Is gluttony a mortal sin?

There is nothing worse, nothing more shameful, than gluttony; it makes the mind gross, and the soul carnal; it blinds, and permits not to see clearly. Observe, for instance, how this is the case with the Jews; for because they were intent upon gluttony, entirely occupied with worldly things, and without any spiritual thoughts, though Christ leads them on by ten thousand sayings, sharp and at the same time forbearing, even thus they arise not, but continue groveling below.

John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John 47 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 14)

But I desire that it be observed, that because intemperance in eating is not so soon perceived by others as immoderate drinking, and the outward visible effects of it are not either so notorious or so ridiculous, therefore gluttony is not of so great disreptuation amongst men as drunkenness; yet, according to its degree, it puts on the greatness of the sin before God, and is most strictly to be attended to, lest we be surprised by our security and want of diligence, and the intemperance is alike criminal in both, according as the affections are either to the meat or drink. Gluttony is more uncharitable to the body, and drunkenness to the soul, or the understanding part of man; and therefore in Scripture is more frequently forbidden and declaimed against than the other: and sobriety hath by use obtained to signify temperance in drinking.

Jeremy Taylor, Taylor, Holy Living 2.2.4

For gout in the feet, apoplexy, dimness of sight, pains in the hands, tremors, paralytic attacks, jaundice, lingering and inflammatory fevers, and other diseases many more than these, (for we have not time to go over them all,) are the natural offspring, not of abstinence and moderate diet, but of gluttony and repletion. And if you will look to the diseases of the soul that arise from them, you will see that feelings of coveting, sloth, melancholy, dullness, impurity, and folly of all kinds, have their origin here.

John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John 24 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 14)

Wherefore lust gives rise to blindness of mind, which excludes almost entirely the knowledge of spiritual things, while dulness of sense arises from gluttony, which makes a man weak in regard to the same intelligible things. On the other hand, the contrary virtues, viz. abstinence and chastity, dispose man very much to the perfection of intellectual operation.

Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q15.A3

What brutish sins (and worse than brutish) gluttony and drunkenness are; they put a force upon nature, and make that the sickness of the body which should be its health; they are sins that are their own punishments, and yet not the worst that attend them.

Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Numbers 11.3 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 1)

Some particular cautions against those sins which are, of all sins, the most destructive to the seeds of wisdom and grace in the soul, which impoverish and ruin it. 1. Gluttony and drunkenness, v. 20, 21 . The world is full of examples of this sin and temptations to it, which all young people are concerned to stand upon their guard against and keep at a distance from Be not a wine-bibber; we are allowed to drink a little wine ( 1 Tim. v. 23 ), but not much, not to make a trade of it, never to drink to excess.

Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 23.8 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)

For to serve the belly, to be possessed by the desire of riches, to be given to anger, to bite, to kick, become not men, but beasts. Nay, even the beasts have each, as one may say, one single passion, and that by nature. But man, when he has cast away the dominion of reason, and torn himself from the commonwealth of God’s devising, gives himself up to all the passions, is no longer merely a beast, but a kind of many-formed motley monster; nor has he even the excuse from nature, for all his wickedness proceeds from deliberate choice and determination.

John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John 4 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 14)

Thus the glutton makes a god of his dainties; the ambitious man of his honor; the incontinent man of his lust; and the covetous man of his wealth; and consequently esteems them as his chiefest good, and the most noble end, to which he directs his thoughts: thus he vilifies and lessens the true God, which can make him happy, in a multitude of false gods, that can only render him miserable.

Stephen Charnock, Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God 2

Whose God is their belly. They minded nothing but their sensual appetites. A wretched idol it is, and a scandal for any, but especially for Christians, to sacrifice the favour of God, the peace of their conscience, and their eternal happiness to it. Gluttons and drunkards make a god of their belly, and all their care is to please it and make provision for it.

Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Philippians 3.5 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 6)

Ambition, the love of money, the passion for drink, the craving for pleasure and excitement, gambling, gluttony, illicit relationships--all these are so many tyrants among men. Each and all have crowds of unhappy prisoners bound hand and foot in their chains.

J.C. Ryle, Ryle, Expository Thoughts on John John 8:31-36 (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Vol. 4)

Moses expressly mentions gluttons and drunkards , to show that, although no capital crime were alleged, still, dissolute profligacy was sufficient, if the son could not be corrected by his parents; for it is plain that those are in a desperate state who have so east away submissiveness and shame as to receive no profit from the admonitions of their parents.

John Calvin, Calvin, Harmony of the Law, Vol. 3 1.1.4 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 5)

A glutton and a drunkard - Under which two offenses others of a like or worse nature are comprehended.

John Wesley, Wesley, Notes on the Bible 32.21

Paul is not approving gluttony and drunkenness but only expressing horror at their sacrilege (despising, καταφρονειτε) of the church of God.

A.T. Robertson, Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament 8.11

I should wonder at the Psychics, if they were enthralled to voluptuousness alone, which leads them to repeated marriages, if they were not likewise bursting with gluttony, which leads them to hate fasts. Lust without voracity would certainly be considered a monstrous phenomenon; since these two are so united and concrete, that, had there been any possibility of disjoining them, the pudenda would not have been affixed to the belly itself rather than elsewhere. … First, the belly; and then immediately the materials of all other species of lasciviousness are laid subordinately to daintiness: through love of eating, love of impurity finds passage.

Tertullian, Tertullian, On Fasting 1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4)

Abbot Serapion’s enumeration of eight principal faults. There are eight principal faults which attack mankind; viz., first gastrimargia, which means gluttony, secondly fornication, thirdly philargyria, i.e., avarice or the love of money, fourthly anger, fifthly dejection, sixthly acedia, i.e., listlessness or low spirits, seventhly cenodoxia, i.e., boasting or vain glory; and eighthly pride.

John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 6.2 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)

Man himself, guilty as he is of every iniquity, is not only a work of God—he is His image, and yet both in soul and body he has severed himself from his Maker. For we did not get eyes to minister to lust, and the tongue for speaking evil with, and ears to be the receptacle of evil speech, and the throat to serve the vice of gluttony, and the belly to be gluttony’s ally, and the genitals for unchaste excesses, and hands for deeds of violence, and the feet for an erring life; or was the soul placed in the body that it might become a thought-manufactory of snares, and fraud, and injustice?

Tertullian, Tertullian, The Shows, or De Spectaculis 2 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3)

Avoid haste, eagerness, and gluttony in eating, for such greed proceedeth from inordinate love of its object. A greedy mouth and lust for meat have an intermixture of sin.

Thomas à Kempis, Thomas à Kempis, The Founders of the New Devotion 2.19

Temperance is moderation in regard not only to the evil and swinish sin of drunkenness, which is so manifestly contrary to all Christian integrity and nobility of character, but in regard to the far more subtle temptation of another form of sensual indulgence—gluttony. The Christian Church needed to be warned of that, and if these people in Thessalonica needed the warning I am quite sure that we need it. There is not a nation on earth which needs it more than Englishmen.

Alexander Maclaren, Maclaren, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, and First Timothy 2.3.6 (Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vol. 14)

Reply to Objection 3: Even in the carnal sins there is a spiritual act, viz. the act of reason: but the end of these sins, from which they are named, is carnal pleasure. Reply to Objection 4: As the gloss says, "in the sin of fornication the soul is the body's slave in a special sense, because at the moment of sinning it can think of nothing else": whereas the pleasure of gluttony, although carnal, does not so utterly absorb the reason.

Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q72.A2

Now among the vices opposed to temperance, adultery would seem most of all opposed to the love of our neighbor, since thereby a man lays hold of another's property for his own use, by abusing his neighbor's wife. Wherefore the precepts of the decalogue include a special prohibition of adultery, not only as committed in deed, but also as desired in thought. … Reply to Objection 2: Gluttony is not directly opposed to the love of our neighbor, as adultery is.

Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q170.A1

Drunkenness had obviously not reached the dimensions of a national curse in the date when this lesson was written. We should not put over-eating side by side with it.

Alexander Maclaren, Maclaren, Second Kings from Chap. VIII, and Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes 1.8.25 (Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vol. 3)