On the Jewish Meats

Therefore this must be set down first of all: that the Law is spiritual; which if they deny to be spiritual, they surely blaspheme; if, avoiding blasphemy, they confess it to be spiritual, let them read it spiritually. For divine things must be received in a divine manner, and must certainly be maintained as holy. Otherwise a grave fault is branded upon one, if an earthly and human teaching is preferred to the sacred and spiritual Scriptures: which must be guarded against lest it happen. It can be guarded against, if what has been commanded by God is handled in such a way as not to diminish his authority by what is assumed; lest while certain things are called impure and unclean, the institution of them should render infamous the one who instituted them.

For he will seem, by condemning what he made, to have condemned his own works, which he had approved as good: and in both respects inconstant—which is indeed what heretics wish—he will be seen to be marked out: since either he blessed things that were not clean, or he afterwards rejected as not good what he had blessed as both clean and good, precisely because they were not clean; the enormity of which will remain a perpetual and unresolved controversy, if this Jewish teaching persists, which must be cut away with all force: so that, while something monstrous is handed down by them, it may be removed by us: and the fitting ordering of his works, and the congruent and spiritual application of the divine Law, may be restored. But to begin from the origin of things, and from where it is fitting to begin: food for the first human beings was solely the fruit and produce of trees.

For sin afterwards transferred the use from fruits to grain, the condition of conscience being confirmed by the very posture of the body. For innocence, as men were about to pluck their food from trees, still well aware of themselves, raised them up toward things above; and the sin committed cast men down to the earth and the ground to seek out grain. Afterwards also the use of flesh was added, divine grace offering kinds of food suited to human needs at altogether fitting times. For softer food, not prepared without labor, had to nourish men who were tender and raw—for correction, that is—lest it should again be pleasing to sin, if the labor imposed did not admonish innocence. And because now not paradise was to be guarded, but the whole world was to be cultivated, the more robust food of flesh is offered, so that something more might be added to the strength of human bodies for the benefits of cultivation.

All these things by grace (as I said) and by divine ordering, lest either the more robust food should be given in lesser measure, whereby those filled with it might grow sluggish at their work, or the softer food in greater measure, whereby those weighed down beyond the measure of their strength might not be able to bear it. The Law, however, which followed afterwards, arranged the foods of flesh with discrimination: for certain animals it assigned and granted to use, as clean; certain it forbade, as unclean, and as about to defile those who ate them. And of the clean it gave this rule: that those which both chew the cud and divide the hoof are clean; unclean, those which do neither of these things, or do only one of them. So also among fish, those at last were clean which were covered with scales and equipped with fins; but those which were otherwise, unclean. It also introduced a distinction among birds, and what was to be judged either reprobate or clean.

Thus the Law established the greatest care in making a separation of animals, which the ancient ordinance gathered into one form of blessing. What then shall we say? Are those animals therefore unclean? For what else is "not clean" than what the Law separated from the use of foods? What also of that which we have already said?

Therefore God is the maker of unclean things, and the fault of what was made will rebound upon the craftsman, who produced unclean things: which to say is certainly the height and summit of madness, to accuse God as though he had instituted unclean things, and to bring a charge against the divine majesty as though he had made reprobate things: especially since they were also pronounced very good, and those things which, being good, were to increase and multiply, received a blessing from God himself; and moreover were preserved in the ark by the command of the Creator for the sake of offspring: so that they were proved necessary, in that they were preserved; and good, in that they were necessary: although there too a distinction is added. But yet even then the institution of these unclean things could have been utterly removed, if it ought to have been abolished on account of their defilement.

In what manner therefore (as we have shown on the authority of the Apostle) is this spiritual Law to be received spiritually, so that a divine and certain account of the Law may be rendered? First, it must be believed that whatever has been instituted by God is clean, and purified by the very authority of its institution: and it must not be blamed, lest the blame revert to the Author. Then, that the Law was given to the children of Israel for this purpose, that through it they might advance and return to good morals, which, having received them from the Fathers, they had corrupted in Egypt through the custom of a barbarous people. Finally, even those ten Words on the tablets teach nothing new, but admonish of what had been forgotten: so that justice in them, like fire, as it were by some breath of the Law, might grow warm again after lying dormant. They were able to advance, moreover, when they understood that vices to be fled in men were condemned all the more in cattle.

For when an irrational animal is rejected on account of something, that very thing is all the more condemned in the man who is rational. And if in it something which it has by nature is noted as a kind of defilement: it is all the more blameworthy when that same thing is found in man contrary to nature. Therefore, that men might be cleansed, the cattle were blamed; namely, so that men who had the same vices might be reckoned equal to cattle. By this means it came about that neither were the animals condemned by their Maker on account of their own fault; and men, instructed through the cattle, were able to return to the unblemished nature of their own institution. For it must be considered how the Law distinguishes clean from unclean: Clean, it says, are those which both chew the cud and divide the hoof; unclean are those which do neither, or do one of the two. All these things one craftsman made; and he who made them also blessed them.

