Answers from church history on today's questions
What Christian writers said, from about AD 150 to 1938.
194 passages · 36 writers · 13 centuries
Of the 194 passages here, 73 state a position on gluttony and 121 mention it in passing, and the 73 come from 18 writers. Aquinas (22 statements) and Cassian (10) supply 32 of the 73, and Clement of Alexandria and Matthew Henry add 9 each. The writers who state a position define gluttony as an inordinate desire for food or drink, or as eating past need for the pleasure of the palate, and they place the fault in the desire and the manner of eating rather than in the food. Cassian names three forms (eating before the proper time, eating to excess, and seeking dainties) and lists gluttony first of eight principal faults, and Aquinas discusses when it is venial and when it is mortal. Five of the statements date from the 16th and 17th centuries (Calvin, Luther, and Taylor), and no Orthodox writer after the patristic period appears in the collection.
21 passages · 12 writers · 100s to 1700s
Writers define gluttony as an inordinate desire for or pleasure in food and drink, and locate the fault in the desire and manner of eating rather than in the food.
Excess, which in all things is an evil, is very highly reprehensible in the matter of food. Gluttony, called ὀψοφαγία , is nothing but excess in the use of relishes ( ὄψον ); and λαιμαργία is insanity with respect to the gullet; and γαστριμαργία is excess with respect to food—insanity in reference to the belly, as the name implies; for μάργος is a madman.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
Meats and drinks are not on this account to be condemned, because, when served up with too exquisite a daintiness, they conduce to gluttony; nor is raiment to be blamed, because, when too costlily adorned, it becomes inflated with vanity and pride. So, on the same principle, the estate of matrimony is not to be refused, because, when enjoyed without moderation, it is fanned into a voluptuous flame. There is a great difference between a cause and a fault, between a state and its excess.
Tertullian, Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion 1.29 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3)
It is not to be supposed, however, that we are to abstain from the flesh of animals in the same way as we are bound to abstain from all race and wickedness: we are indeed to abstain not only from the flesh of animals, but from all other kinds of food, if we cannot partake of them without incurring evil, and the consequences of evil. For we are to avoid eating for gluttony, or for the mere gratification of the appetite, without regard to the health and sustenance of the body.
Origen of Alexandria, Origen, Origen Against Celsus 8.30 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4)
We should not say, Let there be no belly, but let there be no gluttony; for the belly makes not the gluttony, but our negligence. We should not say, that it is because of eating and drinking that all these evils exist; for it is not because of this, but because of our carelessness and insatiableness.
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch 17 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 9)
For it is possible that a wise man may use the daintiest food without any sin of epicurism or gluttony, while a fool will crave for the vilest food with a most disgusting eagerness of appetite. … For in all matters of this kind it is not the nature of the things we use, but our reason for using them, and our manner of seeking them, that make what we do either praiseworthy or blameable.
Augustine of Hippo, Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 3.12 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 2)
But now we have to deal with Gluttony, that is the desire of the palate, against which our first battle is. He then will never be able to check the motions of a burning lust, who cannot restrain the desires of the appetite.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 5.11 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
And so (to make my meaning clearer) gluttony, i.e., the appetites of the belly and the pleasures of the palate, is destructive of strict temperance: lust stains purity, anger destroys patience: so that sometimes a man who is in bondage to some one sin is not altogether wanting in other virtues: but being simply deprived of that one virtue which in the struggle yields to the vice which is its rival and opposed to it, can to some extent preserve his other virtues: but this one when once it has taken possession of some unfortunate soul, like some most brutal tyrant, when the lofty citadel of the virtues has been taken, utterly destroys and lays waste the whole city; and levelling with the ground of vices the once high walls of saintliness, and confusing them together, it allows no shadow of freedom henceforth to survive in the soul subject to it.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 12.3 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
Reply to Objection 2: As stated above, the vice of gluttony does not regard the substance of food, but in the desire thereof not being regulated by reason. Wherefore if a man exceed in quantity of food, not from desire of food, but through deeming it necessary to him, this pertains, not to gluttony, but to some kind of inexperience. It is a case of gluttony only when a man knowingly exceeds the measure in eating, from a desire for the pleasures of the palate.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A1
I answer that, Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire. Now desire is said to be inordinate through leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists: and a thing is said to be a sin through being contrary to virtue. Wherefore it is evident that gluttony is a sin.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A1
I answer that, As stated above (A[1]) , gluttony denotes inordinate concupiscence in eating. Now two things are to be considered in eating, namely the food we eat, and the eating thereof. Accordingly, the inordinate concupiscence may be considered in two ways.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A4
I answer that, As stated above ( AA[1] ,2,3), gluttony consists properly in an immoderate pleasure in eating and drinking. Wherefore those vices are reckoned among the daughters of gluttony, which are the results of eating and drinking immoderately.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A6
Reply to Objection 1: To make use of what is needful for self-support is not the sin of gluttony; but if a man do anything inordinate out of the desire for such support, it can pertain to the sin of gluttony. Now it is inordinate for a man who has human assistance at his command to seek to obtain food miraculously for mere bodily support.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica III.Q41.A4
Besides this there is another, the sensitive appetite, and it is in the concupiscence of this appetite that the vice of gluttony consists. Hence the first movement of gluttony denotes inordinateness in the sensitive appetite, and this is not without sin.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A1
Reply to Objection 2: To take more meat or drink than is necessary belongs to the vice of gluttony, which is not always a mortal sin: but knowingly to take too much drink to the point of being drunk, is a mortal sin.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q150.A2
Secondly, there is the good of the body, and this regards either the preservation of the individual, e.g. meat and drink, which good is pursued inordinately by "gluttony," or the preservation of the species, e.g. sexual intercourse, which good is sought inordinately by "lust."
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q84.A4
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 a Kempis, Thomas à Kempis, The Founders of the New Devotion 2.19
Paul does not say that eating and drinking are works of the flesh, but intemperance in eating and drinking, which is a common vice nowadays, is a work of the flesh. … Paul desires that Christians avoid drunkenness and gluttony , that they live temperate and sober lives, in order that the body may not grow soft and sensual.
Martin Luther, Luther, Commentary on Galatians 5:19
Temperance does not exist in the food itself, but in the palate — since we are equally intemperate if pleasure entices us to gratify the appetite on inferior food — so, again, we may remain perfectly temperate though feeding on the best diet.
John Calvin, Calvin, Commentary on Daniel, Vol. 1 1.12 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 24)
But when delight is the only end, and rest itself, and dwells there long, then eating and drinking is not a serving of God, but an inordinate action; because it is not in the way to that end whither God directed it. But the choosing of a delicate before a more ordinary dish is to be done as other human actions are in which there are no degrees and precise natural limits described, but a latitude is indulged; it must be done moderately, prudently, and according to the accounts of wise, religious, and sober men: and then God, who gave us such variety of creatures, and our choice to use which we will, may receive glory from our temperate use, and thanksgiving; and we may use them indifferently without scruple, and a making them to become snares to us, either by too licentious and studied use of them, or too restrained and scrupulous fear of using them at all, but in such certain circumstances, in which no man can be sure he is not mistaken.
Jeremy Taylor, Taylor, Holy Living 2.2.1
Nature is desirous of food, and we are taught to pray for it, but it is lust that is desirous of dainties, and we cannot in faith pray for them, for frequently they are not food convenient for mind, body, or estate. They are deceitful meat, and therefore David, instead of praying for them, prays against them, Ps. cxli. 4 . They are pleasant to the palate, but perhaps rise in the stomach, turn sour there, upbraid a man, and make him sick. They do not yield men the satisfaction they promised themselves from them; for those that are given to appetite, when they have that which is very dainty, are not pleased; they are soon weary of it; they must have something else more dainty.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 23.1 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
An inordinate appetite, intemperance, and excess in eating, come out of the heart, and are defiling; but meat in itself is not so, as the Pharisees supposed.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Matthew 15.2 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 5)
18 passages · 9 writers · 100s to 1700s
Writers describe the kinds of excess (eating too early, too much, or too richly) and set need, rather than pleasure, as the measure of food.
Wherefore we must guard against those articles of food which persuade us to eat when we are not hungry, bewitching the appetite. For is there not within a temperate simplicity a wholesome variety of eatables?
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
But the Instructor enjoins us to eat that we may live. For neither is food our business, nor is pleasure our aim; but both are on account of our life here, which the Word is training up to immortality. Wherefore also there is discrimination to be employed in reference to food. And it is to be simple, truly plain, suiting precisely simple and artless children—as ministering to life, not to luxury.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
But I perceive whence the specious appellation of suppers flowed: “from the gullets and furious love for suppers”—according to the comic poet. For, in truth, “to many, many things are on account of the supper.” For they have not yet learned that God has provided for His creature (man I mean) food and drink, for sustenance, not for pleasure; since the body derives no advantage from extravagance in viands.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
Not to be drunken is continency. Not to overeat one’s self is continency. To subdue the body is continency, and to keep evil thoughts in subjection, whenever the soul is disturbed by any fancy false and bad, and the heart is distracted by vain cares. Continency makes men free, being at once a medicine and a power, for it does not teach temperance; it gives it.
Basil of Caesarea, Basil, The Letters 357 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 8)
The pleasures of eating and drinking, leading to boundless excess, inflict upon the body the doom of the most dreadful sufferings ; for over-indulgence is the parent of most of the painful diseases. To secure for the body a continuous tranquillity, unstirred by the pains of surfeit, we must make up our minds to a more sparing regimen, and constitute the need of it on each occasion not the pleasure of it, as the measure and limit of our indulgence.
Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity 2.22 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 5)
If the sweetness will nevertheless mingle itself with the satisfaction of the need (for hunger knows how to sweeten everything , and by the vehemence of appetite she gives the zest of pleasure to every discoverable supply of the need), we must not because of the resulting enjoyment reject the satisfaction, nor yet make this latter our leading aim. In everything we must select the expedient quantity, and leave untouched what merely feasts the senses .
Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity 2.22 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 5)
No one has his stomach inflated or overloaded if he eats only one or two dishes, and those inexpensive ones: such a condition comes of pampering the taste with a variety of meats. The smells of the kitchen may induce us to eat, but when hunger is satisfied, they make us their slaves. Hence gorging gives rise to disease: and many persons find relief for the discomfort of gluttony in emetics,—what they disgraced themselves by putting in, they with still greater disgrace put out.
Jerome, Jerome, Against Jovinianus 2 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 6)
47. Placed, then, in the midst of these temptations, I strive daily against longing for food and drink. For it is not of such a nature as that I am able to resolve to cut it off once for all, and not touch it afterwards, as I was able to do with concubinage. The bridle of the throat, therefore, is to be held in the mean of slackness and tightness. And who, O Lord, is he who is not in some degree carried away beyond the bounds of necessity?
Augustine of Hippo, Augustine, The Confessions 10.31 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 1)
And oftentimes it is doubtful whether it be the necessary care of the body which still asks nourishment, or whether a sensual snare of desire offers its ministry. In this uncertainty does my unhappy soul rejoice, and therein prepares an excuse as a defence, glad that it doth not appear what may be Sufficient for the moderation of health, that so under the pretence of health it may conceal the business of pleasure.
Augustine of Hippo, Augustine, The Confessions 10.31 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 1)
And whereas health is the reason of eating and drinking, there joineth itself as an hand-maid a perilous delight, which mostly tries to precede it, in order that I may do for her sake what I say I do, or desire to do, for health’s sake. Nor have both the same limit; for what is sufficient for health is too little for pleasure.
Augustine of Hippo, Augustine, The Confessions 10.31 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 1)
For the nature of gluttony is threefold: first, there is that which forces us to anticipate the proper hour for a meal, next that which delights in stuffing the stomach, and gorging all kinds of food; thirdly, that which takes pleasure in more refined and delicate feasting. And so against it a monk should observe a threefold watch: first, he should wait till the proper time for breaking the fast; secondly, he should not give way to gorging; thirdly, he should be contented with any of the commoner sorts of food.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 5.23 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
Bodily weakness is no hindrance to purity of heart, if only so much food is taken as the bodily weakness requires, and not what pleasure asks for. It is easier to find men who altogether abstain from the more fattening kinds of foods than men who make a moderate use of what is allowed to our necessities; and men who deny themselves everything out of love of continence than men who taking food on the plea of weakness preserve the due measure of what is sufficient. For bodily weakness has its glory of self-restraint, where though food is permitted to the failing body, a man deprives himself of his refreshment. although he needs it, and only indulges in just so much food as the strict judgment of temperance decides to be sufficient for the necessities of life, and not what the longing appetite asks for.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 5.7 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
And now, to speak about each kind of fault separately: of gluttony there are three sorts: (1) that which drives a monk to eat before the proper and stated times; (2) that which cares about filling the belly and gorging it with all kinds of food, and (3) that which is on the lookout for dainties and delicacies. And these three sorts give a monk no little trouble, unless he tries to free himself from all of them with the same care and scrupulousness. For just as one should never venture to break one’s fast before the right time so we must utterly avoid all greediness in eating, and the choice and dainty preparation of our food: for from these three causes different but extremely dangerous conditions of the soul arise.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 6.11 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
We ought then with all our might to strive for the virtue of discretion by the power of humility, as it will keep us uninjured by either extreme, for there is an old saying ἀκρότητες ἰσότητες , i.e., extremes meet. For excess of fasting and gluttony come to the same thing, and an unlimited continuance of vigils is equally injurious to a monk as the torpor of a deep sleep: for when a man is weakened by excessive abstinence he is sure to return to that condition in which a man is kept through carelessness and negligence, so that we have often seen those who could not be deceived by gluttony, destroyed by excessive fasting and by reason of weakness liable to that passion which they had before overcome.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 3.16 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
First, with regard to the food consumed: and thus, as regards the substance or species of food a man seeks "sumptuous"---i.e. costly food; as regards its quality, he seeks food prepared too nicely---i.e. "daintily"; and as regards quantity, he exceeds by eating "too much." Secondly, the inordinate concupiscence is considered as to the consumption of food: either because one forestalls the proper time for eating, which is to eat "hastily," or one fails to observe the due manner of eating, by eating "greedily." Isidore [*De Summo Bon. ii, 42] comprises the first and second under one heading, when he says that the glutton exceeds in "what" he eats, or in "how much," "how" or "when he eats."
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A4
For in him that seeks sumptuous food, concupiscence is aroused by the very species of the food; in him that forestalls the time concupiscence is disordered through impatience of delay, and so forth. Reply to Objection 2: Place and other circumstances include no special motive connected with eating, that can cause a different species of gluttony.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A4
1. Eat not before the time, unless necessity, or charity, or any intervening accident, which may make it reasonable and prudent, should happen. Remember, it had almost cost Jonathan his life, because he tasted a little honey before the sun went down, contrary to the king’s commandment; and although a great need which he had excused him from the sin of gluttony, yet it is inexcusable when thou eatest before the usual time, and thrustest thy hand into the dish unseasonably, out of greediness of the pleasure, and impatience of the delay.
Jeremy Taylor, Taylor, Holy Living 2.2.2
Intemperance must be avoided in meat as well as drink. Be not a luxurious eater of flesh, not pleased with any thing but what is very nice and delicate, savoury dishes, and forced meat. Some take not only a pleasure, but a pride, in being curious about their diet, and, as they call it, eating well; as if that were the ornament of a gentleman, which is really the shame of a Christian, making a God of the belly. " Be not a wine bibber, and be not a riotous eater; and therefore, be not among wine-bibbers nor among riotous eaters; do not give them countenance, lest thou learn their ways and insensibly fall into those sins, or at least lose the dread and detestation of them.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 23.8 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
12 passages · 2 writers · 400s to 1200s
Writers rank gluttony among the carnal and capital vices and discuss when it is venial and when it is mortal.
And so the first conflict we must enter upon is that against gluttony, which we have explained as the pleasures of the palate: and in the first place as we are going to speak of the system of fasts, and the quality of food, we must again recur to the traditions and customs of the Egyptians, as everybody knows that they contain a more advanced discipline in the matter of self-control, and a perfect method of discrimination.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 5.3 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
On the contrary, Gregory (Moral. xxxi, 45) reckons gluttony among the capital vices. I answer that, As stated above ( FS, Q[84], A[3] ), a capital vice denotes one from which, considered as final cause, i.e. as having a most desirable end, other vices originate: wherefore through desiring that end men are incited to sin in many ways. Now an end is rendered most desirable through having one of the conditions of happiness which is desirable by its very nature: and pleasure is essential to happiness, according to Ethic. i, 8; x, 3,7,8.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A5
Therefore the vice of gluttony, being about pleasures of touch which stand foremost among other pleasures, is fittingly reckoned among the capital vices. … Yet gluttony seems to be about pleasures of food rather than about food itself; wherefore, as Augustine says (De Vera Relig. liii), "with such food as is good for the worthless body, men desire to be fed," wherein namely the pleasure consists, "rather than to be filled: since the whole end of that desire is this---not to thirst and not to hunger."
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A5
Reply to Objection 3: That which gives pleasure is desirable in itself: and consequently corresponding to its diversity there are two capital vices, namely gluttony and lust.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A5
On the other hand, if the inordinate concupiscence in the vice of gluttony be found to affect only such things as are directed to the end, for instance when a man has too great a desire for the pleasures of the palate, yet would not for their sake do anything contrary to God's law, it is a venial sin. Reply to Objection 1: The vice of gluttony becomes a mortal sin by turning man away from his last end: and accordingly, by a kind of reduction, it is opposed to the precept of hallowing the sabbath, which commands us to rest in our last end.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A2
I answer that, As stated above (A[1]) , the vice of gluttony properly consists in inordinate concupiscence. … Accordingly, if the inordinate concupiscence in gluttony be found to turn man away from the last end, gluttony will be a mortal sin. This is the case when he adheres to the pleasure of gluttony as his end, for the sake of which he contemns God, being ready to disobey God's commandments, in order to obtain those pleasures.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A2
First and foremost it depends on the matter in which the sin is committed: and in this way sins committed in connection with Divine things are the greatest. From this point of view gluttony is not the greatest sin, for it is about matters connected with the nourishment of the body.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A3
Secondly, the gravity of a sin depends on the person who sins, and from this point of view the sin of gluttony is diminished rather than aggravated, both on account of the necessity of taking food, and on account of the difficulty of proper discretion and moderation in such matters. Thirdly, from the point of view of the result that follows, and in this way gluttony has a certain gravity, inasmuch as certain sins are occasioned thereby.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A3
Reply to Objection 2: In so far as it turns man away from his last end, gluttony is opposed to the love of God, who is to be loved, as our last end, above all things: and only in this respect is gluttony a mortal sin. Reply to Objection 3: This saying of Augustine refers to gluttony as denoting inordinate concupiscence merely in regard of things directed to the end. Reply to Objection 4: Gluttony is said to bring virtue to naught, not so much on its own account, as on account of the vices which arise from it.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A2
On the other hand, one meal does not hinder the good of a man's whole life, wherefore the act of gluttony is not a mortal sin by reason of its genus. It would, however, be a mortal sin, if a man were knowingly to partake of a food which would alter the whole condition of his life, as was the case with Adam.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q154.A2
Accordingly, those sins which consist in spiritual pleasure, are called spiritual sins; while those which consist in carnal pleasure, are called carnal sins, e.g. gluttony, which consists in the pleasures of the table; and lust, which consists in sexual pleasures.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q72.A2
Now carnal vices, namely gluttony and lust, are concerned with pleasures of touch in matters of food and sex; and these are the most impetuous of all pleasures of the body. For this reason these vices cause man's attention to be very firmly fixed on corporeal things, so that in consequence man's operation in regard to intelligible things is weakened, more, however, by lust than by gluttony, forasmuch as sexual pleasures are more vehement than those of the table.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q15.A3
14 passages · 9 writers · 100s to 1700s
Writers describe gluttony as harming health, dulling the mind, enslaving the appetite, and leading to lust and other vices.
