Is there any very old historical examples of Christians fasting from meat on fridays?

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I had a friend write to me and say “You know that whole Friday thing was just to help the fishing industry.”

Yes? No?
I’m guessing there’s a chance that’s not true. Is there any old christian early church fathers writings I can share?
 
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Please stop making it easy for people to play these games. HE made the claim. You tell him, “Please show where YOUR claim is true. Show the documents.”
Because what he is asking YOU to do is ‘prove a negative’. No, abstinence was NOT started to ‘help the fishing industry.
 
Don’t worry. I did ask why and I shared this> "Catholics abstain from flesh meat on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and the Fridays of Lent.
Abstinence is one of our oldest Christian traditions. “From the first century, the day of the crucifixion has been traditionally observed as a day of abstaining from flesh meat (“black fast”) to honor Christ who sacrificed his flesh on a Friday” (Klein, P., Catholic Source Book, 78)."
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🙂
 
You know also, abstinence from flesh meat does not demand ‘eating fish’. Plenty of people would have had bread and water, or bread and vegetables.
 
The Didache, which is likely from the late first century (time of the apostles), states that Christians fast every Wednesday and Friday. This is still the practice of the Eastern Churches (in the East, the ideal is to abstain from meat, dairy, eggs, wine, oil, AND FISH on every Wednesday and Friday and through Lent, as well as various other fasting times during the year). In the Latin West, it seems that Wednesday fasting eventually dropped away (we had remnants of it with Ember time up until Vatican II - and we still have Ash Wednesday), and Friday fasting was reduced to meat abstinence. Of course, the precise requirements have varied over time in different locales, but Wednesdays and Fridays have always been days of penance and fasting for Christians.
 
Some of these old viruses just will not stop! Politely suggest that he dig the slightest bit into history and the reasons behind the symbolism of fish and abstention from flesh, rather than blather.

Wonder what he’d think if he was a commercial fisherman?
 
Guest1 said:
I had a friend write to me and say “You know that whole Friday thing was just to help the fishing industry.”
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I can’t tell you anything about the history of fasting in the early Church, but the idea that the purpose was “to help the fishing industry” is simply preposterous. In the ancient world, fish was a cheap and abundant foodstuff. Fishermen didn’t need any help from anybody.

For most people in the Roman Empire, the food they ate was basically the same at every meal: a loaf of bread plus something tasty to relieve the dullness of the diet. That something tasty — called an opsonium or obsonium — could be a few olives, or a few radishes, or a portion of some other kind of vegetable, preferably having a strong flavor, but more commonly it was salt fish. That was what people liked, and that was what they could afford.
 
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Guest1 said:
I had a friend write to me and say “You know that whole Friday thing was just to help the fishing industry.”
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Lol. That’s ridiculous. I agree with the poster who replied that to something like this, it may be best to politely ask the person to provide evidence for their claim, rather than wasting your time proving them wrong (which they probably won’t even care about, and will just skip to the next dismissive thing they can think to say about your religion). Being asked to actually justify their own words, might make them rethink their own words and claims more carefully next time.
 
Guest1 said:
I had a friend write to me and say “You know that whole Friday thing was just to help the fishing industry.”

Yes? No?
I’m guessing there’s a chance that’s not true. Is there any old christian early church fathers writings I can share?
Click to expand...
Catholic Encylopedia, fast:
In Christian antiquity the Eustathians (Sozomen, Church History II.33) denied the obligation, for the more perfect Christians, of the Church fasts; they were condemned (380) by the Synod of Gangra (can. xiv) which also asserted incidentally the traditional antiquity of the ecclesiastical fasts (Hefele-Leclercq, Hist. des Conciles. French tr. Paris, 1908, 1, p. 1041). Contrary to the groundless assertions of these sectaries, moralists are one in maintaining that a natural law inculcates the necessity of fasting because every rational creature is bound to labour intelligently for the subjugation of concupiscence.
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O’Neill, J.D. (1909). Fast. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05789c.htm
 
Guest1 said:
I had a friend write to me and say “You know that whole Friday thing was just to help the fishing industry.”

Yes? No?
Click to expand...
Where did they pull this from? People can’t just make things up because they think it sounds good. The remark is completely arbitrary and ridiculous.
 
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I have actually heard this one before and yes it is a real doozy, just about the most ludicrous argument against Catholicism that’s ever been invented. For one thing why would the Church want to particularly help the fishing industry? The implication seems to be that St Peter and all his successors kept up his old trade of fishing!?!

Fasting and abstinence were features of the Jewish religion from the start, as well as just about every other religion.

I think the best response is “Look I get that you hate the Catholic Church, but you’re not even trying to come up with a plausible reason. That silly claim doesn’t even merit a response.”
 
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As @twf said, it’s from the Didache, which was written around 100 AD:

“[Chapter 8] Your fasts must not be identical with those of the hypocrites. They fast on Mondays and Thursdays; but you should fast on Wednesdays and Fridays.”

(Just a note, Orthodox still keep this rule on Wednesdays & Fridays throughout the year)
 
Guest1 said:
Any idea why fasting was done on Wednesday too? 🙂
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Father mentioned this last week.

Jews at Jesus’ time fasted twice a week Monday and Thursday–the two days other than Sabbath on which the torah was read.

Christians fast on the days of betrayal and crucification.
 
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