{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-1657","native_reference":{"book_number":610,"chapter_from":4,"chapter_to":4,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":4,"verse_to":4},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: It is not the uncleanness of meat that I fear, but the uncleanness of an incontinent appetite.<br/><i>— Confessions 10.31.46</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: As there is an unconscious worship of idols and devils in the fanciful legends of the Manichaeans, so they knowingly serve the creature in their worship of the sun and moon. And in what they call their service of the Creator they really serve their own fancy, and not the Creator at all. For they deny that God created those things which the apostle plainly declares to be the creatures of God, when he says of food, \"Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it is received with thanksgiving.\" This is sound doctrine, which you cannot bear, and so turn to fables. The apostle praises the creature of God, but forbids the worship of it; and in the same way Moses gives due praise to the sun and moon, while at the same time he states the fact of their having been made by God, and placed by Him in their courses,—the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night. And if earthly bodies are good, of which the apostle spoke when he said that no food is unclean, because every creature of God is good, much more the heavenly bodies, of which the sun and moon are the chief.<br/><i>— REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICHAEAN 14.11</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: Because sin or iniquity is not a seeking of things evil by nature but an abandonment of the better things, this is found written in Scripture. \"Every creature is good.\" Every tree that God planted in paradise was good. Man, therefore, did not desire anything evil by nature when he touched the forbidden tree. But by departing from what was better he himself committed an act that was evil.<br/><i>— THE NATURE OF THE GOOD 34</i></p><p><b>Basil of Caesarea</b>: It has seemed to me ridiculous that any one should make a vow to abstain from swine's flesh. Be so good as to teach men to abstain from foolish vows and promises. Represent the use to be quite indifferent. No creature of God, received with thanksgiving, is to be rejected. The vow is ridiculous; the abstinence unnecessary.<br/><i>— Letter 199, Canon 28</i></p><p><b>Gregory of Nyssa</b>: But as in the sensible world itself, though there is a considerable mutual opposition of its various elements, yet a certain harmony maintained in those opposites has been devised by the wisdom that rules the Universe, and thus there is produced a concord of the whole creation with itself, and the natural contrariety does not break the chain of agreement; in like manner, owing to the Divine wisdom, there is an admixture and interpenetration of the sensible with the intellectual department, in order that all things may equally have a share in the beautiful, and no single one of existing things be without its share in that superior world. For this reason the corresponding locality of the intellectual world is a subtle and mobile essence, which, in accordance with its supramundane habitation, has in its peculiar nature large affinity with the intellectual part. Now, by a provision of the supreme Mind there is an intermixture of the intellectual with the sensible world, in order that nothing in creation may be thrown aside as worthless, as says the Apostle, or be left without its portion of the Divine fellowship. On this account it is that the commixture of the intellectual and sensible in man is effected by the Divine Being, as the description of the cosmogony instructs us.<br/><i>— The Great Catechism 6</i></p><p><b>Gregory of Nyssa</b>: For, be it observed, there is no such thing in the world as evil irrespective of a will, and discoverable in a substance apart from that. Every creature of God is good, and nothing of His \"to be rejected\"; all that God made was \"very good.\" But the habit of sinning entered as we have described, and with fatal quickness, into the life of man; and from that small beginning spread into this infinitude of evil. Then that godly beauty of the soul which was an imitation of the Archetypal Beauty, like fine steel blackened with the vicious rust, preserved no longer the glory of its familiar essence, but was disfigured with the ugliness of sin. This thing so great and precious, as the Scripture calls him, this being man, has fallen from his proud birthright.<br/><i>— On Virginity 12</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving.\"</p><p>If it be the creature of God, it is good. For \"all things,\" it is said, \"were very good.\" (Gen. i. 31) By speaking thus of things eatable, he by anticipation impugns the heresy of those who introduce an uncreated matter, and assert that these things proceed from it. But if it is good, why is it \"sanctified by the word of God and prayers\"? For it must be unclean, if it is to be sanctified? Not so, here he is speaking to those who thought that some of these things were common; therefore he lays down two positions: first, that no creature of God is unclean: secondly, that if it were become so, you have a remedy, seal it, give thanks, and glorify God, and all the uncleanness passes away. Can we then so cleanse that which is offered to an idol? If you know not that it was so offered. But if, knowing this, you partake of it, you will be unclean; not because it was offered to an idol, but because contrary to an express command, you thereby communicate with devils. So that it is not unclean by nature, but becomes so through your wilful disobedience. What then, is not swine's flesh unclean? By no means, when it is received with thanksgiving, and with the seal; nor is anything else. It is your unthankful disposition to God that is unclean.