comments about fasting:
“Let not your fasts be with the hypocrites,
for they fast on the second and fifth day of the week. Rather, fast on the
fourth day and the Preparation (Friday). Do not pray like the hypocrites, but rather as
the Lord commanded in His Gospel, like this:
‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven. Give us today our
daily (needful) bread, and forgive us our debt as we also forgive our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver
us from the evil one (or, evil); for Thine is the power and the glory forever.’ Pray this
three times each day.”
(This
reference should be remembered when evaluating the variant in Matthew 6:13.)
In the Didache, weekly fasts on Wednesdays and
Fridays are commanded, but fasts on Mondays and Thursdays are prohibited on the
grounds that Christians should not follow the fasting-pattern that is followed
by “the hypocrites.” This command seems
to have been modeled on Matthew 6:16-18, combined with the understanding that
the twice-weekly fasting of the Pharisees (mentioned in Luke 18:12) occurred on Mondays and Wednesdays. The prayers and the fasts described in this
part of the Didache are regular: fasting was to be maintained twice a week, and
prayer was to be offered three times a day.
In Apostolic Constitutions, Book 5, which
was compiled in about 380, an explanation is offered regarding why the
Christians’ weekly fast-days are Wednesday and Friday. The apostles are depicted stating that Jesus
commanded them, after His resurrection, “to fast on the fourth and sixth days of the
week; the former on account of His being betrayed, and the latter on account of
His passion.” In the same composition, after a variety of
details about the schedule for Easter-time, the 20th chapter
concludes with the following words, framed as if the apostles themselves were
speaking:
“We charge you to fast every fourth day of
the week, and every day of the preparation [i.e., Fridays], and bestow upon the needy what you
conserve by fasting. Every Sabbath-day
except one [the exception is Holy Saturday; this is explained in the
previous chapter], and every Lord’s Day, hold your solemn
assemblies, and rejoice. For he will be
guilty of sin who fasts on the Lord’s Day, being the day of resurrection, or
during the time of Pentecost, or, in general, who is sad on a festival-day to
the Lord. For on them we ought to
rejoice, and not to mourn.”
It seems
sufficiently clear that by the late 300’s, and probably considerably earlier, both
the instructions to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, and the prohibition against
fasting on Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays, were common practice in the locale
where Apostolic Constitutions was compiled.
The 48th
chapter of Book 8 of Apostolic
Constitutions is basically a list of rules for church-officers. Some of these rules were about fasting:
Rule 64:
If any one of the clergy be found to fast on the Lord’s Day, or on the
Sabbath Day (with one exception), let him be deprived; but if one if the laity
is found to do this, let him be suspended.
Rule 69: If any bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, or
lector, or singer, does not fast the fast of 40 days, or the fourth day of the
week, and the day of preparation, let him be deprived, unless he is hindered by
physical weakness. And if one of the
laity is found to do this, let him be suspended.
Rule 70: If any bishop, or any other of the clergy,
fasts with the Jews, or keeps the festivals with them, or accepts some of the
presents associated with their festivals, such as unleavened bread or some such
thing, let him be deprived. And if one
of the laity is found to do this, let him be suspended.”
These
rules from Book 8 of Apostolic
Constitutions convey that not only was the twice-weekly fast to be enforced
via church discipline, but that the thrice-weekly prohibition against fasting
was also to be enforced with church discipline.
The same standard was mentioned by Epiphanius, who added (in De Fide, chapter 22) the detail that the
twice-weekly fast was observed until the ninth hour of the day, and who also
mentioned that the twice-weekly fasting was not observed during Pentecost, or
on the Day of Epiphany [by which he meant Christmas-day, the day on which
Christ was born]. Thus, while it is
true, as the NET’s note states, that the early church had an emphasis on
fasting, it is also true that the early church emphasized the avoidance of
fasting just as much.
All this should be kept in mind as we turn to a closer consideration of some external
evidence pertaining to Mark 9:29.