The Instructor (Paedagogus) 1 part 6/15

"For the righteous man shall not live by bread alone."

But let our dinner be plain and frugal, suited to keeping us alert, unmingled with varied flavours; nor is even this beyond the care of the Instructor.

For self-sufficiency is a good nurse of the young, having in love a rich provision for fellowship — namely, self-sufficiency itself — which, presiding over food measured out in a just quantity, manages the body for its preservation and also bestows something of itself upon one's neighbours; whereas the manner of life that overflows beyond self-sufficiency harms the man, rendering the soul sluggish and the body prone to disease.

Indeed, the pleasures connected with rich sauces draw upon themselves abominable reproaches — daintiness, gluttony, gourmandizing, insatiableness, voracity.

Akin to these names are the flies and weasels, the flatterers and gladiators, and the wild tribes of parasites, who for the pleasure of the belly have sold off — some their reason, some their friendship, some their very life — creeping upon their bellies, beasts in human shape, after the image of their father ... the gluttonous beast.

And those who first called such men "prodigals" (asōtoi) seem to me well to hint at their end, having understood them as "unsavable" (asōstoi), by the dropping of the letter sigma.

But they made merrymaking, slaughtering calves and sacrificing sheep, saying:

"Let us eat and ... drink, for tomorrow we die."

And to show that he reckons such luxury as sin, he adds:

"And surely this sin of yours shall not be forgiven you until you die" — judging that death which is unfeeling to be, not a release from the sin, but a recompense of sin: death of salvation.

"Do not rejoice in petty luxury," wisdom says.

Here we must also call to mind the matter of what are called "things sacrificed to idols," and in what way it is commanded that one must abstain from these.

Those things seem to me defiled and loathsome, upon whose blood there hover "souls of the dead who have died, up out of Erebus."

"For I do not want you to become partners with demons," says the Apostle — since the foods of the saved and of the perished are apart from each other.

We must therefore abstain from these things — not out of fear, for there is no power in them, but on account of our own conscience, which is holy, and because of the abomination of the demons to whom they have been dedicated, loathing them; and furthermore on account of the unsteadiness of those who for the most part hold loose opinions, by whom a weak conscience is defiled.

"For food will not commend us to God."

Nor do the things that enter in defile a man, but the things that come out ... "of the mouth," he says.

The natural use of food is therefore a matter of indifference.

"For neither if we eat do we abound," he says, "nor if we do not eat are we the worse."

But it is not reasonable that those who have been deemed worthy to share in divine and spiritual food should partake of the table of demons.

"Have we no right to eat and drink," says the Apostle, "and to take about with us wives?" But it is plainly by mastering our pleasures that we restrain our desires.

"Take heed, therefore, lest this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to the weak."

We ought not, then, like prodigals — after the likeness of the rich man's son in the Gospel — to misuse the Father's gifts, but to use them, as rulers, without being swayed.

For we have been appointed to reign and to have dominion, not to be enslaved ... to foods.

It is admirable, then, having looked up toward the truth, to hold fast to the food from above, the divine food, and to be filled with the never-satiating contemplation of Him who truly is, tasting the firm and abiding and pure pleasure.

For the food of Christ shows that we must look for this love.

But it is utterly irrational and useless and unworthy of man, after the manner of cattle being fattened for slaughter, to feed for death — looking ever downward to the earth, men sprung from the earth, bent over their tables, pursuing a gluttonous life, having buried the good somewhere here below amid a life that is to have no future, flattering the gullet alone, on account of which cooks have become more highly prized than farmers.

For we do not take away sociability, but we suspect the slippery slope of habit as a calamity.

Wherefore we must shun daintiness, partaking only of a few necessary things.

And if any of the unbelievers invites us, and we decide to go — for it is good not to mingle with the disorderly — he bids us eat everything set before us, raising no question on account of conscience; and likewise he enjoined us to buy whatever is sold in the meat-market without scrutinizing it.