But those who bend around inflammatory tables, nourishing their own diseases, are ruled by a most lickerish demon, whom I shall not blush to call the Belly-demon, and the worst and most abandoned of demons. He is therefore exactly like the one who is called the Ventriloquist-demon. It is far better to be happy than to have a demon dwelling with us.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
Besides, those dainty tastes, which trouble themselves about rich dishes, drive to practices of ill-repute, daintiness, gluttony, greed, voracity, insatiability. Appropriate designations of such people as so indulge are flies, weasels, flatterers, gladiators, and the monstrous tribes of parasites—the one class surrendering reason, the other friendship, and the other life, for the gratification of the belly; crawling on their bellies, beasts in human shape after the image of their father, the voracious beast. People first called the abandoned ἀσώτους , and so appear to me to indicate their end, understanding them as those who are ( ἀσώστους ) unsaved, excluding the σ . For those that are absorbed in pots, and exquisitely prepared niceties of condiments, are they not plainly abject, earth-born, leading an ephemeral kind of life, as if they were not to live [hereafter]?
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
In their greed and solicitude, the gluttons seem absolutely to sweep the world with a drag-net to gratify their luxurious tastes. … There is no limit to epicurism among men.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
But the life which crawls on its belly is destitute of dignity, is scandalous, hateful, ridiculous. And to the divine nature voluptuousness is a thing most alien; for this is for a man to be like sparrows in feeding, and swine and goats in lechery. For to regard pleasure as a good thing, is the sign of utter ignorance of what is excellent. Love of wealth displaces a man from the right mode of life, and induces him to cease from feeling shame at what is shameful; if only, like a beast, he has power to eat all sorts of things, and to drink in like manner, and to satiate in every way his lewd desires.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 3.7 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
For my part, I am sorry for this disease, while they are not ashamed to sing the praises of their delicacies, giving themselves great trouble to get lampreys in the Straits of Sicily, the eels of the Mæander, and the kids found in Melos, and the mullets in Sciathus, and the mussels of Pelorus, the oysters of Abydos, not omitting the sprats found in Lipara, and the Mantinican turnip; and furthermore, the beetroot that grows among the Ascræans: they seek out the cockles of Methymna, the turbots of Attica, and the thrushes of Daphnis, and the reddish-brown dried figs, on account of which the ill-starred Persian marched into Greece with five hundred thousand men. Besides these, they purchase birds from Phasis, the Egyptian snipes, and the Median peafowl. Altering these by means of condiments, the gluttons gape for the sauces.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
But nothing has so restrained intemperance as the Gospel; nor has any one given such strict laws against gluttony as Christ, who is said to have pronounced even the poor blessed, and the hungering and thirsting happy, the rich miserable; to whom, obeying the government of their belly and their palate, the material of their lusts could never be wanting, so that their servitude could not cease; who think it an argument of their happiness to desire as much as they can, except that they are thus able to attain less than they desire.
Novatian, Novatian, On the Jewish Meats 6 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5)
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. … At a table such as I speak of, that is, a sumptuous one, men never eat with pleasure; for abstinence is the mother of pleasure as well as health, while repletion is the source and root not only of diseases, but of displeasure.
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)
For a sufficiency is both nourishment, and pleasure, and health; but excess is injury, and unpleasantness and disease. For what famine does, that also satiety does; or rather more grievous evils. For the former indeed within a few days carries a man off and sets him free; but the other eating into and putrefying the body, gives it over to long disease, and then to a most painful death. But we , while we account famine a thing greatly to be dreaded, yet run after satiety, which is more distressing than that.
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews 33 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 14)
The belly when filled with all kinds of food gives birth to seeds of wantonness, nor can the mind, when choked with the weight of food, keep the guidance and government of the thoughts. For not only is drunkenness with wine wont to intoxicate the mind, but excess of all kinds of food makes it weak and uncertain, and robs it of all its power of pure and clear contemplation. … But if excess of bread alone drove them to such a headlong downfall into sin through the vice of satiety, what shall we think of those who with a vigorous body dare to partake of meat and wine with unbounded licence, taking not just what their bodily frailty demands, but what the eager desire of the mind suggests.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 5.6 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
For by daily experience, beloved, it is proved that the mind’s edge is blunted by over-indulgence of the flesh, and the heart’s vigour is dulled by excess of food, so that the delights of eating are even opposed to the health of the body, unless reasonable moderation withstand the temptation and the consideration of future discomfort keep from the pleasure.
Leo the Great, Leo the Great, The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great 5.9 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 12)
Thus the gluttonous are to be admonished, that in giving themselves to the enjoyment of dainties they pierce not themselves through with the sword of lechery; and that they perceive how great loquacity, how great levity of mind, lie in wait for them through eating; lest, while they softly serve the belly, they become cruelly bound in the nooses of vice. For by so much the further do we go back from our second parent as by immoderate indulgence, when the hand is stretched out for food, we renew the fall of our first parent.
Gregory the Great, Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great 4.4.20 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 12)
Reply to Objection 3: The glutton intends, not the harm to his body, but the pleasure of eating: and if injury results to his body, this is accidental.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q148.A3
Pride and artificial gluttonies do but adulterate nature, making our diet healthless, our appetites impatient and unsatisfiable, and the taste mixed, fantastical, and meretricious. But that which we miscall poverty is indeed nature; and its proportions are the just measures of a man and the best instruments of content.
Jeremy Taylor, Taylor, Holy Living 2.6.2
The more a luxurious appetite is humoured and indulged the more humour some and troublesome it grows, and the more hard to please; dainties will surfeit, but never satisfy. But especially they are upon this account deceitful meat, that, while they please the body, they prejudice the soul, they overcharge the heart, and unfit it for the service of God, nay, they take away the heart, and alienate the mind from spiritual delights, and spoil its relish of them. Why then should we covet that which will certainly cheat us?
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 23.1 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
8 passages · 3 writers · 400s to 1700s
Writers treat gluttony as a persistent fault that is checked by temperance, fasting, and plain fare, and that cannot be wholly removed.
First then we must trample under foot gluttonous desires, and to this end the mind must be reduced not only by fasting, but also by vigils, by reading, and by frequent compunction of heart for those things in which perhaps it recollects that it has been deceived or overcome, sighing at one time with horror at sin, at another time inflamed with the desire of perfection and saintliness: until it is fully occupied and possessed by such cares and meditations, and recognizes the participation of food to be not so much a concession to pleasure, as a burden laid upon it; and considers it to be rather a necessity for the body than anything desirable for the soul.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 5.14 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
We can then cut out the roots of these faults which are grafted into our nature from without while we cannot possibly cut off occasions of gluttony. For however far we have advanced, we cannot help being what we were born. And that this is so we can show not only from the lives of little people like ourselves but from the lives and customs of all who have attained perfection, who even when they have got rid of incentives to all other passions, and are retiring to the desert with perfect fervour of spirit and bodily abnegation, yet still cannot do without thought for their daily meal and the preparation of their food from year to year.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 6.19 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
In thine eating avoid greed and gluttony; rather restrain thine appetite, that the blind and confused desires of nature may be enlightened by repentance and by a hunger to hear the reading. Take some portion of the reading and as it were ruminate thereon, or similarly that portion of Scripture, “A certain man made a great supper.” If at any time thou art disordered or oppressed in the head after eating, then flee to thy cell, or by talking awhile with other men, strive for the future to be more cautious in keeping guard over thyself; yet to pray and flee is safer.
Thomas a Kempis, Thomas à Kempis, The Founders of the New Devotion 4.5
Be strictly and conscientiously temperate in the use of the good creatures God has allowed us. If God's law has given us liberty, let us lay restraints upon ourselves, and never feed ourselves without fear, lest our table be a snare. … Nature is content with little, grace with less, but lust with nothing.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Leviticus 11.4 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 1)
We must reason ourselves into a holy contempt of the gratifications of sense: " If thou be a man given to appetite, thou must, by a present solution, and an application of the terrors of the Lord, restrain thyself. When thou art in danger of falling into any excess put a knife to thy throat; that may serve for once. But that is not enough: lay the axe to the root; mortify that appetite which has such a power over thee: Be not desirous of dainties.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 23.1 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
The sin we are here warned against is luxury and sensuality, and the indulgence of the appetite in eating and drinking, a sin that most easily besets us. … Perhaps the temptation may be stronger, and more dangerous, to one that is not used to such entertainments, than to one that always sits down to a good table.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 23.1 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
We are cautioned to take heed of excess. We must use all pleasures as we do honey, with a check upon our appetite, lest we take more than does us good and make ourselves sick with it.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 25.10 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
We must not walk in rioting and drunkenness; we must abstain from all excess in eating and drinking. We must not give the least countenance to revelling, nor indulge our sensual appetite in any private excesses. Christians must not overcharge their hearts with surfeiting and drunkenness, Luke xxi. 34 .
