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| Things Clean and Unclean According to the Law and the Gospel.
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12. Things Clean and
Unclean According to the Law and the Gospel.
“And He called to Him the multitude and said
unto them, Hear and understand, ” etc.5432
We are clearly taught in these words
by the Saviour that, when we read in Leviticus and Deuteronomy the
precepts about meat clean and unclean, for the transgression of which
we are accused by the material Jews and by the Ebionites who differ
little from them, we are not to think that the scope of the Scripture
is found in any superficial understanding of them. For if
“not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man, but
that which proceedeth out of the mouth,”5433
and especially when, according to Mark, the Saviour said these things
“making all meats clean,”5434
manifestly we are not defiled when we eat those things which the Jews
who desire to be in bondage to the letter of the law declare to be
unclean, but we are then defiled when, whereas our lips ought to be
bound with perception and we ought “to make for them what we call
a balance and weight,”5435
we speak offhand
and discuss matters we ought not, from which there comes to us the
spring of sins. And it is indeed becoming to the law of God to
forbid those things which arise from wickedness, and to enjoin those
things which tend to virtue, but as for things which are in their own
nature indifferent to leave them in their own place, as they may,
according to our choice and the reason which is in us, be done ill if
we sin in them, but if rightly directed by us be done well. And
any one who has carefully thought on these matters will see that, even
in those things which are thought to be good, it is possible for a man
to sin who has taken them up in an evil way and under the impulse of
passion, and that these things called impure may be considered pure, if used by us in
accordance with reason. As, then, when the Jew sins his
circumcision shall be reckoned for uncircumcision, but when one of the
Gentiles acts uprightly his uncircumcision shall be reckoned for
circumcision,5436
so those things
which are thought to be pure shall be reckoned for impure in the case
of him who does not use them fittingly, nor when one ought, nor as far
as he ought, nor for what reason he ought. But as for the things
which are called impure, “All things become pure to the
pure,” for, “To them that are defiled and unbelieving
nothing is pure, since both their minds and their conscience are
defiled.”5437
And when
these are defiled, they make all things whatsoever they touch defiled;
as again on the contrary the pure mind and the pure conscience make all
things pure, even though they may seem to be impure; for not from
intemperance, nor from love of pleasure, nor with doubting which draws
a man both ways, do the righteous use meats or drinks, mindful of the
precept, “Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever other thing ye
do, do all to the glory of God.”5438
And if it be necessary to delineate
the foods which are unclean according to the Gospel, we will say that
they are such as are supplied by covetousness, and are the result of
base love of gain, and are taken up from love of pleasure, and from
deifying the belly which is treated with honour, when it, with its
appetites, and not reason, rules our souls. But as for us who
know that some things are used by demons, or if we do not know, but
suspect, and are in doubt about it, if we use such things, we have used
them not to the glory of God, nor in the name of Christ; for not only
does the suspicion that things have been sacrificed to idols condemn
him who eats, but even the doubt concerning this; for “he that
doubteth,” according to the Apostle, “is condemned if he
eat, because he eateth not of faith; and whatsoever is not of faith is
sin.”5439
He then eats
in faith who believes that that which is eaten has not been sacrificed
in the temples of idols, and that it is not strangled nor
blood;5440
but he eats not of
faith who is in doubt about any of these things. And the man who
knowing that they have been sacrificed to demons nevertheless uses
them, becomes a communicant with demons, while at the same time, his
imagination is polluted with reference to demons participating in the
sacrifice. And the Apostle, however, knowing that it is not the
nature of meats which is the cause of injury to him who uses them or of
advantage to him who refrains from their use, but opinions and the
reason which is in them, said, “But meat commendeth us not to
God, for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we eat not are we
the worse.”5441
And since he
knew that those who have a loftier conception of what things are pure
and what impure according to the law, turning aside from the
distinction about the use of things pure and impure, and superstition,
I think, in respect of things being different, become indifferent to
the use of meats,5442
| 5442 The text is
uncertain. | and on this account
are condemned by the Jews as transgressors of law, he said therefore,
somewhere, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in
drink,” etc.,5443
teaching us that
the things according to the letter are a shadow, but that the true
thoughts of the law which are stored up in them are the good things to
come, in which one may find what are the pure spiritual meats of the
soul, and what are the impure foods in false and contradictory words
which injure the man who is nourished in them, “For the law had a
shadow of the good things to come.”5444
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