Chapter VII: Tertullian. 160-240 (?) A.d

The earliest of the Latin Fathers extant is, also, one of the most 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]