The Ethics of Diet - Howard Williams

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few, nor is it ascertained at what period he became a convert to the new religion, or when he was ordained as presbyter. The ill-treatment to which he was subjected by his clerical brethren at Rome induced him, it seems, to throw in his lot with the Montanist sect, in whose defence he wrote several books. He lived to an advanced age.

      

      Of his numerous works the best known (by name at least) is his Apologeticus (“An Apology for Christianity”). Amongst his other treatises we may enumerate De Spectaculis (“On Shows”), On Idolatry, On the Soldier’s Crown (in which Tertullian raises the question of the lawfulness of the “violent and sanguinary occupation” of the soldier, but rather, however, for the reason of the circumstances of the pagan ceremonial), On Monogamy, On the Dress of Women (upon the extravagance of which the “Old Fathers” were eloquently denunciative), Address to his Wife. The treatise which here concerns us is his De Jejuniis Adversus Psychicos.[55]

      Tertullian sets himself to expose the subterfuge of a large proportion of the professing Christians in his day who appealed to the pretended authority of Christ and his Apostles for the lawfulness of flesh-eating. Especially does he refute the (supposed) defence of kreophagy in I. Tim. iv., 3.[56] As to the celebrated verse in Genesis which solemnly enjoins the vegetable diet, the opponents of abstinence allege the permission afterwards given to the “post-diluvians.”

      “To this we reply,” says Tertullian, “that it was not proper that man should be burdened with an express command to abstain, who had not been able in fact, to support even so slight a prohibition as that of not to eat one single species of fruit; and, therefore, he was released from that stringency that, by the very enjoyment of freedom, he might learn to acquire strength of mind; and after the ‘flood,’ in the reformation of the human species, the simple command to abstain from blood sufficed, and the use of other things was freely left to his choice. Inasmuch as God had displayed his judgment through the ‘flood,’ and had threatened, moreover, exquisition of blood, whether at the hand of man or of beast, giving evident proof beforehand of the justice of his sentence, he left them liberty of choice and responsibility, supplying the material for discipline by the freedom of will, intending to enjoin abstinence by the very indulgence granted, in order, as we have said, that the primordial offence might be the better expiated by greater abstinence under the opportunity of greater license.” (Quo magis, ut diximus, primordiale delictum expiaretur majoris abstinentiæ operatione in majoris licentiæ occasione.)

      He quotes the various passages in the Jewish Scriptures, in which the causes of the idolatrous proclivities and the crimes of the earlier Jews are connected by Jehovah and his prophets with flesh-eating and gross living:—

      “Whether or no,” he proceeds, “I have unreasonably explained the cause of the condemnation of the ordinary food by God, and of the obligation upon us, through the divine will, to denounce it, let us consult the common conscience of men. Nature herself will inform us whether, before gross eating and drinking, we were not of much more powerful intellect, of much more sensitive feeling, than when the entire domicile of men’s interior has been stuffed with meats, inundated with wines, and, fermenting with filth in course of digestion, turned into a mere preparatory place for the draught (Præmeditatorium latrinarum).[57]

      “I greatly mistake (mentior) if God himself, upbraiding the forgetfulness of himself by Israel, does not attribute it to fulness of stomach. In fine, in the book of Deuteronomy, bidding them to be on their guard against the same cause, he says, ‘Lest when thou hast eaten and art full—when thy flocks and thy herds multiply,’ &c. He makes the enormity of gluttony an evil superior to any other corrupting result of riches. … So great is the privilege (prerogative) of a circumscribed diet that it makes God a dweller with men (contubernalem—literally, ‘a fellow-guest’), and, indeed, to live (as it were) on equal terms with them. For if the eternal God—as he testifies through Isaiah—feels no hunger, man, too, may become equal to the Deity when he subsists without gross nourishment.”

      He instances Daniel and his countrymen, “who preferred vegetable food and water to the royal dishes and goblets, and so became more comely than the rest, in order that no one might fear for his personal appearance; while, at the same time, they were still more improved in understanding.” As to the priesthood:—

      “God said to Aaron, ‘Wine and strong liquor shall ye not drink, you and your sons after you,’ &c. So, also, he upbraids Israel: ‘And ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink.’ (Amos ii., 3.) Now this prohibition of drink is essentially connected with the vegetable diet. Thus, where abstinence from wine is required by God, or is vowed by man, there, too, may be understood suppression of gross feeding, for as is the eating, so is the drinking (qualis enim esus, talis et potus). It is not consistent with truth that a man should sacrifice half of his stomach (gulam) only to God—that he should be sober in drinking, but intemperate in eating.[58]

      “You reply, finally, that this [abstinence] is to be observed according to the will of each individual, not by imperious obligation. But what sort of thing is this, that you should allow to your arbitrary inclinations what you will not allow to the will of God? Shall more licence be conceded to the human inclinations than to the divine power? I, for my part, hold that, free from obligation to follow the fashions of the world, I am not free from obligation to God.”

      

      In regard to St. Paul’s well-known sentences (Rom. xiv., 1, &c.), Tertullian maintains that he refers to certain teachers of abstinence who acted from pride, not from a sense of right:—

      “And even if he has handed over to you the keys of the slaughter-house or butcher’s shop (Macelli) in permitting you to eat all things, excepting sacrifices to idols, at least he has not made the kingdom of heaven to consist in butchery; ‘for,’ says he, ‘eating and drinking is not the kingdom of God, and food commends us not to God.’ You are not to suppose it said of vegetable, but of gross and luxurious, food, since he adds, ‘Neither if we eat have we anything the more, nor if we eat not have we anything the less.’[59] How unworthily, too, do you press the example of Christ as having come ‘eating and drinking’ into the service of your lusts. I think that He who pronounced not the full but the hungry and thirsty ‘blessed,’ who professed His work to be (not as His disciples understood it) the completion of His Father’s will, I think that He was wont to abstain—instructing them to labour for that ‘meat’ which lasts to eternal life, and enjoining in their common prayers petition, not for rich and gross food, but for bread only.

      “And if there be One who prefers the works of justice, not, however, without sacrifice—that is to say, a spirit exercised by abstinence—it is surely that God to whom neither a gluttonous people nor priest was acceptable—monuments of whose concupiscence remain to this day, where was buried [a large proportion of] a people greedy and clamorous for flesh-meats, gorging quails even to the point of inducing jaundice.[60]

      

      “Your belly is your god,” [thus he indignantly reproaches the apologists of kreophagy,] “your liver is your temple, your paunch is your altar, the cook is your priest, and the fat steam is your Holy Spirit; the seasonings and the sauces are your chrisms, and your eructations are your prophesyings. I ever,” continues Tertullian with bitter irony, “recognise Esau the hunter as a man of taste (sapere), and as his were so are your whole skill and interest given to hunting and trapping—just like him you come in ‘from the field’ of your licentious chase. Were I to offer you ‘a mess of pottage,’ you would, doubtless, straightway sell all your ‘birthright.’ It is in the cooking-pots that your love is inflamed—it is in the kitchen that your faith grows fervid—it is in the flesh dishes that all your hope lies hid. … Who is held in so much esteem with you as the frequent giver of dinners, as the sumptuous entertainer, as the practised toaster of healths?

      “Consistently do you men of flesh reject the things of the spirit. But if your prophets are complacent towards such persons, they are not my prophets. Why preach you not constantly, ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,’ just as we preach, ‘Let us abstain, brothers

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