I therefore behold the institution of both as clean; because both he who instituted them is holy, and the things instituted have no fault, so long as they are what they were made to be. For guilt is never accustomed to reside in nature, but in a perverse will. What then? In the animals, human morals are depicted, and actions, and wills. They are clean, if they chew the cud, that is, if they always have in their mouth, as it were as food, the divine commandments. They divide the hoof, if with a firm step of innocence, justice, and every virtue they complete the paths of life. For those whose foot is divided into two hooves always have a robust gait: since the slipperiness of one part of the hoof is supported by the firmness of the other, and held in the solidity of the footstep. So those who do neither are unclean: whose entry into the virtues is not firm, nor is the food of divine commandments, after the manner of that rumination, chewed.

For even those who do one but not the other are themselves not clean, being weak in the one, and not perfect in both. These are either those who do both, like the Faithful, who are clean; or one, like the Jews and Heretics, who are defiled; or neither, like the pagans, who are consequently unclean. Thus in the animals, through the Law, a kind of mirror of human life was established, in which they might contemplate the images of holy ordinances, so that whatever vices are committed by men contrary to nature might be the more condemned, since even those naturally present in cattle are blamed. For that in fish those rough with scales are held as clean, shows that rough and bristling and shaggy and firm and weighty morals of men are approved: but those without these are unclean; because light and slippery and faithless and effeminate morals are disapproved. For what does the Law mean when it says, You shall not eat the camel?

Only that from the example of the animal it condemns a life that is enervated and twisted with crimes. Or when it forbids the swine to be taken as food? It surely rebukes a life that is filthy and muddy and delighting in the squalor of vices, placing its good not in the nobility of the soul but in the flesh alone. Or when it forbids the hare? It accuses men deformed into women. But who would make the body of the weasel into food? But it rebukes thefts. Who the lizard? But it hates the uncertain variety of life. Who the gecko? But it execrates the stains of minds. Who the hawk, who the kite, who the eagle? But it hates the rapacious and violent, living by crime. Who the vulture? But it execrates those who seek prey from another's death. Or who the raven? But it execrates crafty wills.

When it also forbids the sparrow, it convicts intemperance; when the owl, it hates those who flee the light of truth: when the swan, the proud of lofty neck: when the plover, the excessively garrulous intemperance of the tongue: when the bat, those who seek the darkness of night and of error alike. These things therefore, and things like them, the Law execrates in the animals: which in them indeed are not criminal, because they were born to this; but in man are blameworthy, because they are sought contrary to nature, not from institution but from error.

These things being so, other reasons also assert themselves, by which many kinds of foods were taken away from the Jews: and that this might come about, many things were called unclean, not that those things might be condemned, but that these people might be restrained, as they were to serve one God: because frugality and temperance of the gullet befitted those taken up for this purpose, which is always found to be close to religion, nay (to speak thus) rather of the same blood and kindred with it: for luxury is the enemy of holiness. For how shall religion be spared through luxury, when modesty is not spared?

Luxury does not receive the fear of God, while, as pleasures hurl it headlong, it is borne toward desire and rashness alone: for with reins let loose, as expenses are applied like fodder without measure, patrimony grows beyond bounds together with shame; or like some torrent falling from the ridges of mountains, it not only overleaps what stands in its way, but carries those very things along with it to the ruin of others. To restrain therefore the intemperance of the people, these remedies were sought: so that as much as was taken from luxury, so much might be added to good morals. For what else did they deserve, than that they should not enjoy all the pleasures of foods—they who dared to prefer the most worthless foods of the Egyptians to the divine banquets of manna, placing the flesh-pots of their enemies and masters before freedom? Worthy indeed to be fattened by the servitude they longed for, they to whom a better and free food had so ill pleased.

There was therefore some ancient time in which those shadows or figures were to be practiced, so that one should abstain from foods which custom had indeed commended but the Law had forbidden. But now Christ has come as the end of the Law, laying open all the obscurities of the Law, all things which antiquity had covered with the clouds of sacraments. For the distinguished Teacher has come, and the heavenly Doctor, and the Institutor of consummate truth, under whom it is now rightly said: All things are clean to the clean, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean, but both their mind and conscience are polluted. Likewise in another place: Because every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected which is received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer.

Again elsewhere: The Spirit manifestly says that in the last days some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, to doctrines of demons, in the hypocrisy of those who speak lies, having their own conscience seared, forbidding to marry, and to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and by those who have known God. Further in another passage: Everything that is sold in the market eat, asking no questions. From which it is established that all these things have been restored to their blessings, now that the Law is ended: nor is there any returning to the solemnities of foods, which both a definite cause had enjoined and the freedom of the Gospel has now abolished by the recall of manumission. The Apostle cries out: The kingdom of God is not drink and food, but justice and peace and joy.