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Romans 13.3 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 6)
20 passages · 14 writers · 100s to 1900s
Gluttony appears in lists of sins, works of the flesh, and forbidden acts without further definition.
With these spirits are mingled the spirits of error. The first (1), the spirit of fornication, dwelleth in the nature and in the senses; the second (2) spirit of insatiateness in the belly; the third (3) spirit of fighting in the liver and the gall.
Anonymous (ANF), Anonymous, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs 3 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 8)
What noble thing have you produced by your pursuit of philosophy? Who of your most eminent men has been free from vain boasting? Diogenes, who made such a parade of his independence with his tub, was seized with a bowel complaint through eating a raw polypus, and so lost his life by gluttony. Aristippus, walking about in a purple robe, led a profligate life, in accordance with his professed opinions. Plato, a philosopher, was sold by Dionysius for his gormandizing propensities.
Tatian, Tatian, Tatian's Address to the Greeks 2.2 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
The nations are the dissolute and the foolish. And what are these things which He specifies? Luxury, voluptuousness, rich cooking, dainty feeding, gluttony. These are the “What?”
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.11 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
I will forelop the gluttony which led Hortensius the orator to be the first to have the heart to slay a peacock for the sake of food; which led Aufidius Lurco to be the first to vitiate meat with stuffing, and by the aid of forcemeats to raise them to an adulterous flavour; which led Asinius Celer to purchase the viand of a single mullet at nearly £50; which led Æsopus the actor to preserve in his pantry a dish of the value of nearly £800, made up of birds of the selfsame costliness (as the mullet aforesaid), consisting of all the songsters and talkers; which led his son, after such a titbit, to have the hardihood to hunger after somewhat yet more sumptuous: for he swallowed down pearls—costly even on the ground of their name—I suppose for fear he should have supped more beggarly than his father.
Tertullian, Tertullian, On the Pallium 5 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4)
I recognise, therefore, animal faith by its care of the flesh (of which it wholly consists)—as prone to manifold feeding as to manifold marrying—so that it deservedly accuses the spiritual discipline, which according to its ability opposes it, in this species of continence as well; imposing, as it does, reins upon the appetite, through taking, sometimes no meals, or late meals, or dry meals, just as upon lust, through allowing but one marriage.
Tertullian, Tertullian, On Fasting 1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4)
But the audacity of men, having regard not to what is expedient and becoming, but to what is possible for it, began to do the contrary; whence, moving their hands to the contrary, it made them commit murder, and led away their hearing to disobedience, and their other members to adultery instead of to lawful procreation; and the tongue, instead of right speaking, to slander and insult and perjury; the hands again, to stealing and striking fellow-men; and the sense of smell to many sorts of lascivious odours; the feet, to be swift to shed blood, and the belly to drunkenness and insatiable gluttony . 2. All of which things are a vice and sin of the soul: neither is there any cause of them at all, but only the rejection of better things.
Athanasius of Alexandria, Athanasius, Against the Heathen. (Contra Gentes.) 2.1.5 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 4)
He who is in a state of grief and tribulation, hath a sufficient consolation; he who lives in luxury and abundance, hath that which may greatly sober him. For when as thou sittest at the table thou art reminded of this saying, thou wilt speedily shrink from drunkenness and gluttony; learning through this sentence, how needful it is for us to be striving; and thou wilt say with thyself, “Paul lived in bonds and in dungeons, but I in drunkenness and at a luxurious table! What pardon then shall I obtain?”
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch 18 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 9)
5. But He seemeth to be here hinting also at those that live in luxury, since for luxury too there is laid up a great punishment. “For He eateth and drinketh,” it is said, “with the drunken,” pointing at gluttony. For not for this purpose didst thou receive, that thou should spend it on luxury, but that thou shouldest lay it out on alms.
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom 77 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 10)
For the things that form the substance of innumerable evils are these: to be a slave to the belly, to do anything for vainglory, to be in subjection to the madness of riches.
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom 16 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 10)
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)
And though these eight faults of which we have spoken are connected and joined together in the way which we have shown, yet they may be more exactly divided into four groups and sub-divisions. For to gluttony fornication is linked by a special tie: to covetousness anger, to dejection accidie, and to vainglory pride is closely allied.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 6.10 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
Of these eight faults then, although they are different in their origin and in their way of affecting us, yet the six former; viz., gluttony, fornication, covetousness, anger, dejection, accidie, have a sort of connexion with each other, and are, so to speak, linked together in a chain, so that any excess of the one forms a starting point for the next. For from superfluity of gluttony fornication is sure to spring, and from fornication covetousness, from covetousness anger, from anger, dejection, and from dejection, accidie. And so we must fight against them in the same way, and with the same methods: and having overcome one, we ought always to enter the lists against the next.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 6.10 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
Temptation, however, or (as our Saxons in olden times used to call it) Bekoerunge , is of three kinds, namely, of the flesh, of the world, and of the devil. For in the flesh we dwell and carry the old Adam about our neck, who exerts himself and incites us daily to inchastity, laziness, gluttony and drunkenness, avarice and deception, to defraud our neighbor and to overcharge him, and, in short, to all manner of evil lusts which cleave to us by nature, and to which we are incited by the society, example and what we hear and see of other people, which often wound and inflame even an innocent heart.
Martin Luther, Luther, Luther's Large Catechism 24.7
Q. 139. What are the sins forbidden in the seventh commandment? A. The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, adultery, fornication, rape, incest, sodomy, and all unnatural lusts; all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections; all corrupt or filthy communications, or listening thereunto; wanton looks, impudent or light behavior, immodest apparel; prohibiting of lawful, and dispensing with unlawful marriages; allowing, tolerating, keeping of stews, and resorting to them; entangling vows of single life, undue delay of marriage; having more wives or husbands than one at the same time; unjust divorce, or desertion; idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, unchaste company; lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancings, stage plays; and all other provocations to, or acts of uncleanness, either in ourselves or others.
Westminster Assembly, Westminster Assembly, Westminster Larger Catechism 139
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. Be not a riotous eater of flesh, as the Israelites were, who lusted exceedingly after it, saying, Who will give us flesh to eat?
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 23.8 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
The "cares of this life" are placed side by side with surfeiting and drunkenness. Excess in eating and drinking is not the only excess which injures the soul.
J.C. Ryle, Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke Luke 21:34-38 (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Vol. 3)
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)
Other forms of self-restraint in regard to animal appetites are spoken of in the context, but here the two of drunkenness and gluttony are bracketed together. They are similarly coupled in Deuteronomy xxi. 20, in the formula of accusation which parents are to bring against a degenerate son.
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)
Without the body (εκτος του σωματος). Even gluttony and drunkenness and the use of dope are sins wrought on the body, not "within the body" (εντος του σωματος) in the same sense as fornication. Perhaps the dominant idea of Paul is that fornication, as already shown, breaks the mystic bond between the body and Christ and hence the fornicator (ο πορνευων)
A.T. Robertson, Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament 8.6
Those according to flesh “mind” the flesh’s things: its physical lusts,—gluttony, uncleanness, slothfulness; its soulical lusts,—mental delights, pleasures of the imagination, esthetic indulgences, or “tastes”—whether art, music, sculpture, or what not; its spiritual lusts,—of pride, envy, malice, avarice: in a word, every unclean thing, and every good thing used by unclean persons,—that is, persons not cleansed by the blood of Christ, not new creatures in Him.
William R. Newell, Newell, Romans Verse-by-Verse 8
11 passages · 6 writers · 100s to 1700s
Writers connect excess in eating with lust, avarice, and other faults.
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. … 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)
Nature herself will plainly tell with what qualities she is ever wont to find us endowed when she sets us, before taking food and drink, with our saliva still in a virgin state, to the transaction of matters, by the sense especially whereby things divine are handled; whether (it be not) with a mind much more vigorous, with a heart much more alive, than when that whole habitation of our interior man, stuffed with meats, inundated with wines, fermenting for the purpose of excremental secretion, is already being turned into a premeditatory of privies, (a premeditatory) where, plainly, nothing is so proximately supersequent as the savouring of lasciviousness. “The people did eat and drink, and they arose to play.” Understand the modest language of Holy Scripture: “play,” unless it had been immodest, it would not have reprehended.
Tertullian, Tertullian, On Fasting 6 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4)
For excess in eating is the mother of lust; a belly that is distended with food and saturated with draughts of wine is sure to lead to sensual passion. As has been elsewhere said “the arrangement of man’s organs suggests the course of his vices.”
Jerome, Jerome, The Letters of St. Jerome 55 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 6)
For as by excess of food and by drunkenness even mature age is excited, so the wildness of youth is lessened by scanty feasts and by the running stream. … In like manner then the heat of the body is supported or lessened by food, it is excited by food and lessened by food. Luxury then is the mother of lust.
Ambrose of Milan, Ambrose, Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose 15 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 10)
It is ever Paul’s custom when he brings a charge of many sins, both to set them forth in order and separately to proceed with his proposed topics, and again in his discourses concerning other things to make mention also of the former: which thing God also used to do in the Old Testament, in reference to each several transgression, reminding the Jews of the calf and bringing that sin before them. This then Paul also does here, at the same time both reminding them of that sin, and teaching that the parent of this evil also was luxury and gluttony. Wherefore also he adds, “Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.”
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians 24 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 12)
Again, to live in luxury does not seem to be a manifest and admitted crime; but then it brings forth in us great evils,—drunkenness, violence, extortion, and rapine. For the prodigal and sumptuous liver, bestowing extravagant service upon the belly, is often compelled to steal, and to seize the property of others, and to use extortion and violence. If, then, thou avoidest luxurious living, thou removest the foundation of extortion, and rapine, and drunkenness, and a thousand other evils; cutting away the root of iniquity from its extremity.
