De cibis (On the distinction between foods)
Text translated into English from Old Slavonic by Ralph Cleminson, commissioned and edited by Roger Pearse, who then released it into the public domain. [Additional Sources: archive.org ]
By the same. On the distinction between foods, and on the heifer mentioned in Leviticus, with the ashes of which sinners were sprinkled.
[I. 1.] We ought finally to have been content with these homilies, the remembrances spoken previously (for they are many), overwhelmed as we are by many temptations, and we have not yet found any deliverance from this. For you know, O Phrenope, having laboured with us and having been a partaker in our work by prayer and fasting, how many trials I had in every homily, how much Satan made me to be ill after I had finished my homily on virginity, how much annoyance he caused me, preventing me from finishing my homily on the resurrection. [2.] He raised up waves (of trouble, I mean) like impassable mountains, so that I despaired even of life, such things were happening to me; and even more the people nowadays – they love slander and abomination and lying, and would rather listen to evil things than good things said about their neighbours.
[3.] Nevertheless, even if so many storms of care have encompassed me, I shall not refrain from writing, for this is the common lot of as many as set about declaring the truth. And this has not only arisen now, but has indeed been since the time of the prophets themselves, who were glad to be hated by the evil demons who opposed them. [4.] For the demons strive for nothing so much as to seduce people from their creator and his only-begotten firstborn son Jesus Christ. They oppose the right thoughts of anyone who teaches people to walk on the road of truth and to imitate better things. They trip up the mind of those who lead people by way of reason to incorruption. For the condemnation and exposure of such doings the way of salvation is to be revealed to men. [5.] Therefore they endeavour that we should be ignorant, and that when people approach both natural and divine knowledge, and are zealous for book-learning, their souls should be caught by foolish urges.
[6] For when the soul is yet unstable, and has not heard the divine words, and does not know its Creator and Father, it finds itself [the prey] of all kinds of things, and has not seen the good that flows from thence. Otherwise, taking all kinds of other things to be glories which are invented by demons, it strives after foolish imaginings.
[II.1] However, whether it is demons or other causes that bring temptations upon us, let us not be afraid, for we have the Lord Jesus Christ for our helper. [2.] For if we receive punishment in this life for the sins which we have committed previously, we should be glad of it, because our judgement there is light; or if we stand firm and courageously against our troubles, like those holy men who were tempted, so that our faith is known. For the one who is untried by God is useless. And so it is right for us to rejoice and glorify God, because he has made us worthy to experience those misfortunes.
[3.] For it is no small prayer of the prophet, when he asks for a sorrowful labour, saying, “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind.” And the Apostle Paul says, “Whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” So I think that these cares are profitable. For he would not have said, writing of them, “They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two,” etc., and he would not have said, writing to Timothy, “All who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
[4.] For it is good for anyone who is chastised by God not to weaken, lest our spiritual carcases fall, like those unbelieving people who did not want to follow the angel because the road was hard, and therefore did not enter into the Promised Land. Wretched people, who turned away from God because of hard labour! Therefore they went down to their graves and their carcases were scattered. [5.] Therefore, then, we should be blameless, nor should anyone separate us because of the labour of the love of wisdom or for any other reason.
[III.1] For it shall be, when it is over, that we shall pass from this life, and having taken no harm from spiritual beasts, shall say, “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he turned to me, and saved me out of all my troubles.” For it is better to take care first, and rest afterwards. [2.] For a ploughman does not pray that the seeds will come up before he has yoked his oxen and ploughed, but rather expects it to happen after his labour. And if we go to the seamen, we do not admire an inept helmsman, but a skilful one who has delivered his ship from many storms. [3.] For anyone who would taste of the great gifts of God must also accept many afflictions. And at public entertainments all run, but only one receives the prize. “Run in such a way that you may win it,” says Paul, crying out. For there are many obstacles to success, as for a runner there are pits and banks, of which the ignorant and those unfit for the race are afraid, but the knowledgeable and the strong, having endured the perils of the journey, will be saved.
[4.] For what is the remembrance of that man who loved what is good, and was chaste, and loved his brethren? It is such as endures for all ages. But if you take away from him all his patience, then you take away his being sold by his brethren, and his temptation by that woman, and all his courage and beauty. Likewise with David, if you take away from him his meekness and patience, you take away all his goodness. [5.] And if you take away from Daniel his wisdom, or patience, you take away Bel and the Dragon, and those even more wicked men, and the burning fiery furnace, and many other afflictions. And for what is Moses admirable, if not for his patience? If you take all that away, you diminish his good character. [6.] And you have other spiritual warriors, I mean Elijah, and Jeremiah, and Isaiah, and Elisha, who strove and resisted great persecutors, and their hunger, and their nakedness, and all their labour. And where shall we place the labour of the apostles, who journeyed all over land and sea?
