church of Asia Minor, in which opposite sides were taken by the Apologists, Apollinaris and Melito (§ 30, 7). The dispute assumed more serious dimensions about A.D. 196 through the passionate proceedings of the Roman bishop Victor. Roused probably by the agitation of a Quartodeciman named Blastus then in Rome, he urged upon the most distinguished bishops of the East and West the need of holding a Synod to secure the unequivocal vindication of the Roman practice. On this account many Synods were held, which almost invariably gave a favourable verdict. Only those of Asia Minor with Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus at their head, entered a vigorous protest against the pretensions of Rome, and notwithstanding all the Roman threatenings determined to stand by their own well established custom. Victor now went the length of breaking off church fellowship with them, but this extreme procedure met with little favour. Even Irenæus expressed himself to the Gallican bishops as opposed to it.--Continuation § 56, 3. § 37.3. =The Ecclesiastical Institution of Fasting.=--The Didache gives evidence that even at so early a date, the regular fasts were religiously observed on the _Dies stationum_ by expressly forbidding fasting “with hypocrites” (Jews and Jewish Christians, Luke xviii. 12) on Monday and Thursday, instead of the Christian practice of so observing Wednesday and Friday. The usual fast continued as a rule only till three o’clock in the afternoon (Semijejunia, Acts x. 9, 30; iii. 1). In Passion week the Saturday night, which, at other times, just like the Sunday, was excluded from the fasting period, as part of the day during which Christ lay buried, was included in the forty-hours’ fast, representing the period during which Christ lay in the grave. This was afterwards gradually lengthened out into the forty-days’ fast of Lent (Exod. xxxiv. 28; 1 Kings xix. 8; Matt. iv. 2), in which, however, the _jejunium_ proper was limited to the _Dies Stationum_, and for the rest of the days only the ξηροφαγίαι, first forbidden by the Montanists (§ 40, 4), _i.e._ all fattening foods, such as flesh, eggs, butter, cheese, milk, etc., were abstained from.--On fasting preparatory to baptism, see § 35, 1. The Didache, c. i. 3, adds to the gospel injunction that we should pray for our persecutors (Matt. v. 44) the further counsel that we should fast for them. The meaning of the writer seems to be that we should strengthen our prayers for persecutors by fasting. Hermas, on the other hand, recommends fasting in order that we may thereby spare something for the poor; and Origen says that he read _in quodam libello_ as _ab apostolis dictum: Beatus est, qui etiam jejunat pro eo ut alat pauperem_. § 38. THE CHURCH BUILDINGS AND THE CATACOMBS.