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch 17 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 9)
And who does not know that gluttony is the mother of avarice, and, as it were, fetters the heart and keeps it pressed down upon the earth? For the sake of a temporary gratification of the appetite, land and sea are ransacked, and we toil and sweat our lives through, that we may send down our throats honey-wine and costly food.
Jerome, Jerome, Against Jovinianus 2 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 6)
But they who adopt a simple diet do not look for flesh. … Delicacies and the various dishes of the feast are the nurses of avarice. The soul greatly exults when you are content with little: you have the world beneath your feet, and can exchange all its power, its feasts, and its lusts, the objects for which men rake money together, for common food, and make up for them all with a sack-cloth shirt. Take away the luxurious feasting and the gratification of lust, and no one will want riches to be used either in the belly, or beneath it.
Jerome, Jerome, Against Jovinianus 2 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 6)
For from gluttony proceed surfeiting and drunkenness.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 6.16 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
Wherefore in order to overcome accidie, you must first get the better of dejection: in order to get rid of dejection, anger must first be expelled: in order to quell anger, covetousness must be trampled under foot: in order to root out covetousness, fornication must be checked: and in order to destroy fornication, you must chastise the sin of gluttony.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 6.10 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
It is true, eating good meat and wearing good clothes are lawful; but it is true that they often become the food and fuel of pride and luxury, and so turn into sin to us. … The sin of this rich man was not so much his dress or his diet, but his providing only for himself.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Luke 16.2 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 5)
11 passages · 6 writers · 100s to 1900s
Writers hold that food and appetite are lawful and place the fault in excess, luxury, or intemperance.
For it is the mark of a silly mind to be amazed and stupefied at what is presented at vulgar banquets, after the rich fare which is in the Word; and much sillier to make one’s eyes the slaves of the delicacies, so that one’s greed is, so to speak, carried round by the servants. And how foolish for people to raise themselves on the couches, all but pitching their faces into the dishes, stretching out from the couch as from a nest, according to the common saying, “that they may catch the wandering steam by breathing it in!” And how senseless, to besmear their hands with the condiments, and to be constantly reaching to the sauce, cramming themselves immoderately and shamelessly, not like people tasting, but ravenously seizing!
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
Those things which I have determined not to eat, tempt me not. As to those which I have not cut off, I allow that I take pleasure in their present use, yet so that without any disturbance of mind, either the sight or the taste of them may be withdrawn. And when they are entirely absent, no craving of them dares intrude itself to the disturbance of my thoughts. But no need to inquire concerning food or drink, or baths: so much of these do I seek to have, as is profitable for the confirmation of health.
Augustine of Hippo, Augustine, Two Books of Soliloquies 3 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 7)
The more delicate foods, as they conduce to bodily health, so they need not destroy the purity of chastity, if they are taken in moderation. For whatever strength is gained by partaking of them is used up in the toil and waste of care.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 5.7 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
The general meaning is, that men are not polluted by food, but that they have within themselves the pollution of sins, which afterwards shows itself in the outward actions. Is it objected that intemperance in eating is defilement? The solution is easy. Christ speaks only of the proper and lawful use of those things which God has put in our power. To eat and drink are things in their own nature free and indifferent: if any corruption be added, it proceeds from the man himself, and therefore must be regarded not as external, but internal.
John Calvin, Calvin, Harmony of the Evangelists, Vol. 2 1.46 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 32)
The first temptation, they said, was to gluttony; the second, to ambition; and the third, to covetousness. But it is absurd to suppose that it arises from the intemperance of gluttony, when a hungry person desires food to satisfy nature. What luxury will they fancy themselves to have discovered in the use of bread, that one who satisfies himself, as we say, with dry bread, must be reckoned an epicure?
John Calvin, Calvin, Harmony of the Evangelists, Vol. 1 5.31 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 31)
There is a natural regular appetite, which it is lawful to gratify with temperance and sobriety, not taking too great a pleasure in the gratification, nor being uneasy if it be crossed.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Deuteronomy 12.2 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 1)
It is not the kind or quality of our food, nor the condition of our hands, that affects the soul with any moral pollution or defilement. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, Rom. xiv. 17 . That defiles the man, by which guilt is contracted before God, and the man is rendered offensive to him, and disfitted for communion with him; now what we eat, if we do not eat unreasonably and immoderately, does not this; for to the pure all things are pure, Tit. i. 15 .
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Matthew 15.2 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 5)
It is no sin to be rich, no sin to wear purple and fine linen, nor to keep a plentiful table, if a man's estate will afford it. … That plenty and pleasure are a very dangerous and to many a fatal temptation to luxury, and sensuality, and forgetfulness of God and another world.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Luke 16.2 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 5)
We are not forbidden barely to provide for the body (it is a lamp that must be supplied with oil), but we are forbidden to fulfil the lusts thereof. The necessities of the body must be considered, but the lusts of it must not be gratified. Natural desires must be answered, but wanton appetites must be checked and denied. To ask meat for our necessities is duty: we are taught to pray for daily bread; but to ask meat for our lusts is provoking, Ps. lxxviii. 18 .
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Romans 13.3 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 6)
It is no small attainment of the Christian life ‘to eat our meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God.’ In a hundred directions this characteristic of our corporeal lives tends to lead us all away from supreme consecration to Him. There is the senseless luxury of this generation. There is the exaggerated care for physical strength and completeness amongst the young; there is the intemperance in eating and drinking, which is the curse and the shame of England.
Alexander Maclaren, Maclaren, Romans and Corinthians 1.26 (Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vol. 13)
Christ’s example does not warrant the importance attached to luxury, the waste on mere eating and drinking. … If my indulgence in innocent things hurts me, or if my abstinence from them would help others, or increase my power for good, or if innocent things are intertwisted with things not innocent, then it is vain to try to shelter under Christ’s example, and the only right course for His disciple is to abridge his liberty. He came eating and drinking, therefore His followers may use all innocent earthly blessings and bodily pleasures, subject to this one law: ‘Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God,’ and to this solemn warning: ‘He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.’
Alexander Maclaren, Maclaren, Matthew IX to XVIII 1.14 (Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vol. 7)
13 passages · 8 writers · 100s to 1700s
Writers describe overeating as harming health, reason, and the soul.
Pleasure has often produced in men harm and pain; and full feeding begets in the soul uneasiness, and forgetfulness, and foolishness. … Whence that truth-seeking philosopher Plato, fanning the spark of the Hebrew philosophy when condemning a life of luxury, says: “On my coming hither, the life which is here called happy, full of Italian and Syracusan tables, pleased me not by any means, [consisting as it did] in being filled twice a day, and never sleeping by night alone, and whatever other accessories attend the mode of life.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
But the hiccuping of those who are loaded with wine, and the snortings of those who are stuffed with food, and the snoring rolled in the bed-clothes, and the rumblings of pained stomachs, cover over the clear-seeing eye of the soul, by filling the mind with ten thousand phantasies. And the cause is too much food, which drags the rational part of man down to a condition of stupidity. For much sleep brings advantage neither to our bodies nor our souls; nor is it suitable at all to those processes which have truth for their object, although agreeable to nature.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.9 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
Love of dainties and love of wine, though great vices, are not of such magnitude as fondness for finery. “A full table and repeated cups” are enough to satisfy greed.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 3.2 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
We must therefore reject different varieties, which engender various mischiefs, such as a depraved habit of body and disorders of the stomach, the taste being vitiated by an unhappy art—that of cookery, and the useless art of making pastry. For people dare to call by the name of food their dabbling in luxuries, which glides into mischievous pleasures. Antiphanes, the Delian physician, said that this variety of viands was the one cause of disease; there being people who dislike the truth, and through various absurd notions abjure moderation of diet, and put themselves to a world of trouble to procure dainties from beyond seas.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
For the flesh, when luxuriously nurtured, wars against the soul, and rises in revolt against the spirit. And how should not intemperate eatings and drinkings also be contrary to God?
Dionysius of Alexandria, Dionysius of Alexandria, Exegetical Fragments of Dionysius 1.2 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6)
Therefore, to prevent one who has indulged in the carousals to an improper extent from lingering over so profusely furnished a table, he is early taken from the number of the banqueters, and thereby secures an escape out of those evils which unmeasured indulgence procures for gluttons.
Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa, On Infants' Early Deaths 53 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 5)
The sea, when it passes its bounds, doth not work so many evils, as the belly doth to our body, together with our soul. The former overfloweth all the earth, the latter all the body. Put moderation for a boundary to it, as God hath put the sand for the sea. Then if its waves arise, and rage furiously, rebuke it, with the power which is in thee. See how God hath honored thee, that thou mightest imitate Him, and thou wilt not; but thou seest the belly overflowing, destroying and overwhelming thy whole nature, and darest not to restrain or moderate it.
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians 14 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 13)
Again, the gluttonous and dissipated man, when he has filled himself to bursting, cannot retain even for a single day the supply conveyed by his delicacies, but when that is dispersed, in order to renew it he is obliged to put in more, differing in nothing from a torrent. For as in the torrent when the first body of water is gone, others in turn succeed; so in gluttony, when one repast is removed, we again require another.