<br/><i>— Homily on 1 Timothy 12</i></p><p><b>Leo the Great</b>: The first cause of sin crept in from the enjoyment of food. What more salutary gift of God does our redeemed liberty use than that the will, which once did not know how to restrain itself from forbidden things, now knows how to restrain itself from lawful things? \"Every creature of God is good, and nothing ought to be rejected, which is received with the giving of thanks.\" We were not created to seek out all the riches of the world with a foul and shameless greed. We can restrain voluntarily from what is lawful.<br/><i>— SERMONS 81.1</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: that every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.</p><p>that every creature of God is good. Paul speaks concerning things that are edible. He already anticipates the heresy of those introducing uncreated matter and said that those were foods.</p><p>and nothing is to be rejected. Therefore, neither should the idol's food be rejected, provided it is taken with prayer, if you are unaware: since by law you become guilty who are commanded not to be defiled by the food of idols; therefore, by transgressing the law, one is defiled: just as even what is entirely pure, and taken without thanksgiving, becomes defiled because of your voluntary ingratitude.</p><p>For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. If it is sanctified, then is it unclean? Far from it! For everything is clean; but here two points are made against those who say that some foods are unclean. First, that every creature of God is good, and nothing is unclean. But if anyone considers something to be unclean, there is also such a thing as medicine [φάρμακον], he says. For it is sanctified by the word of God, that is, by prayer. Moreover, it is stated earlier: For it is by the word and prayer made to God that it is sanctified.<br/><i>— COMMENTARY ON 1 TIMOTHY</i></p><p><b>Philoxenus of Mabbug</b>: And again, when the Apostle Paul is read, and he heareth from him, \"Everything which was created by God is holy, and nothing is to be rejected if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer;\" or another verse, \"The belly for meats, and meats for the belly;\" or that also which he spake, \"Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth.\" And in the other things like unto these which are written in the doctrine of Paul, the fool rejoiceth, and receiveth them gladly, without understanding the reason of the words.</p><p>And the glutton is not pleased to hear the other things which have been written by Paul upon fortitude and asceticism, either when he recounteth his numerous fastings, or when he crieth out to his disciples, saying, \"Ye are dead unto the world,\" or when he writeth, \"It is good for a man not to eat flesh, and not to drink wine,\" or his exhortation, \"Through many tribulations it is meet for a man to enter into the kingdom of God,\" or his saying, \"God shall bring both the belly and the food to nought;\" and the reading of these and such like passages the glutton considereth unnecessary, and he is not pleased even to hear them.<br/><i>— 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 10 -- On Gluttony</i></p><p><b>Philoxenus of Mabbug</b>: Hast thou forgotten that which Paul crieth, saying, \"Everything which hath been created by God is holy, and nothing is to be rejected if it be received with thanksgiving?\" But take good heed unto me, in this case also, that thou receive not this word as free permission to eat flesh, and that thou make not use thereof, for the sake of ministering unto thy lusts, for unto the free it is written. If thou hast been tempted in thy soul which standeth upon the height of the freedom of Christ, and hast subdued by the power of thy patient endurance the bondage which is in thee, thou mayest make use of these words, if when thou eatest thou dost not eat with thy senses, and when thou drinkest thou dost not drink longingly that which thou drinkest. If thou canst eat like a dead man, eat, but if thou eatest like a living man, take heed that thou dost not taste thy food with pleasure; for the perception of the taste of that which thou eatest testifieth against thee that thou art still alive unto lust, and that thou eatest in order that thou mayest eat, and not that thou mayest live.<br/><i>— 13 Ascetic Discourses, Discourse 11 -- On Abstinence</i></p><p><b>Tertullian</b>: If, then he shows plainly that even wives themselves are so to be had as if they be not had, on account of the straits of the times, what would be his sentiments about these vain appliances of theirs? Why, are there not many, withal, who so do, and seal themselves up to eunuchhood for the sake of the kingdom of God, spontaneously relinquishing a pleasure so honourable, and (as we know) permitted? Are there not some who prohibit to themselves (the use of) the very \"creature of God,\" abstaining from wine and animal food, the enjoyments of which border upon no peril or solicitude; but they sacrifice to God the humility of their soul even in the chastened use of food? Sufficiently, therefore, have you, too, used your riches and your delicacies; sufficiently have you cut down the fruits of your dowries, before (receiving) the knowledge of saving disciplines.<br/><i>— On the Apparel of Women Book II</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"e5886469f523fd9d70b5b22ef12717e8202f863b76fe08ed65638d280b4b43c7","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":1657,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"3e88f7105744cf0a6136ff5467efae31866e372edaf2a13446a7f270ecb24c89","translator":null,"work":null}