We must not, then, abstain altogether from a variety of foods, but neither must we be zealous about them.

We must partake of what is set before us as befits a Christian, honouring the host by an innocent and unsatiated fellowship of company, but reckoning as indifferent the costliness of what is brought in, and despising the dainties ... as things that in a little while will be no more.

"Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats."

And a little further on he will explain the reason for the precept, saying: "He who eats, eats unto the Lord and gives thanks to God;"

"and he who does not eat, unto the Lord does not eat, and gives thanks to God;"

so that the righteous food is thanksgiving.

And if we are also urging on to virtue some of those who feast with us, then all the more must we abstain from these dainty foods, presenting ourselves as a clear example of virtue, even as we ourselves have had Christ for our pattern.

"For if any such food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat it," he says, "forever, lest I cause my brother to stumble" — by a little self-control gaining the man.

"Have we not the right to eat and drink?" "And we have come to know the truth," he says, "that no idol in the world is anything, but that there is truly only one God of ours, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus."

"But," he says, "by your knowledge the weak brother is destroyed, for whom Christ died."

And those who wound the conscience of weak brothers sin against ... Christ.

On this account indeed the Apostle, being concerned for us, makes a distinction regarding our dinners, saying that we are not to associate — if anyone called a brother be found a fornicator or an adulterer or an idolater — with such a one not even to eat, whether the word or the dainty, suspecting the defilement that comes from this, just as he does the tables of the demons.

Now it is good neither to eat meat nor to drink wine, as he himself confesses, and as do the followers of Pythagoras;

for this belongs rather to wild beasts, and the exhalation that comes from them, being more turbid, casts a shadow over the soul.

But if anyone does partake of these too, he does not sin; only let him partake with self-control, neither clinging to them nor dependent upon them nor greedily devouring the dainty;

for a voice will whisper to him, saying: "Do not, for the sake of ... food, destroy the work of God."

For it is the mark of a foolish man to admire and gape at the things set out at common feasts after the luxury that is in the Word; but it is much more foolish to have enslaved one's eyes to the side-dishes, one's lack of self-control being, so to speak, carried about together with them by the servants.

How is it not useless to rise up over the couches, all but flinging one's face into the dishes, leaning forward from the couch as from a nest — that proverbial thing — so as to catch the wandering steam through their breathing? And how is it not irrational to plunge one's hands into the seasonings, or continually to stretch out toward the dish, not so as to taste, but snatching greedily and unseemly, gorging themselves without measure? ... For one may see such men likened, by reason of their voracity, to swine or dogs rather than to men — men eager to stuff themselves, so that both their jaws swell out at once, the vessels about their face bulging up; and besides, sweat pours over them as they are gripped by insatiableness and pant from lack of self-control, the food being thrust under pressing, unsociable haste into the belly as into a provision-store, not for proper digestion, as they stow away their dishes.

Although excess is everywhere an evil, it is in matters of food that it is most clearly exposed.

Gluttony for dainties (opsophagia) is nothing other than excess in the use of fine food; greediness of the gullet (laimargia) is a frenzy about the throat; and gluttony of the belly (gastrimargia), as the very word indicates, is incontinence with respect to food, a madness about the stomach — for margos means one who is raving mad.

Accordingly, checking those who practise wrongdoing at their feasting, the Apostle says:

"For in eating each one takes his own supper beforehand; and one is hungry while another is drunk."

"What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God, and put to shame those who have nothing?" For among those who have, the ones who eat without restraint, the insatiable, bring shame upon themselves;

and both act wrongly — the one in burdening those who have nothing, the other in laying bare their own incontinence before those who have.

Necessarily, then, against those who have become shameless and use feasts too unsparingly — the insatiable, for whom nothing is enough — the Apostle, stretching out (in reproof), once more for a second time broke forth into a voice of indignation:

"So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another."