[IV.1]But having said so much of these things, let us go on to others, understanding very well that we should not be dismayed by the calamities that befell them, but rather receiving the heritage of the word. “Open your mouth to the word of God.” [2.] Therefore, O Kilonia, beloved and faithful in the Lord, I have a word to you from hence. I rejoice greatly in your true wisdom. For this is true wisdom. Solomon already understood, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” This has seemed hard to many, for many trials come upon such people. But this I say, because the brother by whom you sent to me told me all your afflictions and sufferings in the Lord, for the sake of whose name you have received them; [3.] for this is the way of those who thirst for heavenly things and strive to obtain them. For though that way is narrow, it is short, and leads to a great expanse. [4] Thus it is for us, who come to the light, to receive our portion of eternal life, and the unfading crown thereof. For James says, “Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life.” “For what shall it profit a man,” to speak in Christ’s words, “what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” [5.] And, this life being very short and having nothing real, David says of our days that they are “seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble.” [6.] Therefore choose to suffer with the people of God. The people of God are those who for the sake of receiving the gift of the calling which is from above, have received also many afflictions. Therefore they have not been told (like that rich man) that they have received their good things in this life. [7.] And those giants famous from the beginning, that were of so great stature, did not achieve anything by their strength and pride, as Jeremiah the prophet said, “But they were destroyed, because they had no wisdom.”
[V.1] But God has given us to know all things that are pleasing to him. “Happy are we,” he said, “for things that are pleasing to God are made known to us.” It is integrity that is pleasing to God. Integrity is having an undivided mind and not being moved by wicked stormy thoughts. [2.] For all spiritual transgression is a sickness, and a sickness does not combine with good things, as a good thing does, but is healed through the receiving of what is good. Righteousness is health, and unrighteousness is sickness. Therefore the soul is impatient, and the mind by the coming of perils; not having a firm and healthy mind. Therefore also the prophet, urging us to the greatest firmness, said, God has proved us, saying, “You have tried us as silver is tried,” and also: “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me.” [3.] Therefore let us rather choose to be, according to the Apostle, in “weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.” For the time will come when we who have suffered these things will hear from the Lord, as he said to Job, “Do you think that I have dealt with you in any other way, than that you might appear to be righteous?” Therefore, O Kilonia, let us strive to be partakers in this voice. [4.] This can be shown from gardens also, for gardens are spread with manure so that they may come to magnificence and beauty and bring forth good and sweet fruit; likewise our soul, coming upon trials, grows more to righteousness and all good character. The same thing is said in the Gospels about the fig tree that did not bear fruit, about which the gardener asked that he might manure it.
Why Job sat on the dunghill.
[5.] Therefore Job sat on the dunghill during his trials, and sitting there waited for a word from God. Patience under trials is a very great good. For despising all worldly things he sat on the dunghill as if in the emperor’s palace. [6.] Truly, O beloved Kilonia, if riches increase do not set your heart on them. For if there come upon us the exhaustion of our possessions, or attacks of sickness, or calumnies, we should stand firm. If we want them to go away, we shall be unable to drive them all off, therefore we had better accept them all with patience. Let us seem to be judged by God rather than condemned with the world. [7.] “Now you,” says the Apostle, writing to Timothy, “have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, and my suffering.” I instruct you strongly to know these words, for this admonition is said not to him alone, but to all of us. For he tells us to set our minds on the things that are above.
[VI.1] We have said enough about those who are in afflictions for righteousness’ sake; and now we shall talk about what you asked when you sent to me, that is, the dead man who dies in a tent. “This is the law, [2.] when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days. 15 And every open vessel [...] is unclean.” And he shall take of the burnt heifer and mix it with water and purify the vessel. “Then a clean person shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the furnishings, on the people who were there [...] And the clean person shall sprinkle the unclean ones on the third day and on the seventh day. [...] Any who are unclean but do not purify themselves, those people shall be cut off from the assembly, for they have defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. Since the water for cleansing has not been dashed on them, they are unclean. It shall be a perpetual statute for them. The one who sprinkles the water for cleansing shall wash his clothes, and whoever touches the water for cleansing shall be unclean.”
[3.] It is to be understood that our Saviour, in establishing this commandment, did not give it to be understood literally, for he said to Peter, “One who has bathed does not need to wash.” For it is manifest that he that has purified himself once by being born again will not be defiled by anything that is mentioned in the law (that is, a dead man, or a dead man’s bone, or anything else). For it is not right to wash the outside of the cup and neglect inner, that is, spiritual purity. [4.] And the distinction between foods is abolished not only by the voice from heaven to Peter, saying, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane,” but also what the Lord said to his disciples, that not those things that go into a person defile a person, but those things which come out. [5.] For the voice that came to Peter one might also understand of the Gentiles, that God forbids rejecting anyone from the faith, as also the great Peter indicated, when he said, while talking to Cornelius, “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean” that comes to the faith.
