An account of all the proceedings of the commissioners of both persuasions appointedAn accompt of all the proceedings of the commissioners of both persvvasions appointed

The old general Fast at that time was only the voluntary unconstrained fasting on Good Friday, and after that on one or two days more, and then on six. Irenaeus in a Fragment of an Epistle in Euseb. Hist. Lib. 5. Cap. 26. Gr. ⟨p. 36⟩Lat. 23. saith, (the Controversy is not only of the day of Easter, but of the kind of Fast it self: for some think they should fast one day, some two, others more: some measure their day by forty hours of day and night; and this variety of those that observe these Fasts, began not now in our Age, but long before us with our Ancestors; who, as is most like, propagated to posterity the custom which they retain, as brought in by a certain simplicity, and private will; and yet all these lived peaceably among themselves, and we keep peace among our selves; and the difference of Fasting is so far from violating the consonancy of Faith, as that it even commendeth it.] Thus Irenaeus, (read the rest of the Chapter) thus is the true reading confessed by Bellarmine, Rigaltius, &c. and Dionys. Alexand. Ep. Can. ad Basil. pag. 881. Balsam saith, [Nor do all equally and alike sustain those six days of fasting; but some pass them all fasting, some two, some three, some four, some more.] And the Catholics in Tert de jejun. cap. 2. says, Itaque de caetero differentur jejunandum, ex arbitrio, non ex imperio novae disciplinae, pro temporibus & causis uniuscujusque sic & Apostolos observasse, nul•um aliud imponentes jugum certorum, & in commune omnibus obeundorum jejuniorum: And Socrat. admireth at many Countries, that all differed about the number of days, and yet all called i• Quadrages•ma, lib. 5 c. 22. Lat. Gr. 21. So Sozomen lib. 7. c. 19. Gr. & Niceph. lib. 12. cap. 34. which may help you to expound Hierom, and the rest cited by you, as Rigaltius doth ad Tertul. de jujun. 118. as showing that they did it with respect to Christs forty days fast, but not as intending any such thing themselves as any fast of forty days. It is against the Montanists, that the Quadrag. was but once a year, that Hierom useth the title of Apostolical tradition. And how to expound him, see Epist. ad Lucin, [unaqueque provincia abundet in suo sensu, & praecepta Majorum leges Apostolicus arbitretur;] But saith August. ad Casulan Ep. 86.

The old general Fast at that time was onely the voluntary unconstrained fasting on Good Friday, and after that on one or two days more, and then on six. Irenaeus in a Fragment of an Epistle in Euseb. Hist. Lib. 5. Cap. 26. Gr.