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)
Come then let us forego for the time being the consideration of these points, and let us bring forward the others which remain, and see whether wealth has any pleasure, or any honour: for in my eyes the case is quite the reverse. And first of all, if you please, let us investigate the meals of rich and poor, and ask the guests which they are who enjoy the purest and most genuine pleasure; is it they who recline for a full day on couches, and join breakfast and dinner together, and distend their stomach, and blunt their senses, and sink the vessel by an overladen cargo of food, and waterlog the ship, and drench it as in some shipwreck of the body, and devise fetters, and manacles, and gags, and bind their whole body with the band of drunkenness and surfeit more grievous than an iron chain, and enjoy no sound pure sleep undisturbed by frightful dreams, and are more miserable than madmen and introduce a kind of self-imposed demon into the soul and display themselves as a laughing stock to the gaze of their servants, or rather to the kinder sort amongst them as a tragical spectacle eliciting tears, and cannot recognize any of those who are present, and are incapable of speaking or hearing but have to be carried away from their couches to their bed;—or is it they who are sober and vigilant, and limit their eating by their need, and sail with a favourable breeze, and find hunger and thirst the best relish in their food and drink?
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, A Treatise to Prove that No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not Injure Himself 3 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 9)
One man does not feel satisfied with two pounds, for another a meal of one pound, or six ounces, is too much; but there is one aim and object of continence in the case of all of these, viz.: that no one may be overburdened beyond the measure of his appetite, by gluttony. For it is not only the quality, but also the quantity of food taken which dulls the keenness of the mind, and when the soul as well as the flesh is surfeited, kindles the baneful and fiery incentive to vice.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 5.5 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
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. Hence it is written ( Dan. 1:17 ) that "to these children" on account of their abstinence and continency, "God gave knowledge and understanding in every book, and wisdom."
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q15.A3
First one restraint is imposed when we hold that the object of creating all things was to teach us to know their author, and feel grateful for his indulgence. Where is the gratitude if you so gorge or stupify yourself with feasting and wine as to be unfit for offices of piety, or the duties of your calling?
John Calvin, Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion III.10
When people are sick their soul abhors all manner of meat; they not only have no desire to eat nor power to digest it, but they nauseate it, and their stomach is turned against it. And here they may read their sin in their punishment: those that doted most on the meat that perishes, when they come to be sick are sick of it, and the dainties they loved are loathed; what they took too much of now they can take nothing of, which commonly follows upon the overcharging of the heart with surfeiting and drunkenness. And when the appetite is gone the life is as good as gone: They draw near unto the gates of death; they are, in their own apprehension and in the apprehension of all about them, at the brink of the grave, as ready to be turned to destruction.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Psalms 107.3 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
9 passages · 6 writers · 300s to 1900s
Writers describe the glutton as a slave to appetite, or as one who makes the belly or dainties a god.
The most debased make their gluttony the test of what is good. But he who turns from all grosser thoughts and all passionate longings after what is seeming, and explores the nature of the beauty which is simple, immaterial, formless, would never make a mistake like that when he has to choose between all the objects of desire; he would never be so misled by these attractions as not to see the transient character of their pleasures and not to win his way to an utter contempt for every one of them.
Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity 2.12 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 5)
The luxurious man says not: Christ is my portion, for luxury comes and says: Thou art my portion, I made thee mine in that banquet, I caught thee in the net of that feast, I hold thee by the bond of thy gluttony. Dost thou not know that thy table was more valued by thee than thy life? I refute thee by thine own judgment, deny if thou canst, but thou canst not. And in fine thou hast reserved nothing for thy life, thou hast spent it all for thy table.
Ambrose of Milan, Ambrose, Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose 15 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 10)
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)
Thou speakest words which become the cattle or gluttons, or who make their belly their god.
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John 38 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 14)
So that not only is the fornicator unclean, but also the glutton, the slave of his belly. For he also is a slave of a different pleasure. He is forced to be overreaching, he is forced to be rapacious, to behave himself unseemly in ten thousand ways, being the slave of that passion, and oftentimes he blasphemes.
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews 35 (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
The description of an epicure: He loves pleasure. God allows us to use the delights of sense soberly and temperately, wine to make glad the heart and put vigour into the spirits, and oil to make the face to shine and beautify the countenance; but he that loves these, that sets his heart upon them, covets them earnestly, is solicitous to have all the delights of sense wound up to the height of pleasurableness, is impatient of every thing that crosses him in his pleasures, relishes these as the best pleasures, and has his mouth by them put out of taste for spiritual delights, he is an epicure, 2 Tim. iii. 4 .
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 21.17 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 3)
Arrant gluttons, no doubt, there were; such as minded only the gratifying of their appetites with the daintiness and abundance of their fare; they had no regard to Solomon's caution, Prov. xxiii. 2 . Note, In common eating and drinking a holy fear is necessary, much more in feasting, though we may sometimes be more easily and insensibly overcome at a common meal than at a feast; for, in the case supposed, we are less upon our guard, and sometimes, at least to some persons, the plenty of a feast is its own antidote, as to others it may prove a dangerous snare.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Jude 1.4 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 6)
By living to yourselves, by living day in and day out without ever remembering God, by yielding to passions, lusts, ambitions, low desires, and the like, you are doing your very best to erase the likeness which still lingers in your nature. Is there any one here that has yielded to some lust of the flesh, some appetite, drunkenness, gluttony, impurity, or the like, and has so sold himself to it, as that that part of the divine image, the power of saying ‘I will,’ has pretty nearly gone? I am afraid there must be some who, by long submission to passion, have lost the control that reason and conscience and a firm steady purpose ought to give.
Alexander Maclaren, Maclaren, Luke 2.25 (Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vol. 9)
4 passages · 3 writers · 1500s to 1800s
Writers cite biblical figures and episodes (Esau, Sodom, Israel in the wilderness) as examples of gluttony.
Moses does not specify any particular day; but only that God did not wait till satiety had produced disgust, but inflicted the punishment in the midst of their greediness. We may, however, conjecture from what precedes, that time was given them to gorge themselves. From whence their insatiable voracity may be gathered, which prevailed for so many continuous days, and could not be appeased by any quantity of food. God, therefore, allowed them time abundantly sufficient for them to gorge themselves, unless their gluttony was prodigious: and yet punished their intemperance, while the meat was yet in their mouths.
John Calvin, Calvin, Harmony of the Law, Vol. 4 1.5 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 6)
It is stated, that they did eat and were filled, not only to intimate that God brought to them a large supply of birds, with which their bellies might be stuffed to the full; but also, that it was ungovernable lust which led them to ask flesh, and not a solicitude for having provision on which to live. It has been said above, that manna had been given them in the greatest abundance, but here it is intended expressly to censure their gluttony, in which they gave manifest proof of their unbridled appetite.
John Calvin, Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 3 78.6 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 10)
Gluttony, here called fulness of bread. It was God's great mercy that they had plenty, but their great sin that they abused it, glutted themselves with it, ate to excess and drank to excess, and made that the gratification of their lusts which was given them to be the support of their lives.
Matthew Henry, Henry, Commentary on Ezekiel 16.5 (Commentary on the Whole Bible, Vol. 4)
Fornication is nearly akin to gluttony, Esau's sin. He profanely cast away his spiritual privilege for the gratification of his palate. Ge 25:34 graphically portrays him.
Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and David Brown, Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible Hebrews 12
11 passages · 4 writers · 300s to 1600s
Writers place gluttony under temperance, carnal pleasure, and the nature of the appetites.
But not only is that temperance worthy of praise which moderates food, but also that which moderates lust. Since it is written: “Go not after thy lusts, and deny thy appetite. If thou givest her desires to thy soul, thou wilt be a joy to thine enemies;” and farther on; “Wine and women make even wise men to fall away.”
Ambrose of Milan, Ambrose, Selections from the Letters of St. Ambrose 15 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 10)
If there is a mean in food which when we overpass we are injured, and yet even so thou canst not bear the curb, but snapping it as under seizest on what every body else hath, to minister to the wicked tyranny of this gluttony; what wouldest thou not have done, if this natural mean were abolished? wouldest thou not have spent thy whole time upon it? Would it then have been well to strengthen a lust so unreasonable, and not prevent the harm arising from excess? and to how many other harms would not this have given birth?
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, Homilies on Second Corinthians 20 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 12)
Reply to Objection 2: The body is chastised by means of abstinence, not only against the allurements of lust, but also against those of gluttony: since by abstaining a man gains strength for overcoming the onslaughts of gluttony, which increase in force the more he yields to them.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q146.A2
Reply to Objection 2: Excessive play pertains to senseless mirth, which Gregory (Moral. xxxi, 17) calls a daughter of gluttony. Wherefore it is written ( Ex. 32:6 ): "The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play."
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q168.A3
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
Reply to Objection 2: The fornicator is said to sin against his own body, not merely because the pleasure of fornication is consummated in the flesh, which is also the case in gluttony, but also because he acts against the good of his own body by an undue resolution and defilement thereof, and an undue association with another.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q154.A3
By "immoderately" I mean going beyond the bounds of reason, as a sober person does not take less pleasure in food taken in moderation than the glutton, but his concupiscence lingers less in such pleasures.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.Q98.A2
Reply to Objection 2: Carnal sin is twofold; one which is completed in carnal delectation, as gluttony and lust. and, another which is completed in things relating to the flesh, though it be completed in the delectation of the soul rather than of the flesh, as covetousness.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica Suppl..Q15.A3
But in the acts of the nutritive and generative power, there is room for praise and blame, virtue and vice: as in the case of gluttony and lust, and their contrary virtues. Therefore the acts of these powers are subject to the command of reason.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II.Q17.A8
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. … 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
Sobriety is the bridle of the passions of desire, and temperance is the bit and curb of that bridle, a restraint put into a man’s mouth, a moderate use of meat and drink, so as may best consist with our health, and may not hinder but help the works of the soul by its necessary supporting us, and ministering cheerfulness and refreshment.
