Chapter 4. Argument.— To These Things Also Was Added Another Reason for Prohibiting Many Kinds of Meats to the Jews; To Wit, for the Restraint of the Intemperance of the People, and that They Might Serve the One God
To these considerations, then, thus enumerated, were added also other reasons for which many kinds of meats were withheld from the
Jews; and that this might be so, many things were called unclean,
not as being condemned in themselves, but that the
Jews might be restrained to the service of one
God; because frugality and moderation in appetite were becoming to those who were chosen for this purpose. And such moderation is always found to be approximate to religion, nay, so to speak, rather related and akin to it; for luxury is inimical to
holiness. For how shall religion be spared by it, when modesty is not spared? Luxury does not entertain the
fear of
God; since while pleasures hurry it on, it is carried forward to the sole daring of its desires: for the reins being loosened, it increases in the application of expense without measure, as if it were its food, exceeding its patrimony with its modesty; or as a torrent rushing from the mountain-peaks not only overleaps what is opposed to it, but carries with it those very hindrances for the destruction of other things.
Therefore these remedies were sought for to restrain the intemperance of the people, that in proportion as luxury was diminished, virtuous manners might be increased. For what else did they deserve, than that they should be restrained from using all the pictures of various meats, who dared to prefer the vilest meats of the Egyptians to the divine banquets of manna, preferring the juicy meats of their enemies and masters to their liberty? They were
truly worthy that the slavery which they had
coveted should pamper them, if the food that was more desirable and free was so ill pleasing to them.
Chapter 5. Argument.— But There Was a Limit to the Use of These Shadows or Figures; For Afterwards, When the End of the Law, Christ, Came, All Things Were Said by the Apostle to Be Pure to the Pure, and the True and Holy Meat Was a Right Faith and an Unspotted Conscience
And thus there was a certain ancient time, wherein those shadows or figures were to be used, that meats should be abstained from which had indeed been commended by their creation, but had been prohibited by the law.
But now Christ, the end of the law, has come, disclosing all the obscurities of the law— all those things which antiquity had covered with the clouds of sacraments. For the illustrious Master, and the heavenly Teacher, and the ordainer of the perfected
truth, has come, under whom at length it is rightly said:
To the pure all things are pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled. Titus 1:15 Moreover, in another place:
For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused which is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer. 1 Timothy 4:4-5 Again, in another place: The Spirit expressly says that in the last days some shall depart from the
faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, doctrines of
demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their
conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and
commanding to abstain from meats which
God has created to be received with thanksgiving by them which
believe and those who
know God. Moreover, in another passage:
Everything that is sold in the market-place eat, asking nothing. 1 Corinthians 10:25 From these things it is plain that
all those things are returned to their original blessedness now that the law is finished, and that we must not revert to the special observances of meats, which observances were ordained for a certain reason, but which evangelical liberty has now taken away, their discharge being given. The apostle cries out:
The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace. and joy. Romans 14:17 Also elsewhere: Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
1 Corinthians 6:13 God is not worshipped by the belly nor by meats, which the Lord says will perish, and are purged by natural law in the draught. For he who worships the Lord by meats, is merely as one who has his belly for his Lord. The meat, I say,
true, and
holy, and pure, is a
true faith, an unspotted
conscience, and an innocent
soul. Whosoever is thus fed, feeds also with Christ. Such a banqueter is God's guest: these are the feasts that feed the
angels, these are the tables which the
martyrs make. Hence is that word of the law: Man cloth not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of
God.
Deuteronomy 8:3 Hence, too, that saying of Christ: My meat is to do the
will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.
John 4:34 Hence, You seek me not because you saw the
miracles, but because you ate of my loaves and were filled. But labour not for the meat which perishes, but for the meat which endures to life
eternal, which the
Son of man will give you; for Him has the Father sealed.
John 6:26-27 By righteousness, I say, and by continency, and by the rest of the
virtues, God is worshipped. For Zecharias also tells us, saying: If you eat or drink, is it not you that eat or drink? — declaring thereby that meat or drink attain not unto
God, but unto man: for neither is God fleshly, so as to be pleased with flesh; nor is He careful for these pleasures, so as to
rejoice in our food.
God rejoices in our faith alone, in our innocency alone, in our truth alone, in our virtues alone. And these dwell not in our belly, but in our soul; and these are acquired for us by divine awe and heavenly fear, and not by earthly food. And such the apostle fitly rebuked, as
obeying the
superstitions of
angels, puffed up by their fleshly mind; not holding Christ the head, from whom all the body, joined together by links, and inwoven and grown together by mutual members in the bond of charity, increases to
God;
Colossians 2:18-19 but observing those things: Touch not, taste not, handle not; which indeed seem to have a form of religion, in that the body is not spared.
Colossians 2:21-23 Yet there is no advantage at all of righteousness, while we are recalled by a
voluntary slavery to those elements to which by
baptism we have died.
--Novatian,
On the Jewish Meats
