On Jewish Foods

Most holy brothers, the day on which I receive your letters and writings is one I long for above all, and I count it among my chief and happiest days (for what else makes me feel freer now?). Yet I think the day no less remarkable, and to be reckoned among the outstanding ones, on which I return to you a like affection of the love I owe, and write a letter to you with an equal desire. For nothing holds me bound with such chains, nothing stirs and harries me with such goads of care and anxiety, as the fear that you may think some loss has been brought upon you by my absence. I strive to remedy this by working to make myself present to you through frequent letters. Although, then, the duty I owe, the charge I have taken up, and the very role of the ministry laid upon me demand of me this necessity of writing letters, you increase it further by calling on me to write with ever more frequent letters of your own; and though I am already inclined to these solemn duties of love, you urge me on all the more by showing that you stand firm in the gospel without ceasing. The result is that by my letters I do not so much instruct you, who are already taught, as spur you on, who are already prepared. For you who not only hold the gospel pure and sifted from every stain of perverse doctrine, but also teach it with courage, do not need a human teacher, since you show by your very deeds that you are teachers. So I exhort you as you run, I rouse you as you keep watch, I address you as you fight against the spiritual forces of wickedness, and I urge you on as you press toward the prize in the course of your calling in Christ, so that, trampling down and rejecting both the sacrilegious slanders of the heretics and the idle fables of the Jews, you may hold to the tradition and teaching of Christ alone, and so be able worthily to claim for yourselves the authority of his name. How perverse the Jews are, and how far from understanding their own Law, I have, I think, fully shown in two earlier letters, in which it was proved that they are wholly ignorant of what true circumcision is and what the true Sabbath is. Their blindness is exposed more and more in this letter, in which something is briefly discussed about their foods; for on this ground they consider themselves alone holy and all others defiled.

First of all, he teaches that the Law is spiritual. Accordingly, since the first food of human beings was only the fruit of trees, and the use of flesh was added later, the Law that followed afterward, which distinguished foods, granting some animals as clean and forbidding others as unclean, must be understood spiritually; especially since all things were declared very good, and even the unclean animals were preserved in Noah's ark for the sake of offspring, though they could otherwise have been done away with, if they ought to have been destroyed because of their defilement. So this must be laid down first of all: the Law is spiritual. If they deny that it is spiritual, they certainly blaspheme; if, to avoid blasphemy, they confess that it is spiritual, let them read it spiritually. For divine things must be received in a divine way, and holy things must indeed be maintained as holy. Otherwise a grave fault is incurred if an earthly and human teaching is put before the sacred and spiritual Scriptures; and care must be taken that this does not happen. It can be avoided if the things commanded by God are so handled that what we take from them does not lessen his authority, and that, while some things are called impure and unclean, the way they were made does not bring disgrace on their maker. For he will seem to have condemned his own works by rejecting what he made, which he had approved as good; and he will be marked as inconsistent in both directions, which is just what the heretics want him to seem: either he blessed things that were not clean, or he later rejected as not good, because not clean, the things he had blessed as clean and good. The absurdity and dispute that follow from this will remain forever if this Jewish teaching persists, and it must be cut away with all our strength, so that, as what they hand down absurdly is removed by us, both the fitting arrangement of his works and the consistent, spiritual application of the divine Law may be restored. But let me begin from the beginning of things, where I ought to begin. The first human beings' only food was the produce and fruit of trees. It was sin that afterward moved them from fruits to the use of grain, the very posture of the body confirming the condition of the conscience. For innocence raised up human beings, still with a good conscience, toward the heights, to pluck their food from trees; but the sin committed cast human beings down to the earth and the soil to search for grain. Later the use of flesh too was added, divine grace offering to human needs kinds of food suited to them, and at fitting times. For a softer food, and one not prepared without labor, was meant to nourish people who were tender and untrained, for their correction, of course, so that they would not care to sin again, if the labor laid on them did not remind them of their innocence. And because it was no longer a paradise that had to be kept but the whole world that had to be cultivated, the stronger food of flesh was offered, so that something more might be added to the strength of human bodies for the labors of cultivation. All this was by grace (as I said) and by divine arrangement, so that the stronger food should not be given too soon, which would make those filled with it grow sluggish at their work, nor the softer food too long, which would leave them overwhelmed and unable to bear the labor for want of strength. The Law, however, which followed later, ordered the foods of flesh with discrimination. For it allotted and granted some animals for use as clean, and forbade others as unclean, defiling those who eat them. For the clean it gave this rule: those that chew the cud and divide the hoof are clean; those that do neither, or only one of the two, are unclean. So among fishes too, only those covered with scales and armed with fins were to be clean; those otherwise were not clean. It also made a distinction among birds, deciding which should be judged rejected and which clean. Thus the Law set up a most careful separation of the animals, which the original creation had gathered into one form of blessing. What then shall we say? Are the animals unclean, then? For what else does “not clean” mean than those that the Law has separated from use as food? And what of the point we have already made? Then God is the maker of unclean things, and the fault of the things made will overflow onto the craftsman who produced unclean things. To say this is surely the last and highest madness: to accuse God of having made unclean things, and to charge the divine majesty with having made rejected things; especially since they were declared very good, and, being good, received a blessing from God himself to increase and multiply; and, besides, were preserved in Noah's ark for the sake of offspring by the command of their Creator, so that they were shown to be necessary, since they were preserved, and good, since necessary, although even there a distinction was added. Yet even then the creation of these unclean animals could have been entirely removed, if it had had to be destroyed because of its defilement.

