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| Chapter XXX
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Chapter XXX.
For that which is offered to idols is sacrificed
to demons, and a man of God must not join the table of demons. As
to things strangled, we are forbidden by Scripture to partake of them,
because the blood is still in them; and blood, especially the odour
arising from blood, is said to be the food of demons. Perhaps,
then, if we were to eat of strangled animals, we might have such
spirits feeding along with us. And the reason which forbids the
use of strangled animals for food is also applicable to the use of
blood. And it may not be amiss, as bearing on this point, to
recall a beautiful saying in the writings of Sextus,4901
| 4901 [Sextus, or
Xystus. See note of Spencer in Migne. S.] | which is known to most Christians:
“The eating of animals,” says he, “is a matter of
indifference; but to abstain from them is more agreeable to
reason.” It is not, therefore, simply an account of some
traditions of our fathers that we refrain from eating victims offered
to those called gods or heroes or demons, but for other reasons, some
of which I have here mentioned. It is not to be supposed,
however, that we are to abstain from the flesh of animals in the same
way as we are bound to abstain from all race and wickedness: we
are indeed to abstain not only from the flesh of animals, but from all
other kinds of food, if we cannot partake of them without incurring
evil, and the consequences of evil. For we are to avoid eating
for gluttony, or for the mere gratification of the appetite, without
regard to the health and sustenance of the body. We do not
believe that souls pass from one body to another, and that they may
descend so low as to enter the bodies of the brutes. If we
abstain at times from eating the flesh of animals, it is evidently,
therefore, not for the same reason as Pythagoras; for it is the
reasonable soul alone that we honour, and we commit its bodily organs
with due honours to the grave. For it is not right that the
dwelling-place of the rational soul should be cast aside anywhere
without honour, like the carcases of brute beasts; and so much the more
when we believe that the respect paid to the body redounds to the
honour of the person who received from God a soul which has nobly
employed the organs of the body in which it resided. In regard to
the question, “How are the dead raised up, and with what body do
they come?”4902
we have already
answered it briefly, as our purpose required.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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