[6.] Therefore not only by this was the distinction between foods abolished, but by what was said by the Lord. And lest we fall into prolixity declaring how the law is abolished in detail, let us reject it entirely as if [we were] sitting with the apostles, for it is wrong, they said, to put upon the necks of believers a yoke which our fathers were not able to bear.
[7.] For there had been a question in the church, and those who said that believers should be circumcised. For it is said in the Acts, “The apostles and the elders met together for to consider this matter. And [...] Peter stood up and said to them, ‘My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers. And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit’.” And soon after James said, “I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood.” And shortly afterwards the apostles saw fit to choose certain men and send them to the Gentiles, Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Judas surnamed Barsabas, and wrote by them thus: “The apostles and elders [...] to the believers [...] in Antioch and Syria [...], greetings. Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you [...] we have decided unanimously to choose representatives[...] and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And afterwards: “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.”
[8.] The commandment of the Holy Spirit and the apostles says that the Gentiles are not to be compelled to keep the law of Moses – looking at the law carnally, as of the washing of vessels and having respect to many other things. [VII.1] But someone will ask, why did God not allow them to eat of other beasts, which other people eat, but commanded them to abstain from them, dividing them into clean and unclean? [2.] For if the vegetarian life is pure and free from wrongdoing, and not thought unrighteous (since we can live on the fruit of the earth), we do not act at all justly, since of old we have done injury to those creatures by slaughtering them for our pleasure. Nor was it enough for us to take our ease at their expense, and enjoy their labours, but after so much service we take them to be slaughtered, and make their harm our pleasure. [3.] And if it is forgiveable to eat animals, since God has created them for our pleasure, why do we not eat those that have no part in our service? But it is rather those that labour for us – the oxen that plough, the cows that give milk, the sheep that adorn us with their wool – that are slaughtered and killed. But if anyone ate a pig, he was reproached and had to be purified.
[4.] For whom (I mean, for whose salvation) were these laws given by God? – For God has commanded nothing that is not to our benefit. But [he so commanded in order] that he should show the way of piety to the many, by separating them from the foods of Egypt, and instead leading them to integrity. And as often physicians heal those who are sick with other kinds of food, [5.] this first law was necessary because of the smoke of idolatry, so that they should accept a multitude of customs, and be tried, how diligent they would be in this. For law is compulsion. Those who would not obey God in small things would not obey him in greater things, but those who obeyed in small things would hold the greater.
[6.] Therefore he first decreed the law about foods and sacrifices and other simpler things, not unaware that what goes into a man cannot defile him, but rather desiring that our souls should be taught by lesser things, so that they would hold fast to those that were more necessary. As schoolmasters bring children to learning by writing simple characters for them, so God instead of written lines gave the law. He gave it to them so that having learnt it first, they should pass on to higher things – [7.] as Paul also revealed, “[the law] has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities” For a shadow does not have a true image of things, but an image explains that of which it is the image. So he shows the image of things which are to come by the likeness of things that have already come. As the shadow is to the image, so is the law to the gospel, and as the image is to the things themselves, so is the gospel to the things that are to come. [VIII.1] And since this is how things are, it was necessary that this commandment concerning food should be the shadow of good things to come, which were revealed and purified by the gospel. We should not so much concern ourselves with food, and with which animals have cloven hooves, as with righteousness and with the food of understanding and with works of love towards God.
What is dividing the hoof, and what is chewing the cud?
[2.] “Cloven hooves” there are a useful and rational life here; and what elsewhere is “bringing up the cud” is understanding the Scriptures properly, lest understanding them literally we do ourselves harm. [3.] For the law does not only divide beasts into clean and unclean, even if there is much confusion in the dietary regulations. For the pig, in that it does not chew the cud, is unclean, but in that it has a cloven foot, it is clean. And the camel, in that it does not have cloven hooves, is unclean, but in that it chews the cud, it is clean. If in one way they are clean and in one way they are unclean, they are half clean and half unclean. Altogether unclean are those which neither have cloven hooves nor chew the cud; but those that do both (I mean have cloven hooves and chew the cud) are clean. [4.] So the pig is half clean, and the elephant altogether unclean, for it neither chews the cud nor has cloven hooves. The law commands that one should keep away from them, and not touch their bones, or anything dead. So how do they regard those of a half clean beast unclean, while those of a completely unclean beast, that is, the elephant, they do not regard as unclean, but make use of its ivory and its tusks, not keeping the commandments? How does the prophet in the Psalms make a house for Christ out of ivory? “From ivory palaces,” he said, “make you glad; daughters of kings are among your ladies of honour.” But the law had once forbidden to touch the bones of such a beast.
How a simple reading of Scripture without understanding is a veil.