Likewise in another place: Food is for the belly and the belly for food; but God shall destroy both this and that: but the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. God is not worshipped through the belly, nor through foods, which the Lord says perish and are purged by natural process in the privy. For he who worships the Lord through foods is close to making his belly his Lord. True food, I say, and holy and clean, is right faith, an unspotted conscience, and an innocent soul: whoever is nourished thus, feeds together with Christ; such a feaster is a guest of God: these are the feasts that nourish Angels; these are the tables that make Martyrs. Hence that voice of the Law: Man lives not by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Hence those words of Christ: My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.

Hence: You seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of my loaves and were filled. But labor not for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures unto eternal life, which the Son of man will give you: for him has God the Father sealed. Justice, I say, and continence and the remaining virtues are the means by which God is worshipped. For also Zacharias records: If you eat, he says, or drink, is it not you who eat or drink? Expressing that foods or drinks do not reach God, but man: for God is not fleshly, that he should be pleased by flesh; nor is he captivated by these pleasures, that he should rejoice in our foods. God rejoices only in our faith, only in innocence, only in truth, only in our virtues, which dwell not in the belly but in the soul: and which divine fear and heavenly awe, not earthly food, acquire for us.

From these considerations the Apostle fittingly attacked those who serve the superstitions of Angels, puffed up by the sense of their flesh, not holding fast to Christ the head; from whom the whole body, joined together by bond and knit and compacted by the clasp of charity through its mutual members, grows unto God: but those who observe those things: Touch not, neither taste, nor handle; which indeed seem to have an appearance of religion, while the body is not spared; yet bring no benefit at all to justice, while we are recalled by voluntary servitude to the elements to which we have died through Baptism.

But it does not follow from this that, because freedom in foods has been granted, luxury has been permitted: nor, because the Gospel has dealt with us more liberally, has it abolished continence. Not, I say, has provision been made for the belly by this, but the form of foods has been shown: it has been made clear what the right was, not so that one might plunge into the abyss of desire, but so that the rationale of the Law might be rendered. For in all other respects nothing has so restrained intemperance as the Gospel: nor has anyone given laws so strict against gluttony as Christ, who is read to have pronounced the poor blessed, those who hunger and thirst happy, and the rich wretched, because, serving the command of the belly and of gluttony, they could never lack material for pleasures, lest their servitude might cease; counting it a mark of happiness to desire as much as they can, except that even so they can desire less than they crave.

For also, by preferring Lazarus, even in his hunger, his sores, and the presence of dogs, before the rich man, he restrained the executioners of salvation—the belly and gluttony—by examples. The Apostle also, by saying Having food and clothing, let us be content with these, was giving a law of frugality and continence; thinking it would profit little that he had written, he also gave himself as an example of his own writings, adding not without reason that avarice is the root of all evils, for it follows upon preceding luxury. Whatever luxury has consumed through vices, avarice restores through crimes, the cycle of offenses running its course, so that again luxury may spend what avarice had amassed.

Nor are there lacking among these those who, having put on the name of Christian, furnish examples and lessons of intemperance: whose vices have gone so far that they drink even while fasting in the morning hours, not thinking it Christian to drink after food, unless wines poured immediately after sleep descend into veins still empty and void: for what they drink seems to have less flavor if food is mixed in among the wines. You may therefore see such persons in a new fashion still fasting and already drunk, not running to a tavern, but carrying the tavern about with them: whoever greets any of them gives not a kiss but a toast. What do these men do after food, whom food finds already drunk? Or in what state does the sun leave them at its setting, whom it beholds already sodden with wine at its rising? But things that are to be detested are not to be taken by us as examples.

For only those things are to be adopted by which our soul is made better; and although in the Gospel the use of all foods has been restored to us in every respect, yet it is understood to be restored, but with the law of frugality and continence. For these things especially befit the Faithful, who are about to pray to God and to give thanks to him, not only by day but also through the very nights: which cannot be done if a mind stupefied by food and wine has not been able to shake off heavy sleep and the burden laid upon the breast.

But what must be most carefully observed in the use of foods is this: one must beware lest anyone think that this freedom has been extended so far as to allow approach even to things sacrificed to idols. For as far as it pertains to the creature of God, everything is clean: but when it has been sacrificed to demons, it is defiled for as long as it is offered to idols: which, as soon as that has been done, belongs no longer to God but to the idol; and when it is taken as food, it nourishes the one who takes it for a demon, not for God, rendering that guest to the idol, not to Christ: so that even the Jews act rightly in this respect.

Therefore, with their rationale concerning foods examined, and the counsel of the Law considered, and the benefit of Evangelical grace acknowledged, and the rigor of temperance preserved, and the defilement of things sacrificed to idols rejected, keeping the rule of truth in all things, we ought to give thanks to God through Jesus Christ his Son our Lord; to whom be praise and honor and glory unto ages of ages. Amen.