Category: FOOD

  • “It is not food that is evil but gluttony, not the begetting of children but unchastity, not material things but avarice, not esteem but self-esteem. This being so, it is only the misuse of things that is evil, and such misuse occurs when the intellect fails to cultivate its natural powers.”

    —St. Maximos the Confessor

  • “Let us then take care not to be conquered by this brutal vice. St. Augustine says, that food is necessary for the support of life; but, like medicine, it should be taken only through necessity. Intemperance is very injurious to the body as well as to the soul.”

    —St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori

  • “Struggle with all your might against the stomach and restrain it with all sobriety. If you labour a little, the Lord will also soon work with you.”

    —St. John Climacus

  • “We take food, for example, out of necessity, but while we are eating, a gluttonous spirit creeps in and we begin to take delight in the eating for its own sake; so often it happens that what began as nourishment to protect our health ends by becoming a pretext for our pleasures.”

    —St. Gregory the Great

  • “When sitting at a table laden with food, remember death and judgement, for even so you will only check the passion slightly. In taking drink do not cease to bring to mind the vinegar and gall of your Lord. And you will certainly either be abstinent, or you will sigh and humble your mind.”

    —St. John Climacus

  • “I shall speak first about control of the stomach, the opposite to gluttony, and about how to fast and what and how much to eat. I shall say nothing on my own account, but only what I have received from the Holy Fathers. They have not given us only a single rule for fasting or a single standard and measure for eating, because not everyone has the same strength; age, illness or delicacy of body create differences. But they have given us all a single goal: to avoid over-eating and the filling of our bellies… A clear rule for self-control handed down by the Fathers is this: stop eating while still hungry and do not continue until you are satisfied.”

    —St. John Cassian

  • “Know that often a devil settles in the belly, and does not let the man be satisfied, even though he has devoured a whole Egypt and drunk a River Nile. But after one has taken food, the unclean spirit goes away and sends against us the spirit of fornication, telling him our condition and saying, ‘Catch, catch, hound him; for when the stomach is full, he will not resist much.’”

    —St. John Climacus

  • Basil emphasises the transformative power of monastic asceticism; in fasting, he says, ‘the whole city generally, and all its people, are brought together in well-ordered harmony: raucous voices put to rest, strife banished, insults hushed’. He proceeds to describe the transformation that fasting brings about not only of individual persons but of the whole city. By means of the solidarity deriving from Christian practice, social space itself is redeemed. Fasting, Basil states, preserves health, keeps husbands faithful, sustains marriages, prevents bloodshed, quietens cooks and servants, limits debt and reduces crime.

    Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat and Christian Diet
    David Grumett, Rachel Muers

  • [Abba] Moses’ advice is notable in prescribing unwavering uniformity even on Sundays and days when guests visit.  Monks maintaining this pattern would need no additional food on Sundays or other special days. If additional food were taken on these days, a smaller ration would be required during the rest of the week, or quite possibly nothing at all, as a result of the additional sustenance previously received. Why not opt, therefore, for this latter option, frequently practised and previously described, of complete abstinence through the week with a feast on Sunday? Cassian rejects this option on the grounds that it would establish a cycle of excessive abstinence followed by indulgence that would over time, be likely to promote gluttony. This is illustrated by the example of brother Benjamin, who on alternate days ate none of his bread ration in order to enjoy a feast of four loaves once every two days, so that he might ‘give way to his appetite by means of a double portion’. Abba Moses continues: ‘Through the two days of fasting he was able to acquire his four rolls, thereby getting the chance both to satisfy his longings and to enjoy a full stomach.’ Benjamin ultimately forsakes monastic life, returning ‘back to the empty philosophy of this world and to the vanity of the day’ because he ‘obstinately chose his own decisions in preference to what had been handed down by the fathers’.

    Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat and Christian Diet
    by David Grumett, Rachel Muers

  • Cassian also discusses dietary discipline in his fifth book of Institutes, in which he presents the common goal of spiritual abstinence as best served by varying levels of abstinence for different people. In so far as an objective measure of degrees of abstinence is possible, some community members will be suited to a stricter degree than others owing to differences in mental steadfastness, bodily health, age and gender. Indeed, when specific foods are discussed, this is often in order to show the difficulty of forming general prescriptions: moistened beans do not agree with everybody, for example, and fresh vegetables and dry bread will suit some people but not others. In defining gluttony, Cassian does not therefore focus solely on the specific types of food eaten, but adopts a broader perspective which takes account of their simplicity and ease of preparation. He advises:

    Food should be chosen not only to soothe the burning pangs of lust, still less to inflame them, but which is easy to prepare and which is readily available for a moderate price, and it should be held in common for the brothers’ use. Now there are three types of gluttony: one is compulsion to anticipate the regular time of eating; another is wanting to fill the stomach with excessive amounts of any sort of food; the third is delighting in the more delicate and rare dishes. A monk therefore must take threefold care against these: firstly he must wait for the proper time of meals; then he must not yield to overeating; thirdly he should be happy with any sort of common food.

    Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat and Christian Diet
    by David Grumett, Rachel Muers