esteemed by the Church,[54] notwithstanding the well-known heterodoxy
of his later life, as the first Apologist of Christianity in the
Western and Latin world. He was a native of Carthage, the son of an
officer holding an important post under the imperial government. The
facts of his life known to us are very 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 and sisters, _lest_ to-morrow, perchance, we die’?
“Let us openly and boldly vindicate our teaching. We are sure
that they ‘who are in the flesh cannot please God.’[61] Not,
surely, meaning ‘in the covering or substance of the flesh,’
but in the care, the affection, the desire for it. As for us,
less grossness (_macies_) of the body is no cause of regret, for
neither does God give _flesh by weight_ any more than he gives
_spirit by measure_.... Let prize-fighters and pugilists fatten
themselves up (_saginentur_)--for them a mere corporeal ambition
suffices. And yet even they become stronger by living on vegetable
food (_xerophagia_--literally, ‘eating of dry foods’). But other
strength and vigour is our aim, as other contests are ours, who
fight not against flesh and blood. Against our antagonists we
must fight--not by means of flesh and blood, but with faith and
a strong mind. For the rest, a grossly-feeding Christian is akin
(_necessarius_) to lions and bears rather than to God, although
even as against wild beasts it should be our interest to practice
abstinence.”[62]
VIII.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. DIED 220 (?) A.D.
The attitude of the first great Christian writers and apologists in
regard to total abstinence was somewhat peculiar. Trained in the
school of Plato, in the later development of neo-platonism, their
strongest convictions and their personal sympathies were, naturally,
anti-kreophagistic. The traditions, too, of the earliest period in the
history of Christianity coincided with their pre-Christian convictions,
since the immediate and accredited representatives of the Founder
of the new religion, who presided over the first Christian society,
were commonly held to have been, equally with their predecessors and
contemporaries the Essenes, strict abstinents from flesh-eating.[63]
Moreover, the very numerous party in the Church--the most diametrically
opposed in other respects to the Jewish or Ebionite Christians--the
Gnostics or philosophical Christians, “the most polite, the most
learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name,” for the most
part agreed with their rivals for orthodox supremacy in aversion from
flesh, and, as it seems, for nearly the same reason--a belief in the
essential and inherent evil of matter, a persuasion, it may be said,
however unscientific, not unnatural, perhaps, in any age, and certainly
not surprising in an age especially characterised by the grossest
materialism, selfishness, and cruelty. But the creed of the Christian
church, which eventually became the prevailing and ruling dogma, like
that of the English Church at the Revolution of the sixteenth century,
was a compromise--a compromise between the two opposite parties of
those who received and those who rejected the old Jewish revelation.
On the one hand Christianity, in its later and more developed form,
had insensibly cast off the rigid formalism and exclusiveness of
Mosaism, and, on the other, had stamped with the brand of heresy the
Greek infusion of philosophy and liberalism. Unfortunately, unable
clearly to distinguish between the true and the false--between the
accidental and fanciful and the permanent and real--timidly cautious
of approving anything which seemed connected with heresy--the leaders
of the dominant body were prone to seek refuge in a middle course, in
regard to the question of flesh-eating, scarcely consistent with strict
logic or strict reason. While advocating abstinence as the highest
spiritual exercise or aspiration, they seem to have been unduly anxious
to disclaim any motives other than _ascetic_--to disclaim, in fine,
humanitarian or “secular” reason, such as that of the Pythagoreans.
Such was the feeling, apparently, of the later orthodox church, at
least in the West. While, however, we thus find, occasionally, a
certain constraint and even contradiction in the _theory_ of the
first great teachers of the Church, the _practice_ was much more
consistent. That, in fact, during the first three or four centuries
the most esteemed of the Christian heroes and saints were not only
non-flesh-eaters but Vegetarians of the extremest kind (far surpassing,
if we give any credit to the accounts we have of them, the _most
frugal_ of modern abstainers) is well known to everyone at all
acquainted with ecclesiastical and, especially, eremitical history--and
it is unnecessary to further insist upon a notorious fact.[64]
Titus Flavius Clemens, the founder of the famous Alexandrian school of
Christian theology, and at once the most learned and most philosophic
of all the Christian Fathers, is generally supposed to have been a
native of Athens. His Latin name suggests some connexion with the
family of Clemens, cousin of the emperor Domitian, who is said to have
been put to death for the crime of _atheism_, as the new religion was
commonly termed by the orthodox pagans.
He travelled and studied the various philosophies in the East and West.