In what sense, then (as we have shown on the Apostle's authority), is this spiritual Law to be received spiritually, so that the reason of the Law may be shown to be divine and sure? First, it must be believed that whatever was made by God is clean, cleansed by the very authority of the one who made it, and must not be blamed, lest the blame be turned back on its Maker. Next, that the Law was given to the children of Israel so that through it they might make progress and return to the good ways which they had received from their fathers but had corrupted in Egypt through the customs of a barbarous nation. Indeed, those Ten Words on the tablets teach nothing new but recall what had been blotted out, so that righteousness, which had died down in them, might glow again, like a fire, under a kind of breath of the Law. They could make progress by understanding that vices are all the more to be shunned in human beings when the Law had condemned them even in cattle. For when an irrational animal is rejected for something, that very thing is condemned all the more in a human being, who is rational. And if something an animal has by nature is marked as a kind of defilement, it is more blameworthy when it is found in a human being against nature. So cattle were blamed in order that human beings might be cleansed, namely so that people who had the same vices might be judged equal to cattle. In this way it came about that the animals were not condemned by their Maker for any fault of their own, and that human beings, instructed through the cattle, could return to the spotless nature in which they were made. For we must consider how the Law distinguishes clean and unclean. The clean, it says, both chew the cud and divide the hoof; the unclean do neither, or only one of the two. One craftsman made all these, and he who made them blessed them. I see, then, that the making of both is clean; for he who made them is holy, and the things made have no fault, so long as they are what they were made. For it is never nature, but a perverse will, that usually incurs guilt. What then? In the animals human characters, actions, and wills are pictured. They are clean if they chew the cud, that is, if they always have the divine commandments in their mouth like food. They divide the hoof if they travel the roads of life with the firm step of innocence, righteousness, and every virtue. For the gait of animals that divide the foot into two hoofs is always sturdy: the slipperiness of one part is propped up by the support of the other hoof and is held steady by the firmness of the footprint. So those that do neither are unclean: they neither walk firmly in the virtues nor grind the food of the divine commandments in the manner of chewing the cud. And those that do one only are not clean either, being weak in the other and not perfect in both. Those, then, who do both, like the faithful, are clean; those who do one, like the Jews and the heretics, are defiled; and those who do neither, like the pagans, are consequently unclean. Thus in the animals the Law set up a kind of mirror of human life, in which people might consider the images of its ordinances, so that whatever vices human beings commit against nature might be condemned all the more, when even what is natural in cattle is blamed. For when, among fishes, those that are rough with scales are counted clean, rough, shaggy, bristly, firm, and serious human characters are approved; and those without these are unclean, because light, slippery, faithless, and effeminate characters are disapproved. For what does the Law mean when it says, “You shall not eat the camel”? Only that, by the example of the animal, it condemns a life that is spineless and twisted with crimes. Or when it forbids the pig to be taken as food? It rebukes a life that is filthy and muddy and delights in the dirt of vices, placing its good not in nobility of mind but in the flesh alone. Or when it forbids the hare? It accuses men deformed into women. Who would make the weasel's body his food? But it rebukes theft. Who the lizard? But it hates an uncertain, changeable life. Who the gecko? But it abhors the stains of the mind. Who the hawk, who the kite, who the eagle? But it hates robbers and violent men who live by crime. Who the vulture? But it abhors those who seek their prey from another's death. Or who the raven? But it abhors crafty wills. When it forbids the sparrow too, it reproves intemperance; when the owl, it hates those who flee the light of truth; when the swan, those proud of their lofty neck; when the plover, the excessive intemperance of a chattering tongue; when the bat, those who seek the darkness both of night and of error. These things, then, and others like them, the Law abhors in the animals. In them they are not criminal, because they were born so; in a human being they are blamed, because they are against nature, sought not from creation but from error.