Jeremy Taylor, Taylor, Holy Living 2.2.1
20 passages · 12 writers · 100s to 1600s
Writers give rules and examples for eating plainly, moderately, and with attention.
You must never rush forward under the influence of gluttony; nor must you, though desirous, reach out your hand till some time, inasmuch as by greed one shows an uncontrolled appetite. Nor are you, in the midst of the repast, to exhibit yourselves hugging your food like wild beasts; nor helping yourselves to too much sauce, for man is not by nature a sauce-consumer, but a bread-eater. A temperate man, too, must rise before the general company, and retire quietly from the banquet.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.7 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
From all slavish habits and excess we must abstain, and touch what is set before us in a decorous way; keeping the hand and couch and chin free of stains; preserving the grace of the countenance undisturbed, and committing no indecorum in the act of swallowing; but stretching out the hand at intervals in an orderly manner. … For it is the very extreme of intemperance to confound the times whose uses are discordant.
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 2.1 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
But since it is not that “which entereth into the mouth that defiles a man,” and since “meat does not commend us to God,” we do not set great store on refraining from eating, nor yet are we induced to eat from a gluttonous appetite.
Origen of Alexandria, Origen, Origen Against Celsus 5.49 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4)
And knowing as he does this truth by personal experience in the use of these things, he regards the splendid attire of his subjects with calm indifference, and smiles at the childishness of those to whom they prove attractive. Lastly, he abstains from all excess in food and wine, and leaves superfluous dainties to gluttons, judging that such indulgences, however suitable to others, are not so to him, and deeply convinced of their pernicious tendency, and their effect in darkening the intellectual powers of the soul.
Eusebius of Caesarea, Eusebius, The Life of Constantine with Orations of Constantine and Eusebius 8.6 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 1)
One ought not to eat with any exhibition of savage gluttony, but in everything that concerns our pleasures to maintain moderation, quiet, and self-control; and, all through, not to let the mind forget to think of God, but to make even the nature of our food, and the constitution of the body that takes it, a ground and means for offering Him the glory, bethinking us how the various kinds of food, suitable to the needs of our bodies, are due to the provision of the great Steward of the Universe.
Basil of Caesarea, Basil, The Letters 2 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 8)
Under my roof the art of cookery is dead. My servants’ knife never touches blood. The most important viands, in which lies our abundance, are leaves of herbs with very coarse bread and sour wine, so that our senses are not dulled by gluttony, and do not indulge in excess.
Basil of Caesarea, Basil, The Letters 41 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 8)
Is it not insanity? Is it not the greatest absurdity that one, who stuffs and loads his stomach every day to gratify his appetite with mushrooms, rice, truffles, cake, mead, pepper, and assafœtida, and who fares thus every day, cannot be convicted of transgressing the three symbols, that is, the rule of sanctity; whereas another, who seasons his dish of the commonest herbs with some smoky morsel of meat, and takes only so much of this as is needed for the refreshment of his body, and drinks three cups of wine for the sake of keeping in health, should, for exchanging the former diet for this, be doomed to certain punishment?
Augustine of Hippo, Augustine, On the Morals of the Manichæans 13 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 4)
Suppose, what is quite possible, that there is one so frugal and sparing in his diet, that, instead of gratifying his appetite or his palate, he refrains from eating twice in one day, and at supper takes a little cabbage moistened and seasoned with lard, just enough to keep down hunger; and quenches his thirst, from regard to his health, with two or three draughts of pure wine; and this is his regular diet: whereas another of different habits never takes flesh or wine, but makes an agreeable repast at two o’clock on rare and foreign vegetables, varied with a number of courses, and well sprinkled with pepper, and sups in the same style towards night; and drinks honey-vinegar, mead, raisin-wine, and the juices of various fruits, no bad imitation of wine, and even surpassing it in sweetness; and drinks not for thirst but for pleasure; and makes this provision for himself daily, and feasts in this sumptuous style, not because he requires it, but only gratifying his taste;—which of these two do you regard as living most abstemiously in food and drink? You cannot surely be so blind as not to put the man of the little lard and wine above this glutton!
Augustine of Hippo, Augustine, On the Morals of the Manichæans 13 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 4)
Our bodies need only something to eat and drink. Where there is bread and water, and the like, nature is satisfied. Whatever more there may be does not go to meet the wants of life, but are ministers to vicious pleasure. Eating and drinking does not quench the longing for luxuries, but appeases hunger and thirst.
Jerome, Jerome, Against Jovinianus 2 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 6)
We have read that some who suffered with disease of the joints and with gouty humours recovered their health by proscribing delicacies, and coming down to a simple board and mean food. For they were then free from the worry of managing a house and from unlimited feasting. Horace makes fun of the longing for food which when eaten leaves nothing but regret.
Jerome, Jerome, Against Jovinianus 2 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 6)
And so it is a very true and most excellent saying of the Fathers that the right method of fasting and abstinence lies in the measure of moderation and bodily chastening; and that this is the aim of perfect virtue for all alike, viz.: that though we are still forced to desire it, yet we should exercise self-restraint in the matter of the food, which we are obliged to take owing to the necessity of supporting the body. For even if one is weak in body, he can attain to a perfect virtue and one equal to that of those who are thoroughly strong and healthy, if with firmness of mind he keeps a check upon the desires and lusts which are not due to weakness of the flesh.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 5.8 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
Wherefore this is the moderate and even allowance and measure of abstinence, of which we spoke, which has the approval also of the judgment of the fathers; viz., that daily hunger should go hand in hand with our daily meals, preserving both body and soul in one and the same condition, and not allowing the mind either to faint through weariness from fasting, nor to be oppressed by over-eating, for it ends in such a sparing diet that sometimes a man neither notices nor remembers in the evening that he has broken his fast.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 3.23 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
Fifthly, toward the close of a meal, or before partaking of the last dish, consider how much thou hast consumed, and how much more thou wouldest eat if thou didst continue, and in future omit somewhat of the earlier or latter part of the meal. Sixthly, at the beginning when thou dost set forth to prepare thy food think upon the victual and how much thou dost require. Seventhly, take but one cooked pear after thy meal, and that not of inordinate size, or three of the very smallest.
Thomas a Kempis, Thomas à Kempis, The Founders of the New Devotion 2.19
Even heathens have said, that a few things suffice nature, but that the appetites of men are insatiable. Every one then who wishes to satisfy the desires of the flesh, must necessarily not only fall into, but be immerged in a vast and deep gulf. Paul, setting a bridle on our desires, reminds us, that the cause of all intemperance is, that no one is content with a moderate or lawful use of things: he has therefore laid down this rule, — that we are to provide for the wants of our flesh, but not to indulge its lusts.
John Calvin, Calvin, Commentary on Romans 13.5 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 38)
The third: As to foods, one ought to have the greatest and most entire abstinence, because as the appetite is more ready to act inordinately, so temptation is more ready in making trial, on this head. And so abstinence in foods, to avoid disorder, can be kept in two ways, one by accustoming oneself to eat coarse foods; the other, if one takes delicate foods, by taking them in small quantity.
Ignatius of Loyola, Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises 3.3
The eighth: To avoid disorder, it is very helpful, after dinner or after supper, or at another hour when one feels no appetite for eating, to decide with oneself for the coming dinner or supper, and so on, each day, the quantity which it is suitable that he should eat. Beyond this let him not go because of any appetite or temptation, but rather, in order to conquer more all inordinate appetite and temptation of the enemy, if he is tempted to eat more, let him eat less.
Ignatius of Loyola, Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises 3.3
All that is merely earthly must be treated as means to fulfil the end God sets before His creatures. Thus we eat in order to preserve life, moderately, voluntarily, and without seeking an undue, unworthy satisfaction therefrom. “The time is short,” says S. Paul; “it remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had not, and they that use this world, as not abusing it.”
Francis de Sales, Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life 3.39
Come not to table but when thy need invites thee; and, if thou beest in health, leave something of thy appetite unfilled, something of thy natural heat unemployed, that it may secure thy digestion and serve other needs of nature or the spirit. 4. Propound to thyself (if thou beest in a capacity) a constant rule of living, of eating and drinking, which, though it may not be fit to observe scrupulously, lest it become a snare to thy conscience, or endanger thy health upon every accidental violence; yet let not thy rule be broken often nor much, but upon great necessity and in small degrees.
Jeremy Taylor, Taylor, Holy Living 2.2.7
Temperance consists of the actions of the soul principally: for it is a grace that chooses natural means in order to proper and natural, and holy ends; it is exercised about eating and drinking, because they are necessary; but therefore it permits the use of them only as they minister to lawful ends; it does not eat and drink for pleasure, but for need, and for refreshment, which is a part or a degree of need. I deny not that eating and drinking may be, and in healthful bodies always is, with pleasure; because there is in nature no greater pleasure than that all the appetites which God hath made should be satisfied: and a man may choose a morsel that is pleasant, the less pleasant being rejected as being less useful, less apt to nourish, or more agreeing with an infirm stomach, or when the day is festival, by order or by private joy.
Jeremy Taylor, Taylor, Holy Living 2.2.1
Eat not too much: load neither thy stomach nor thy understanding. If thou sit at a bountiful table, be not greedy upon it, and say not there is much meat on it. … A very little is sufficient for a man well nurtured, and he fetcheth not his wind short upon his bed.
Jeremy Taylor, Taylor, Holy Living 2.2.2
17 passages · 8 writers · 100s to 1500s
Writers treat gluttony as a passion to be fought with fasting, vigils, and detachment.
For what else is luxury than the voluptuous gluttony and the superfluous abundance of those who are abandoned to self-indulgence?