We must therefore abstain from all servile and ungoverned conduct, touching what is set before us in an orderly way, keeping hand and couch and beard undefiled, preserving the dignity of the countenance undistorted, behaving decently even in the swallowing; rather, the hand is to be stretched out in due order at intervals.

For one must also guard against uttering anything whatever while eating at the same time;

for the voice becomes unseemly and indistinct, constricted by the full cheeks, and the tongue, pressed down by the food and hindered from its natural action, gives forth a strangled utterance.

But neither is it fitting to eat and drink at the same time;

for it is a mark of the greatest incontinence to confound the occasions of things whose uses do not harmonize.

"And whether you eat or drink," he says, "do all to the glory of God," aiming at true frugality, which the Lord too seems to me to have hinted at when he blessed the loaves and the broiled fish with which he feasted the disciples, setting forth a noble example of unelaborate food.

That fish, indeed, which Peter caught at the Lord's command, hints at food that is easily got, God-given, and temperate;

for it suggests that from those who rise out of the water (of baptism) to the bait of righteousness we should remove profligacy and the love of money — as he removed the coin from the fish — so as to put away vainglory; and giving the stater to the tax-collectors, rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, he might keep for God the things that are God's.

The stater might admit of other interpretations as well, not unknown (to us); but the present is not a suitable time for the elaboration of them.

It suffices to have made a passing reminder, as we make use of it for the matter in hand — not out of tune with the flowers of the discourse, which indeed we have often done — drawing the abundantly useful spring toward the irrigation of the plants that are being cultivated by the Word, with respect to the pressing demands of the inquiry.

"For though it is lawful for me to partake of all things, yet not all things are profitable;"

for those who do all that is permitted quickly fall into doing what is not permitted.

But just as righteousness is not gained through covetousness, nor temperance through licentiousness, so neither is the Christian's manner of life acquired through indulgence in pleasure;

for far removed from passion-rousing dishes is the table of truth.

For even if, above all, all things came into being for the sake of human beings, yet it is not good to use them all, nor at all times.

For indeed the occasion, the time, the manner, and the purpose afford no small impulse toward what is beneficial for the one being trained (by the Instructor); and what is fitting has the power to nullify the belly-serving life, whose wealth is a luxury that invites guests — wealth that does not see keenly, but is rather a superfluity blinded with regard to gluttony.

But no one is poor as regards the necessities of life, nor is any human being ever overlooked;

for he who nourishes the winged creatures and the swimming creatures, and, to put it briefly, the irrational animals, is one — God;

and not one single thing whatever is lacking to them, though they take no thought for food.

But we are even better than these, inasmuch as we are also their lords, and nearer to God, inasmuch as we are more temperate.

We have come into being, not in order that we may eat and drink, but in order that we may exist, having come into being for the knowledge of God.

"For the righteous man," it says, "eating, fills his soul, but the bellies of the ungodly are in want," craving for insatiable daintiness.

Costly provision is suited, not for solitary enjoyment, but for fellowship in sharing.

Therefore we must guard against those foods which, by bewitching the appetites, persuade us to eat when we are not hungry.

For is there not, even in temperate frugality, a wholesome variety of dishes? Bulbs, olives, certain herbs, milk, cheese, fruits in season, and all kinds of cooked foods — without sauces.

And if there be need of roasted or boiled meat, it is to be shared.

"Have you anything here to eat?" said the Lord to the disciples after the resurrection.

And they — inasmuch as they had been taught by him to practise frugality — gave him a piece of broiled fish;

and he said to them ... all that he said, as Luke relates.

Besides this, those who dine according to reason are not to be left without a share of sweetmeats and honeycombs.

For of foods the most suitable are those which it is possible to use at once without fire, since they are also more readily available; and second to these are the more frugal ones, as we have said before.

But over those who crouch about inflamed tables, fostering their own passions, there presides a most gluttonous demon, whom for my part I should not be ashamed to call the belly-demon, the worst and most ruinous of demons.

This one, then, is precisely similar to what is called the ventriloquist (belly-prophet) demon.