This being so, other reasons were added as well, for which many kinds of food were taken away from the Jews. To bring this about, many things were called unclean, not so that they might be condemned, but so that these people might be restrained for the service of the one God. For frugality and control of the appetite became those who had been taken up for this purpose; and these are always found to be near neighbors of religion, or rather (if I may put it so) its kin and blood relations; for luxury is the enemy of holiness. How will luxury spare religion, when it does not spare modesty? Luxury does not admit the fear of God, since, driven headlong by pleasures, it is carried into nothing but the recklessness of desire. With the reins let loose and expenses brought in without measure as fodder, it grows, using up the inheritance together with modesty; or, like some torrent falling from the mountain ridges, it not only overflows what stands in its way but sweeps those very things along with it to the ruin of others. To restrain the intemperance of the people, then, these remedies were sought, so that whatever was taken from luxury might be added to good conduct. For what else did they deserve than to be kept from enjoying every pleasure of food, they who dared to prefer the cheapest foods of the Egyptians to the divine feast of the manna, putting the meat stews of their enemies and masters before freedom? They well deserved to be fattened by the slavery they longed for, who were wrongly displeased with a better and a free food.

There may then have been some ancient time in which these shadows or figures had to be practiced, so that people had to abstain from foods which creation had commended but the Law had forbidden. But now Christ, the end of the Law, has come, unlocking all the obscurities of the Law, everything that antiquity had covered with the mists of mysteries. For a distinguished Master has come, a heavenly Teacher, the Establisher of perfect truth, under whom it is now rightly said: “To the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; both their mind and their conscience are polluted.” Again in another place: “For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” Again elsewhere: “The Spirit says expressly that in the last days some will depart from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits, to teachings of demons, in the hypocrisy of liars who have their conscience seared, forbidding marriage and requiring abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful and by those who have known God.” And again in another part: “Eat whatever is sold in the market, asking no questions.” From these it is clear that all these things have been restored to their blessings, now that the Law has ended; and that we must not go back to the solemn observances of foods, which a definite reason had once commanded and which the freedom recovered by the gospel's emancipation has now taken away. The Apostle cries out: “The kingdom of God is not drink and food, but righteousness and peace and joy.” Again in another place: “Food is for the belly and the belly for food; but God will destroy both the one and the other. The body, however, is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” God is not worshiped by the belly, nor by foods, which the Lord says perish and are purged by natural law in the latrine. For whoever worships the Lord by means of foods is close to having his belly for his Lord. The true food, I say, holy and clean, is right faith, a spotless conscience, and an innocent soul. Whoever is fed in this way shares Christ's table; such a guest is God's companion at the feast. These are the banquets that feed the angels; these are the tables that make martyrs. Hence that saying of the Law: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Hence that saying of Christ: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work.” Hence: “You seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of my loaves and were filled. Work not for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you; for on him God the Father has set his seal.” By righteousness, I say, and self-control and the other virtues God is worshiped. For Zechariah too reports: “If you eat,” he says, “or drink, is it not you who eat or drink?” He shows that food and drink do not reach God but the human being; for God is not made of flesh, to be pleased with flesh, nor is he captivated by these pleasures, so as to delight in our foods. God delights only in our faith, only in our innocence, only in our truth, only in our virtues, which dwell not in the belly but in the mind, and which the fear of God and reverence for heaven gain for us, not earthly food. Accordingly, the Apostle fittingly attacked those who serve superstitions about angels, puffed up by the sense of their flesh, not holding fast to Christ the head, from whom the whole body, linked together by joints and joined and bound together by the clasp of love with its members one to another, grows into God; but who keep the rules, “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which seem to have an appearance of religion, while the body is not spared, yet bring no profit at all for righteousness, since by a voluntary slavery we are called back to the elements to which we died through baptism.

