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Chapter
XLIX.
But neither do the Jews pride themselves upon
abstaining from swine’s flesh, as if it were some great thing;
but upon their having ascertained the nature of clean and unclean
animals, and the cause of the distinction, and of swine being classed
among the unclean. And these distinctions were signs of certain
things until the advent of Jesus; after whose coming it was said to His
disciple, who did not yet comprehend the doctrine concerning these
matters, but who said, “Nothing that is common or unclean hath
entered into my mouth,”4239 “What God
hath cleansed, call not thou common.” It therefore in no
way affects either the Jews or us that the Egyptian priests abstain not
only from the flesh of swine, but also from that of goats, and sheep,
and oxen, and fish. But since it is not that “which
entereth into the mouth that defiles a man,” and since
“meat does not commend us to God,” we do not set great
store on refraining from eating, nor yet are we induced to eat from a
gluttonous appetite. And therefore, so far as we are concerned,
the followers of Pythagoras, who abstain from all things that contain
life may do as they please; only observe the different reason for
abstaining from things that have life on the part of the Pythagoreans
and our ascetics. For the former abstain on account of the fable
about the transmigration of souls, as the poet says:—
“And some one, lifting up his beloved son,
Will slay him after prayer; O how foolish
he!”4240
4240 καί τις
φίλον υἱὸν
ἀείρας,
σφάξει
ἐπευχόμενος
μέγα
νήπιος.
—A verse of Empedocles, quoted by
Plutarch, de Superstitione, c. xii. Spencer. Cf. note
in loc. in Benedictine edition. |
We, however, when we do abstain, do so because “we keep
under our body, and bring it into subjection,”4241 and desire “to mortify our members
that are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate
affection, evil concupiscence;”4242
and we use every effort to “mortify the deeds of the
flesh.”4243
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