But it is far better to become blessed (eudaimon) than to have a demon (daimon) as a housemate;

and blessedness is tested by the exercise of virtue.

Matthew the apostle, then, partook of seeds and nuts and vegetables, without meat; while John, surpassing (all) in self-control, ate locusts and wild honey.

And Peter too abstained from swine's flesh;

but a trance fell upon him, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, and he beholds the heaven opened, and a certain vessel let down upon the earth, bound by four corners;

in it were all the four-footed beasts and the creeping things of the earth and the birds of the heaven;

and there came a voice to him,

"Rise, kill, and eat."

"By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything common or unclean."

And the voice came to him again a second time:

"What God has cleansed, you must not call common."

And so for us, then, the use of these things is a matter of indifference.

For it is not the things that enter the mouth that defile a person, but the empty notion concerning intemperance.

For indeed God, when He formed humankind, said to you: "All these shall be for you as food."

"Better a dish of vegetables with love than a fatted calf with deceit."

This rightly recalls the saying mentioned before, that love is not the vegetables, but that meals are to be received together with love.

A good thing is the middle state in all matters, but not least in the provision made for a feast;

since the extremes are perilous, whereas the means are good.

And the mean is everything that is not lacking in the necessities.

For the appetites that are according to nature are bounded by self-sufficiency.

To the Jews, however, frugality is most economically proclaimed through the Law;

for the Instructor, through Moses, took away from them the use of ever so many things, attaching reasons—the spiritual ones hidden, but the carnal ones plain (and these latter they actually believed): of some animals that they do not have cloven hooves, of others that they do not chew the cud, of still others that, alone among water-creatures, they lack scales—so that altogether very few were left to them as suitable for food.

And of those things which He permitted them to touch, He again forbade such as had died of themselves, things sacrificed to idols, and what had been strangled;

for it is not lawful even to touch these.

For since it is impossible for one who indulges in pleasant things to abstain from accepting them, He set the opposite discipline over against them, until He should break the headlong rush toward luxurious living that comes from habit.

In human beings, for the most part, pleasure has bred harm and grief, while overeating begets in the soul dullness of feeling, forgetfulness, and folly.

They say, too, that children's bodies grow well, increasing in height, from a deficient diet;

for the spirit that mounts upward to growth is not hindered, since abundant food does not obstruct the free course of its passage.

Whence Plato, that one among the philosophers who emulated the truth, in censuring the life of luxury and fanning the spark of Hebrew philosophy, says:

"When I came," he says, "the life there called blissful, full of Italian and Syracusan tables, in no way pleased me—to live gorging oneself twice a day and never sleeping alone at night, with all the practices that attend such a life;

for from such practices no one of the people under heaven, pursuing such things from his youth, could ever become prudent, nor would he be tempered with so admirable a nature."

Establishing the holy ark in the midst of the tabernacle in his own city, and having brought joy to all the people who were subject to him, before the Lord he distributed to the whole host of Israel, from man to woman, to each a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a wafer from the pan.

But ... this is the food, and it is Israelite, whereas that of the heathen is superfluous.

One who uses such fare could never hesitate to become temperate—he who buries his mind in his belly, most resembling the fish called the donkey-fish (onos), which Aristotle says alone of all other animals has its heart in its stomach.

This sort of person the comic poet Epicharmus calls "swollen-bellied."

Such are those among men who have put their trust in the belly, "whose god is their stomach and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things."

For these the Apostle foretold no good things, declaring their end to be destruction.

"Use a little wine," says the Apostle to Timothy, who drank only water, "for your stomach's sake"—most beautifully bringing to one whose body was sickly and flabby a fitting astringent remedy, yet prescribing only a little of it, lest the remedy itself, through excess, should require some other treatment.

Now the natural and sober drink, necessary for those who thirst, is water.

This water, flowing down from the sheer rock, the Lord supplied to the ancient Hebrews as the singular drink of temperance; for it was most fitting that those still wandering should remain sober.

