Here is the text as given by Mansi, VIII, p.327: Canon 15 does indeed refer to public repentance in sackcloth, i.e. The reason is a false claim in the 12th century law book, the Decretum of Gratian (below), which was repeated by Cardinal Bellarmine. Many early modern books, when talking about Ash Wednesday, refer to the canons of the council of Agde, the Concilium Agathense (AD 506), in Visigothic Spain. There is no trace of a connection to Lent, nor to the date that would later become known as Ash Wednesday, because neither existed. It then appears also in the Fathers, such as Tertullian. In 23 places in the bible, we find a custom of public penance for sin, “in sackcloth and ashes”, in various places in the Old Testament such as Esther 4:3. But what is the origin of this curious custom? The Catholic and Anglican churches celebrate it by a church service of repentance, at which the people are marked with ashes, and this has become popular among even free churches. Ash Wednesday, the dies cinerum, is the name used in English for the first day of Lent, the 40-day period of fasting that, in the medieval church, precedes Easter.
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