But it does not follow at once that, because freedom in foods has been granted, luxury has been permitted; nor, because the gospel has dealt more generously with us, has it taken away self-control. This, I say, was not provided for the belly; rather, the proper form of foods was shown. What was lawful was shown, not so that we might rush into the whirlpool of desire, but so that the true reason of the Law might be restored. Otherwise, nothing has so restrained intemperance as the gospel, and no one has laid down such strict laws for the appetite as Christ, who, we read, declared the needy blessed, and the hungry and thirsty happy, and the rich wretched, who serve the rule of belly and appetite, and to whom the material of pleasures could never fail, lest their slavery could ever end; who think it a proof of happiness to desire as much as they can, except that even so they can do less than they desire. For by preferring Lazarus, in his very hunger, his sores, and his dogs, to the rich man, he restrained by examples the belly and the appetite, the butchers of salvation. The Apostle too, saying, “Having food and clothing, with these we are content,” gave a law of frugality and self-control; and, thinking that what he had written would be of little use, he also gave himself as an example of what he wrote, adding not without reason that avarice is the root of all evils; for it follows luxury, which runs ahead of it. Whatever luxury has consumed through vices, avarice restores through crimes, the circle of crimes coming round again, so that luxury in turn takes away whatever avarice had heaped up. Yet even among all this there are those who, having taken on the name of Christian, give examples and lessons of intemperance. Their vices have gone so far that they drink while still fasting early in the morning, not thinking it Christian to drink after food unless the wine has gone down, poured into veins still empty and void straight after sleep; for what they drink seems to have less flavor if food is mixed in with the wine. So you may see such people, in a new fashion, still fasting and already drunk, not running to the tavern but carrying the tavern about with them; and if any of them greets you, he does not give a kiss but a toast. What will they do after food, these whom food finds drunk? Or in what state does the setting sun leave those whom the rising sun already sees sodden with wine? But what is to be abhorred is not to be taken as an example for us. We must take only those things by which our mind may be made better; and although in the gospel the use of foods has been restored to us in every respect, yet it is understood to be restored with the law of frugality and self-control. For these things are especially fitting for the faithful, who are to pray to God and give him thanks not only by day but also during the nights themselves; and this cannot be done if the mind, drugged with food and wine, cannot shake off heavy sleep and the weight laid upon the breast.

But what must be guarded most of all in the use of foods is this: no one should think this freedom so unlimited that he may even approach what has been sacrificed to idols. As far as God's creation is concerned, all of it is clean; but when it has been sacrificed to demons, it is defiled for as long as it is offered to idols. As soon as this has been done, it no longer belongs to God but to the idol; and when it is taken as food, it nourishes the one who takes it for the demon, not for God, making him a guest at the table of the idol, not of Christ, as the Jews too rightly hold. Having seen the reason for their foods, considered the purpose of the Law, recognized the benefit of the grace of the gospel, kept the strictness of self-control, and rejected the defilement of what is sacrificed to idols, we who keep the rule of truth in everything ought to give thanks to God through Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord, to whom be praise and honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.