Then the holy vine put forth the prophetic cluster.

This is a sign to those who have been guided by the Instructor out of error into rest—the great cluster, the Word who was pressed for our sake; for the Word willed that the blood of the grape should be mingled with water, even as His blood is.

Now the blood of the Lord is twofold:

one is His fleshly blood, by which we have been redeemed from corruption; the other is spiritual, that is, the blood with which we have been anointed.

And this is to drink the blood of Jesus: to partake of the Lord's incorruption;

and the strength of the Word is the Spirit, ... as blood is of the flesh.

Analogously, then, the wine is mingled with the water, and the Spirit with the human person; and the one—the blend—feasts us unto faith, while the other—the Spirit—leads us unto incorruption; and the combination of both again, of the drink and of the Word, has been called the Eucharist, a grace praised and beautiful, of which those who partake according to faith are sanctified in both body and soul—the divine blend, the human being, being mystically blended by the Father's will through Spirit and Word.

For indeed, in very truth, the Spirit has been made akin to the soul that is borne along by it, and the flesh ... to the Word, for whose sake the Word became flesh.

I admire, then, those who have taken up an austere life and who long for water, the medicine of temperance, and who flee as far away as possible from wine, as from the threat of fire.

It is therefore fitting that boys and girls, for the most part, abstain from this medicine;

for it is not suitable to pour the hottest of liquids, wine, upon a seething age, as though channeling fire upon fire—from which spring savage impulses, inflamed lusts, and a fiery temper that is kindled into flame; and the young, warmed within, become prone to their appetites, so that their harm is shown plainly through the body, the members of desire ripening sooner than is fitting.

At any rate, as the wine boils up, they swell more shamelessly, and breasts and private parts grow turgid, already heralding an image of fornication; and the wound of the soul forces the body to become inflamed, while shameless throbbings pursue a meddlesome curiosity, summoning the orderly youth into lawlessness.

From this point on, the new wine of that age already overflows the bounds of modesty.

...we should remove the fuel, that Bacchic provocation of the threat, and pour in instead the antidote to the boiling—which will both restrain the soul that is already smoldering, hold back the swelling members, and lull to sleep the irritation of desire that is already in commotion.

Those in their prime, having taken their midday meal—for whom the midday meal is suitable—after tasting only bread, let them abstain altogether from drink, so that the superfluous moisture in them may be soaked up and absorbed by dry eating.

For indeed, continual spitting, blowing the nose, and hurrying to the excretions is a token of intemperance, the fluids overflowing the body from immoderate intake.

But if thirst should also come upon them, let them cure the affliction with water, not much of it;

for neither is it fitting to fill oneself unrestrainedly with water, so that the food should not be washed away but be ground down for digestion, the solid food being settled into the mass, while only a very little passes off into the excretions.

And besides, it is fitting for those whose concerns are divine not to be heavy with wine;

For unmixed wine, as the comic poet says, compels a man to think but little, and perhaps not to be temperate at all.

Toward evening, about the dinner hour, wine may be used, when we are no longer occupied with our more sober readings.

At that time the air also grows colder than during the day, so that we need to nourish the failing innate warmth with imported heat; yet here too only with a little wine.

For one must not press on to the bowls of drunken insolence.

To those already past their prime, drink may be more cheerfully allowed, to rekindle harmlessly with the vine's remedy the chilled and, as it were, time-withered part of their age.

For in the elderly the appetites no longer for the most part surge toward the shipwrecks of drunkenness.

Moored, as it were, by anchors of reason and of time, they more easily endure the storm of desires that rages out of drunkenness; and to such it is perhaps permitted even to jest a little at banquets.

But for these too let the limit of drink be as far as they may keep their reason unshaken, their memory active, and their body unmoved and unshaken by the wine.

Those skilled in such matters call this condition "tipsy at the brink."

It is good, then, to stop short beforehand, because of the slipperiness of the path.

