Presbyters Uniwersytet Warszawski
ID
ER 220
Canon 28 of the Council of Hippo (North Africa, AD 393), preserved in the "Breviarium Hipponense" (AD 397), confirms the practice of fasting before celebrating the Eucharist.
Canon 28
 
Vt sacramenta altaris nonnisi a ieiunis hominibus celebrentur, excepto uno die anniuersario quo Cena Domini celebratur.
Nam si aliquorum postmeridiano tempore defunctorum siue episcoporum siue clericorum siue ceterorum commendatio facienda est, solis orationibus fiat, si illi qui faciunt iam pransi inueniantur.
  
(ed. Munier 1974: 41)
Canon 28
 
The sacraments of the altar may be celebrated only by men who have been fasting, except for the day of the anniversary of the Lord’s Supper.
If the service for a deceased  bishop, cleric, or someone else is celebrated in the afternoon, and those who do it ate before, only the prayers will be said.
 
(trans. S. Adamiak)

Discussion:

 The canon confirms the practice of fasting before celebrating the Eucharist; "sacramenta altaris" are unequivocally  identified as Eucharist by the reference to Maundy Thursday. The canon provides us with an interesting piece of information about funerary rites. It seems that the Mass was facultative at such occasions. Presumably, it was said for "more important" deceased, as indicated by the expression  "a service for a deceased bishop, a cleric or someone else"; if "ceterorum" referred here to anyone at all, such enumeration would have made no sense.
 
The canon was repeated in Registri Ecclesiae Carthaginensis Excerpta as Canon 41.
 
The passage from this canon is cited in the canon 6 of the Second Council of Mâcon (Gaul, AD 585), see [1547].

Place of event:

Region
  • Latin North Africa
City
  • Carthage
  • Hippo Regius

About the source:

Title: Breuiarium Hipponense
Origin: Carthage (Latin North Africa)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
The bishops of Byzacena arrived too early for the African plenary council at Carthage in AD 397. Since they had to leave the city before the actual beginning of the proceedings Aurelius of Carthage charged them with editing the decisions of the Council of Hippo of AD 393. The document drafted in this way and accepted on 13 August 397 was called the "Breviarium Hipponense", and it was included later in the Canons in causa Apiarii from AD 419, Registri Ecclesiae Carthaginensis Excerpta, Breviarium of Ferrandus and Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua.
Edition:
C. Munier ed., Concilia Africae a. 345-a. 525, Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina 149, Turnhoult 1974, 23-53.  

Categories:

Food/Clothes/Housing - Food and drink
    Burial/Funerary inscription
      Ritual activity - Eucharist
        Ritual activity - Burying the dead
          Devotion - Fasting
            Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: S. Adamiak, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER220, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=220