On accepting the Christian faith he sought information in the schools
of its most reputed teachers, of whom the name of Pantænus is the only
one known to us. At the death of Pantænus, in 190, Clement succeeded
to the chair of theology in Alexandria, and at the same time, perhaps,
he became a presbyter. He continued to lecture with great reputation
till the year 202, when the persecution under Severus forced him to
retire from the Egyptian capital. He then took refuge in Palestine, and
appears not to have returned to Alexandria. The time and manner of his
death are alike unknown. He is supposed to have died in the year 220.
Amongst his pupils by far the most famous, hardly second to himself
in learning and ability, was Origen, his successor in the Alexandrian
professorship.
His three great works are: _A Hortatory Discourse Addressed to
the Greeks_ (Λόγος Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἓλληνας), _The Instructor_
(_Paidagogos_--strictly, _Tutor_, or Conductor to school), and the
_Miscellanies_ (_Stromateis_, or _Stromata_--lit. “Patch-work”).[65]
The three works were intended to form a graduated and complete
initiation and instruction in Christian theology and ethics. The
first is addressed to the pagan Greek world, the second to the recent
convert, and in the last he conducts the initiated to the higher
_gnosis_, or knowledge. The _Miscellanies_ originally consisted
of eight books, the last of which is lost. The whole series is of
unusual value, not only as the record of the opinions of the ablest
and most philosophical of the mediators between Greek philosophy and
the Christian creed, but also as containing an immense amount of
information on Greek life and literature. Eloquence, earnestness, and
erudition equally characterise the writings of Clement.
He assumes the name and character of a _Gnostic_,[66] or philosophic
Christian, not in the historical but in his own sense of the word,
and professes himself an eclectic--as far as a liberal interpretation
of his religion admitted. “By philosophy,” he says, “I do not mean
the Stoic, the Platonic, the Epicurean, or the Aristotelian, but all
that has been well said in each of those sects teaching righteousness
with religious science--all this selected truth (τοῦτο σύμπαν τὸ
ἐκλεκτικὸν) I call philosophy.” Again, he echoes the sentiments of
Seneca in lamenting that “we incline more to beliefs that are in
repute (τὰ ἔνδοξα), even when they are contradictory, than to the
truth” (_Miscellanies_, i. and vii.). “It would have been well for
Christianity if the principles, which he set forth with such an array
of profound scholarship and ingenious reasoning, had been adopted
more generally by those who came after him.... If anyone, even in a
Protestant community, were to assert the liberal and comprehensive
principles of the great Father of Alexandria, he would be told that he
wished to compromise the distinctive claims of theology, and that he
was little better than a heathen and a publican.”[67]
It is in his second treatise, the _Instructor_ or _Tutor_, that Clement
displays his opinions on the subject of flesh-eating:--
“Some men live that they may eat, as the irrational beings ‘whose
life is their belly and nothing else.’ But the Instructor enjoins
us to eat that we may live. For neither is food our business,
nor is pleasure our aim. Therefore discrimination is to be used
in reference to food: it must be plain, truly simple, suiting
precisely simple and artless children--as ministering to life
not to luxury. And the life to which it conduces consists of two
things, health and strength: to which plainness of fare is most
suitable, being conducive both to digestion and lightness of
body, from which come growth, and health, and right strength: not
strength that is violent or dangerous, and wretched, as is that of
the _athletes_ which is produced by artificial feeding.”
Referring to the injunction of Jesus, “When thou makest an
entertainment, call the poor,” for “whose sake chiefly a supper ought
to be made,” Clement says of the rich:--
“They have not yet learned that God has provided for his creature
(man, I mean) food and drink for _sustenance_ not for pleasure:
since the body derives no advantage from extravagance in viands. On
the contrary, those _who use the most frugal fare are the strongest
and the healthiest, and the noblest_: as domestics are healthier
and stronger than their masters, and agricultural labourers than
proprietors, and not only more vigorous but wiser than rich men.
For they have not buried the mind beneath food. Wholly unnatural
and inhuman is it for those who are of the earth, fattening,
themselves like cattle, to _feed themselves up for death_.[68]
Looking downwards on the earth, bending ever over tables, leading
a life of gluttony, burying all the good of existence here in a
life that by and by will end for ever: so that cooks are held in
higher esteem than the tillers of the ground. We do not abolish
social intercourse, but we look with suspicion on the snares of
Custom and regard them as a fatal mischief. Therefore daintiness
must be spurned, and we are to partake of few and necessary
things.... Nor is it suitable to eat and drink simultaneously. For
it is the very extreme of intemperance to confound the times whose
uses are discordant. And ‘whether ye eat or drink, do all to the
glory of God,’ aiming after true frugality, which Christ also seems
to me to have hinted at when he blessed the loaves and the cooked
fishes with which he feasted the disciples, introducing a beautiful
example of simple diet. And the fish which, at the command of the
Lord, Peter caught, points to digestible and God-given and moderate
food....