A certain Artorius, in his work On Longevity—for I remember it—thinks one should take only enough to moisten the food, that we may gain a longer life.

Fittingly, then, some take wine as a part of treatment, for health alone, and others for relaxation and good cheer.

For wine first of all makes the one who drinks it more gracious to himself than before, gentler to his fellow-drinkers, kinder to his servants, and more pleasant to his friends; but when abused, it requites the drinker with insolence.

For being warm and having pleasant juices, when suitably mixed it melts away by its heat the sticky residues, and tempers the sharp and bad humors with its fragrance.

"Wine was created from the beginning to be the gladness of the soul and heart, when drunk in moderation."

It is best to dilute the wine with as much water as possible, and not to crave it as though it were water and so be blunted toward drunkenness, nor on the other hand to pour it in like water out of love of wine.

For both are works of God, and in this way the mixture of the two, of water and wine, contributes to health, since life is composed of the necessary and the useful.

Into the necessary, then, namely water, one must mix as much as possible of the useful also.

But with immoderate wine the tongue is hampered, the lips fall slack, the eyes roll astray—as if the sight were swimming under the flood of moisture; and men, forced into falsehood, think that all things whirl round in a circle, and cannot count the things far off as they really are alone.

"And indeed I seem to see two suns," as the drunken old man of Thebes said.

By the heat of the wine the sight, more densely, imagines the substance of one thing to be many-fold.

It makes no difference whether one sets the sight in motion or the thing seen.

For from both alike the sight suffers the same thing, being unable, because of the reeling, to grasp accurately the apprehension of the underlying object.

And the legs are carried off as by a current, and hiccups and vomiting and fits of madness break in upon the revel.

For every man flushed with wine, according to the tragedy, is overcome by anger and empty of mind; he loves to pour out a torrent of talk in vain, and is forced unwillingly to hear the very evils he willingly spoke.

And before tragedy, Wisdom too has cried aloud:

"Wine drunk in great quantity abounds in provocation and in every kind of fall."

Wherefore most people say that one ought to relax at drinking parties and put off serious matters to the morrow.

But I deem it best to bring in reason precisely then, to feast along with us and to discipline the wine-bibbing, lest the merriment unawares slip into drunkenness.

For just as no one in his right mind would think fit to close his eyes before going to sleep, so neither would anyone rightly wish reason to be absent from the banquet, nor would he do well to lull it to sleep before his actions are done.

But reason can never withdraw from what belongs to it, not even when we sleep.

For it must be summoned even to sleep.

For Wisdom, being perfect, is the knowledge of things divine and human, embracing the whole; and inasmuch as it watches over the human flock, it becomes an art concerning life, and in this way is present everywhere with us, as long as we live, ever accomplishing its own proper work—the good life.

But the wretched ones, who drive away temperance, count as a blessed life the unseemliness of banquets; and their living is nothing but revelry, debauchery, baths, unmixed wine, chamber-pots, idleness, and tippling.

One may indeed see some of them half-drunk and staggering, wearing garlands round their necks like wine-jars, squirting unmixed wine at one another under the name of pledges of friendship; and others full of hangover, squalid, sallow, livid in the face, and still, on top of yesterday's drunkenness, drawing up at dawn yet another bout of drunkenness.

It is good, O friends, good indeed, when we have observed from afar this image at once ludicrous and pitiable, to fashion ourselves toward the better, dreading lest we too somewhere become a like spectacle and a laughingstock to others.

For "as the furnace proves the steel's temper in the dipping, so does wine prove the heart of the proud in drunkenness."

Drunkenness, then, is the excessive use of unmixed wine; tipsy insolence (paroinia) is the unseemliness arising from such use; and hangover (kraipale) is the displeasure and nausea following drunkenness, so named from the tossing of the head.

This life—if it is to be called life at all—being slothful, stirred up toward sensual pleasures, and fluttering about wine-bibbing, divine Wisdom regards with suspicion and gives this charge to her own children: