The Origin Of Lent

Dwayna Litz of Lighting the Way Worldwide quotes John MacArthur as follows on the origin of Lent:

The celebration of Lent has no basis in Scripture, but rather developed from the pagan celebration of Semiramis’s mourning for forty days over the death of Tammuz.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Right. I wonder if he thinks Jesus’ 40 days of fasting in the desert had its origin in that, too.

Francis Beckwith has a very nice post in rejoinder.

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Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

35 thoughts on “The Origin Of Lent”

  1. The rotting corpse of Alexander Hislop has once more clawed its way from its pseudoscholarly grave to stalk the earth, seeking the brains of fundamentalist anti-Catholics on which to feast!

  2. seeking the brains of fundamentalist anti-Catholics on which to feast!
    “No! It is I who will eat YOU!”

  3. 40 days Moses spent fasting on Mt. Sinai
    40 days Elijah fasted while walking to Mt. Horeb(1 Kgs. 19:8)
    40 days of Jesus’ fasting in the desert
    Yeah, not much Scriptural support for 40 days of lent.

  5. Barbara,
    Sometimes I think anti-Catholics devise arguments just to have one more item to put on the pile of “things Catholics do wrong”.

  6. It’s shocking, too, how much Lorraine Boettner’s anti-Catholic bilge is still being passed around, even after being debunked “nine ways to Sunday”.

  7. I looked at her latest post and she went after her church on Easter telling them about Julian of Norwich.
    She was a mystical pantheist, meaning, a person who worshipped nature. She was not even a Christian.
    You couldn’t make up this stuff.

  8. Other “Quadragesimae” in the Bible
    40 days and nights of rain in Noah’s time
    40 days from the Resurrection to the Ascension
    40 days that Goliath taunted the Israelites until David slew him
    40 days until the overthrow of Niniveh according to Jonah’s prophecy– to which the Ninevites responded by repentance in sackcloth and ashes

  10. I was beginning to freak out. I just began reading lesson one of the NEO-PATRISTIC APPROACH TO SACRED SCRIPTURE (from RTFORUM.ORG) which am finding very interesting. I was shocked to see this crazy statement by the same author!
    Oh wait the study was written by John McCarthy.
    Whew.

  11. >It’s shocking, too, how much Lorraine Boettner’s anti-Catholic bilge is still being passed around, even after being debunked “nine ways to Sunday”.
    Simple. Pope Lorraine Boettner said it, and it must be true.
    Interesting how they rail against doctrines of men, and they don’t want to depend on the authority of a man for their beliefs.
    But when it comes to anti-catholicism, this rule is out the window! They’ll accept anything, anyone, anywhere, if they are of the anti-catholic spirit.

  12. O irony! Her latest blog post is, of all things, about feeling the need to give up TV for a week so she can focus on God. What a great idea. Wonder where that came from? Turns out she knows something about the true spiritual virtue of Lent after all.

  16. Her latest blog post is, of all things, about feeling the need to give up TV for a week so she can focus on God.
    But God is everywhere, even on TV.

  17. *Sigh* Sounds like the conversations I used to have with my (Evangelical, Jack T. Chick tract-lovin’) parents when I was going through RCIA. Every day with the new, ‘yeah, but what about , huh? What about that, crazy almost papist daughter?’ That was 6 years ago, and they still occasionally come up with some new wacky thing to tell me about Catholics.

  18. Catholicism is the only faith where all the dogmatic beliefs are written out in clear-cut language. Of course we get a lot of flak from the neo-fluff Protestants for being too dogmatic.
    On the other hand, we get a lot of flak from hard-line evangelicals who tell us what we REALLY believe despite the fact all this is written out in plain language.
    Witness the masters of the art of can’t-win: the Catholic Church.

  19. Esau,
    I assume you read the cited references? Or is it just more “Hatcheteering”?? Or maybe it is your “pretty wingy thingie” guardian talking out loud?

  20. What they can say is that the Church converted pagan customs and made them Catholic.
    Like Christmas trees, carnivals and so on…

  21. I don’t think there’s any actual evidence for the Christmas tree story. Christmas trees show up pretty late, hundreds and hundreds of years AFTER paganism went away.
    On the other hand, you could say that the appreciation of trees as symbolic passed on, but that’s in practically every religion.

  23. It’s true. Lent is not in the Bible! Woah is me! How can I live? !?!?!
    Please, if you are going to defend Lent (as you should) do not make a simplistic reply in return suggesting it is Biblical. Lent was a later addition of discipline, and even this discipline has changed through the centuries. It is a good discipline, and it is indeed trying to get us to act and follow the examples of Jesus AND the 40 years of the Israelites in the desert — but let’s not follow with this need for all discipline to be found explicitly in the Bible. Next thing you know, it will be asked “where in the Bible does it say not to view internet porn?” The Bible doesn’t say it, doesn’t mean it is right.