We must guard against those sorts of food which persuade us to
eat when we are not hungry, bewitching the appetite. For is
there not, within a temperate simplicity, a wholesome variety of
eatables--vegetables, roots, olives, herbs, milk, cheese, fruits,
and all kinds of dry food? ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ said
the Lord to the disciples after the resurrection: and they, as
taught by Him to practice frugality, ‘gave him a piece of broiled
fish,’ and besides this, it is not to be overlooked that those who
feed according to the Word are not debarred from dainties--such as
honey combs. For of sorts of food those are the most proper which
are fit for immediate use without fire, since they are readiest:
and second to these _are those which are the simplest_, as we said
before. But those who bend around inflammatory tables, nourishing
their own diseases, are ruled by a most licentious disease which
I shall venture to call the demon of the belly: and the worst and
most vile of demons. It is far better to be happy than to have a
devil dwelling in us: and happiness is found only in the practice
of virtue. Accordingly the Apostle Matthew lived upon seeds and
nuts, (Ακρόδρυα--hard-shelled fruits) and vegetables without the
use of flesh. And John, who carried temperance to the extreme, ‘ate
locusts and wild honey.’”
As to the Jewish laws: “The Jews,” says Clement, “had frugality
enjoined on them by the Law in the most systematic manner. For the
Instructor, by Moses, deprived them of the use of innumerable things,
adding reasons--the spiritual ones hidden, the carnal ones apparent--to
which latter, indeed, they have trusted”:--
“So that, altogether, but a few [animals] were left proper for
their food. And of those which he permitted them to touch, he
prohibited such as had died, or were offered to idols, or had been
strangled: inasmuch as to touch these was unlawful.... Pleasure
has often produced in men harm and pain, and full feeding begets
in the soul uneasiness, and forgetfulness, and foolishness. It is
said, moreover, that the bodies of children, when shooting up to
their height, are made to grow right by abstinence in diet; for
then the spirit which pervades the body, in order to its growth,
is not checked by abundance of food obstructing the freedom of
its course. Whence that truth-seeking philosopher, Plato, fanning
the spark of the Hebrew philosophy, when condemning a life of
luxury, says: ‘On my coming hither [to Syracuse] the life which
is here called happy pleased me not by any means. For not one man
under heaven, if brought up from his youth in such practices, will
ever turn out a _wise_ man, with however admirable genius he may
be endowed.’ For Plato was not unacquainted with David,[69] who
placed the sacred ark in his city in the midst of the tabernacle,
and bidding all his subjects rejoice ‘before the Lord, divided to
the whole host of Israel, men and women, to each a loaf of bread,
and baked bread, and a cake from the frying-pan.’[70] This was the
_sufficient_ sustenance of the Israelites. But that of the Gentiles
was over-abundant, and no one who uses it will ever study to
become temperate, burying, as he does, his mind in his belly, very
like the fish called _onos_ which, Aristotle says, alone of all
creatures has its heart in its stomach. This fish Epicharmus, the
comic poet, calls ‘monster-paunch.’ Such are the men who believe in
their stomach, ‘whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their
shame, who mind earthly things.’ To them the apostle predicted no
good when he said ‘whose end is destruction.’”[71]
In treating of the subject of sacrifices, upon which he uses a good
deal of sarcasm (in regard to the _pagan_ sacrifices at least), Clement
incidentally allows us to see, still further, his opinion respecting
gross feeding. He quotes several of the Greek poets who ridicule the
practice and pretence of sacrificial propitiation, _e.g._, Menander:--
“the end of the loin,
The gall, the bones uneatable, they give
Alone to Heaven: the rest _themselves_ consume.”
“If, in fact,” remarks Clement, “the savour is the special desire of
the Gods of the Greeks, should they not first deify the _cooks_, and
worship the Chimney itself which is still closer to the much-prized
savour?”
“If,” he justly adds, “the deity need nothing, what need has he
of food? Now, if nourishing matters taken in by the nostrils
are diviner than those taken in by the mouth, yet they imply
respiration. What then do they say of God? Does He _exhale_, like
the oaks, or does he only _inhale_, like the aquatic animals by the
dilatation of the gills, or does he breathe all around like the
insects?”
The only innocent altar he asserts to be the one allowed by
Pythagoras:--