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Novatian
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.”[5322] 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.”[5323] 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 hath created to be received with thanksgiving by them which believe and those who know God.”[5324] Moreover, in another passage: “Everything that is sold in the market-place eat, asking nothing.”[5325] 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.”[5326] 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.”[5327] 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.[5328] 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 doth not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”[5329] Hence, too, that saying of Christ: “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.”[5330] Hence, “Ye seek me not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of my loaves and were filled. But labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for the meat which endureth to life eternal, which the Son of man will give you; for Him hath the Father sealed.”[5331] By righteousness, I say, and by continency, and by the rest of the virtues, God is worshipped. For Zecharias also tells us, saying: “If ye eat or drink, is it not ye that eat or drink?”[5332]—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[5333] for these pleasures, so as to rejoice in our food.[5334] 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, increaseth to God;”[5335] 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.”[5336] 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.
But from the fact that liberty of meats is granted to us, it does not of necessity follow that luxury is allowed us; nor because the Gospel has dealt with us very liberally, has it taken away continency. By this, I say, the belly is not provided for, but the form of meats was shown: it was made manifest what was right, not that we might go into the gulf of desire, but to give a reason for the law. But nothing has so restrained intemperance as the Gospel; nor has any one given such strict laws against gluttony as Christ, who is said to have pronounced even the poor blessed, and the hungering and thirsting happy, the rich miserable; to whom, obeying the government of their belly and their palate, the material of their lusts could never be wanting, so that their servitude could not cease; who think it an argument of their happiness to desire as much as they can, except that they are thus able to attain less than they desire. For, moreover, preferring Lazarus in his very hunger and in his sores themselves, and with the rich man’s dogs, He restrained the destroyers of salvation, the belly and the palate, by examples. The apostle also, when he said, “Having food and raiment, we are therewith content,”[5337] laid down the law of frugality and continency; and thinking that it would be of little advantage that he had written, he also gave himself as an example of what he had written, adding not without reason, that “avarice is the root of all evils;”[5338] for it follows in the footsteps of luxury. Whatever the latter has wasted by vice, the former restores by crime; the circle of crimes being re-trodden, that luxury may again take away whatever avarice had heaped together. Nor yet are there wanting, among such things, those who, although they have claimed to themselves the sound of the Christian name, afford instances and teachings of intemperance; whose vices have come even to that pitch, that while fasting they drink in the early morning, not thinking it Christian to drink after meat, unless the wine poured into their empty and unoccupied veins should have gone down directly after sleep: for they seem to have less relish of what they drink if food be mingled with the wine. Thus you may see such in a new kind, still fasting and already drunk, not running to the tavern, but carrying the tavern about with them; and if any one of them offers a salute, he gives not a kiss, but drinks a health. What can they do after meat, whom meat finds intoxicated? Or in what kind of state does the sun at his setting leave them, whom at his rising he looks upon as already stupid with wine? But things which are detestable are not to be taken as our examples. For those things only are to be taken by which our soul may be made better; and although in the Gospel the use of meats is universally given to us, yet it is understood to be given to us only with the law of frugality and continence. For these things are even greatly becoming to the faithful,—to wit, those who are about to pray to God and to give Him thanks, not only by day, but by night also; which cannot be if the mind, stupefied by meat and wine, should not prevail to shake off heavy sleep and the load heaped upon the breast.
But it must be very greatly guarded against in the use of food, and we must be warned lest any should think that liberty is permitted to that degree that even he may approach to what has been offered to idols. For, as far as pertains to God’s creation, every creature is clean. But when it has been offered to demons, it is polluted so long as it is offered to the idols; and as soon as this is done, it belongs no longer to God, but to the idol. And when this creature is taken for food, it nourishes the person who so takes it for the demon, not for God, by making him a fellow-guest with the idol, not with Christ, as rightly do the Jews also.[5339] And the meaning of these meats being perceived, and the counsel of the law being considered, and the kindness of the Gospel grace being known, and the rigour of temperance being observed, and the pollution of things offered to idols being rejected, we who keep the rule of truth throughout all things, ought to give thanks to God through Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord, to whom be praise, and honour, and glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
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A letter written to Cyprian by Novatian the Roman presbyter, in the name of the Roman clergy, will be found translated (Ep. xxx.) at p. 308, this volume.
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