  24. The Bible is the record of the teaching of the Church. If the Church chooses to record it’s history then that history must be true and cannot be in conflict with the Gospel message which is the teaching of the Church. Likewise the devotional and liturgical aspect of faith also cannot be in conflict with the teaching of the Church and the Bible.
    Thus all great anticipated events are experienced after a period of preparation and this is illustrated by the historical and scriptural record of the people of Israel and also the Gospel message which is the message of the Church concerning Christ.
    I tell people in RCIA that if you want to begin a study of the Bible you have to start without one! If you are purporting to write a history of the early Church (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) then it must conform to the facts of the life of the early Church.
    Any devotion developed 10-20-1000-5000 years after the baby pictures were taken still cannot and must not contradict that primordial message of the Gospel. Lent is the appropriate human experience of our preparation for the coming of God as it always has been.
    On my 19th birthday after smashing my dad’s car up I waited for him to come and get me as I sat in the back of a local squad car. He was glad I was safe and he promised to come and get me. I had a few hours to prepare for his coming and although I was grateful and relieved, my time was spent in sober thought over how this came about.

  27. John MacArthur has all kinds of jewels to offer his “flock”. When my daughter graduated from college he gave us another of his jewels. ” We don’t need a Magesterium to guide us in understanding the Bible”. No, of course not, his followers only need MacArthur to guide them and he also serves as their spiritual leader ( he would like so much to be called “pope” but alas).

  28. “It’s true. Lent is not in the Bible! Woah is me! How can I live? !?!?!”
    I think Jimmy’s point is not so much in proving that Lent itself is explicitly described in the Bible, but that the concept of 40 days spent in fasting/preparation, which served as a model for the later discipline of Lent, is. This is as opposed to this claim that the idea for Lent somehow came from some Babylonian religion.

  29. Romanism teaches works righteousness. It also values the traditions of men over God’s Word. Instead of putting Orthodox Christians down you would do well to read 2 Timothy 2:15 and put it into practice. Romanism is not the faith once delivered to the saints. It bears little resemblance to the true church as revealed in Holy Scripture. Deut. 4:29 God will be found by you when you seek Him with ALL your heart(paraphrase). Don’t put your trust in men, they will fail you.

  30. “‘Romanism'(a pejoriative, by the way) teaches works righteousness.”
    Wrong!
    “It also values the traditions of men over God’s Word.”
    Wrong!
    “‘Romanism'(that pejorative again!) is not the faith delivered to the saints. It bears litle resemblance to the true church as revealed in Holy Scripture.”
    Since you obviously don’t have a clue as to what the Catholic Church(of which the Roman Catholic Church is but one of 22 Churches) teaches, your statement is irrelevant, based, as it is, on your ignorance. If you are going to criticize the Catholic Church, atleast learn what the church actually teaches so you know what you are talking about.

  31. It bears little resemblance to the true church as revealed in Holy Scripture.
    What Holy Scripture?
    Surely you are not asking us to reject the Catholic Church on the ground that the Catholic Church’s own holy books say so; they would be as corrupt (or incorrupt) as the rest of the church.

  32. Wow, Jon!
    Is your recent post sincere – or merely a test for readers of Jimmy’s blog?
    I mean – disrupting the still and quite of this thread on the origins of Lent comes the sound of the flatulence you emmitted.
    Okay – you’ve got our attention – what is that that you want? State your purpose for disrupting the peace.

  33. I think jon is sincere. He probably read Lorraine Boetner’s “Roman Catholicism” or read/heard one of Boetner’s professional anti-Catholic disciples and took everything he read/heard at face value, without bothering to check whether they were right about what “Romanists” believe. He probably does want to “save” us from “Romanism”.

  34. Romanism teaches works righteousness. It also values the traditions of men over God’s Word. Instead of putting Orthodox Christians down you would do well to read 2 Timothy 2:15 and put it into practice. Romanism is not the faith once delivered to the saints. It bears little resemblance to the true church as revealed in Holy Scripture. Deut. 4:29 God will be found by you when you seek Him with ALL your heart(paraphrase). Don’t put your trust in men, they will fail you.
    Jon,
    Do you even know what the early Christians believed and practiced?
    I doubt that you would be laying such calumny against the True Church (hint: The Catholic Church) had you actually read and studied the Early Christians.
    Flaunting your ignorance won’t cut it.
    Back up your statements by the historical account or just keep your mouth shut.
    On the other hand, there is extensive historical and scriptural support for the Catholic Church, who I might add, was the very Church responsible for putting together the Books of Scripture at the Council of Rome in 382 AD; it is the very Church that Christ established whilst He was amongst us (see Mt 16:18, 1 Tm 3:15), that is, in fact, “The Pillar and Ground of Truth”!

  35. “He probably does want to “save” us from “Romanism”.
    Thanks, Bill – that was my initial thought too, but his objection to the Church is such a cliché that I thought it might be some kind of test to gage Catholic’s reaction to something so blatantly false, especially since the apparance of his post appeared out of nowhere.
    So, Jon – ball’s in your court – do you want to save us from “Romanism?” What do you hope to accomplish by your post?
    Vesa – thanks for the scriptural citations. I have never figured out how our separated brothers & sisters reconcile the two passages in light of the reality of Christ and His Church.

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