Clement of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies 2.20 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2)
Let us cleanse our touch, our taste, our throat, not touching them over gently, nor delighting in smooth things, but handling them as is worthy of Him, the Word That was made flesh for us; and so far following the example of Thomas, not pampering them with dainties and sauces, those brethren of a more baleful pampering, but tasting and learning that the Lord is good, with the better and abiding taste; and not for a short while refreshing that baneful and thankless dust, which lets pass and does not hold that which is given to it; but delighting it with the words which are sweeter than honey.
Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nazianzus, Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen 23 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 7)
God designed thus to detach us from luxury, and to persuade us not to attach ourselves to worldly things. But thou art not thus to be persuaded to cease from gluttony, but though it is but as far as the throat, and as long as the hour of eating, nay not even so long, that the pleasure abides, thou continuest in thine indulgence.
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Timothy 14 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 13)
Sharpen thy sickle, which thou hast blunted through gluttony—sharpen it by fasting. … For when the way grows narrow, the corpulence that comes of gluttony is a great hindrance.
John Chrysostom, John Chrysostom, The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch 5 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 9)
Now, what does it profit to acquire in this world any temporal and transitory thing whatsoever, be it money, or pleasure of the palate, or honor that consists in the praise of men? Are they not all wind and smoke? Do they not all pass by and flee away? … Therefore ought we to curb all our affections from such desires.
Augustine of Hippo, Augustine, Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 11 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 7)
This then is our first contest, this is as it were our first trial in the Olympic games, to extinguish the desires of the palate and the belly by the longing for perfection. On which account we must not only trample down all unnecessary desire for food by the contemplation of the virtues, but also must take what is necessary for the support of nature, not without anxiety of heart, as if it were opposed to chastity.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Twelve Books on the Institutes of the Cœnobia, and the Remedies for the Eight Principal Faults 5.14 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
For though I reduce the quantity of food which I take to the smallest possible amount, yet I cannot avoid the force of its daily solicitations, but must be perpetually ‘dunned’ by it, and be making as it were interminable payments by continually satisfying it, and pay never ending toll at its demand.” Then they declared that this man, whom they had till now despised as a booby and a country bumpkin, had thoroughly grasped the first principles of philosophy, i.e., training in ethics, and they marvelled that he could by the light of nature have learnt that which no schooling in this world could have taught him, while they themselves with all their efforts and long course of training had not learnt this. This is enough on gluttony in particular.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 6.21 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
Wherefore while we are practising fasting and abstinence, we must be careful when we have got the better of the passion of gluttony never to allow our mind to remain empty of the virtues of which we stand in need; but we should the more earnestly fill the inmost recesses of our heart with them for fear lest the spirit of concupiscence should return and find us empty and void of them, and should not be content to secure an entrance there for himself alone, but should bring in with him into our heart this sevenfold incentive of sins and make our last state worse than the first. For the soul which boasts that it has renounced this world with the eight faults that hold sway over it, will afterwards be fouler and more unclean and visited with severer punishments, than it was when formerly it was at home in the world, when it had taken upon itself neither the rules nor the name of monk.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 6.26 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
For I remember that I had so often resisted the desire for food, that having abstained from taking any for two or three days, my mind was not troubled even by the recollection of any eatables and also that sleep was by the assaults of the devil so far removed from my eyes, that for several days and nights I used to pray the Lord to grant a little sleep to my eyes; and then I felt that I was in greater peril from the want of food and sleep than from struggling against sloth and gluttony. And so as we ought to be careful not to fall into dangerous effeminacy through desire for bodily gratification, nor indulge ourselves with eating before the right time nor take too much, so also we ought to refresh ourselves with food and sleep at the proper time even if we dislike it. For the struggle in each case is caused by the devices of the enemy; and excessive abstinence is still more injurious to us than careless satiety: for from this latter the intervention of a healthy compunction will raise us to the right measure of strictness, and not from the former.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 3.17 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
But we know, as we have often said, that then only have we made satisfaction for past sins, when the very motions and feelings, through which we were guilty of what we have to sorrow for, have been eradicated from our hearts. But no one should fancy that he can secure this, unless he has first with all the fervour of his spirit cut off the opportunities and occasions, owing to which he fell into those sins; as for instance, if through dangerous familiarity with a woman he has fallen into fornication or adultery, he must take the utmost pains to avoid even looking on one; or if he has been overcome by too much wine and over-eating, he should chastise with the utmost severity his craving for immoderate food.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV 4.11 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
And in the case of each one of us who makes his renunciation of the world a thorough one, we know that it is extirpated without any difficulty, if, that is, a man gives up all his property, and seeks the monastic discipline in such a way as not to allow himself to keep a single farthing. And we can find thousands of men to bear witness to this, who in a single moment have given up all their property, and have so thoroughly eradicated this passion as not to be in the slightest degree troubled by it afterwards, though all their life long they have to fight against gluttony, and cannot be safe from it without striving with the utmost watchfulness of heart and bodily abstinence.
John Cassian, John Cassian, The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X 6.8 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 11)
Others, however, are neither natural nor necessary, such as drunkenness, lust, and surfeiting to excess. For these contribute neither to the maintenance of our own lives nor to the succession of the race, but on the contrary, are rather even a hindrance. He therefore that would live a life acceptable to God must follow after those pleasures which are both natural and necessary: and must give a secondary place to those which are natural but not necessary, and enjoy them only in fitting season, and manner, and measure; while the others must be altogether renounced.
John of Damascus, John of Damascus, John of Damascus: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2.13 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 9)
Now the attachment of man's affections to earthly things is not only an obstacle to the perfection of charity, but sometimes leads to the loss of charity, when through turning inordinately to temporal goods man turns away from the immutable good by sinning mortally. Hence it is evident that the observances of the religious state, while removing the obstacles to perfect charity, remove also the occasions of sin: for instance, it is clear that fasting, watching, obedience, and the like withdraw man from sins of gluttony and lust and all other manner of sins.
Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q189.A1
Others are so hardened in the enjoyment of luxuries, that they cannot be content with moderation; hence they are always wallowing in their own filth, being quite unable to renounce the delights of the palate. But Daniel sufficiently shews us, when God not only reduces us to want, but when, if necessary, all indulgences must be spontaneously rejected. Daniel indeed, as we saw yesterday, does not attach any virtue to abstinence from one kind of food or another; and all we have hitherto learnt has no other object than to teach him to guard against imminent danger, to avoid passing over to the morals of a strange nation, and so to conduct himself at Babylon as not to forget himself as a son of Abraham. But still it was necessary to renounce the luxuries of the court.
John Calvin, Calvin, Commentary on Daniel, Vol. 1 1.12 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 24)
And if those who live sparingly and soberly are commanded not to injure their health by excessive parsimony, no slight punishment awaits the intemperate, who, by cramming their belly, waste their strength. Such persons need not only to be advised, but to be kept back from their fodder like brute beasts.
John Calvin, Calvin, Commentary on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon 1 Timothy 5.6 (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. 43)
There is no surer or quicker way of accomplishing this than by despising the present life and aspiring to celestial immortality. For hence two rules arise: First, “it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none;” “and they that use this world, as not abusing it,” (1 Cor. 7:29, 31). Secondly, we must learn to be no less placid and patient in enduring penury, than moderate in enjoying abundance. He who makes it his rule to use this world as if he used it not, not only cuts off all gluttony in regard to meat and drink, and all effeminacy, ambition, pride, excessive shows and austerity, in regard to his table, his house, and his clothes, but removes every care and affection which might withdraw or hinder him from aspiring to the heavenly life, and cultivating the interest of his soul.
John Calvin, Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion III.10
Should any one, from gluttonous indulgence, have fallen into some iniquity, there is nothing to prevent him, with the view of chastising his intemperance, from renouncing all luxuries for a certain time, and in doing so, from employing a vow for the purpose of binding himself more firmly. And yet I do not lay down this as an invariable law to all who have similarly offended; I merely show what may be lawfully done by those who think that such a vow will be useful to them.
John Calvin, Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.13
5 passages · 2 writers · 500s to 700s
Writers advise how to weigh gluttony against other faults and how much guilt it carries.
But when the appetite of gluttony in taking food is carried beyond measure, and consequently the receptacles of the humours are loaded, the mind has therefore some guilt, yet not to the extent of prohibition from receiving the sacred mystery, or celebrating the solemnities of mass, when perchance a festival day demands it, or necessity itself requires the mystery to be exhibited by reason of there being no other priest in the place.
Gregory the Great, Gregory the Great, Selected Epistles of Gregory the Great 7.30 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 13)
For it is to be tolerated that through the virtue of abstinence arrogance should meanwhile grow against one that is alive, lest through gluttony lechery should cut him off from life entirely.
Gregory the Great, Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great 4.4.39 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 12)
But since, when the sickness of two vices attacks a man, one presses upon him more lightly, and the other perchance more heavily, it is undoubtedly right to haste to the succour of that through which there is the more rapid tendency to death. And, if the one cannot be restrained from causing the death which is imminent unless the other which is contrary to it increase, the preacher must be content by skilful management in his exhortation to suffer one to increase, to the end that he may keep the other back from causing the death which is imminent. When he does this, he does not aggravate the disease, but preserves the life of his sufferer to whom he administers the medicine, that he may find a fitting time for searching out means of recovery. For there is often one who, while he puts no restraint on his gluttony in food, is presently pressed hard by the stings of lechery, which is on the point of overcoming him, and who, when, terrified by the fear of this struggle, he strives to restrain himself through abstinence, is harassed by the temptation of vain-glory: in which case certainly one vice is by no means extinguished unless the other be fostered.
Gregory the Great, Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great 4.4.39 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 12)
Wherefore, lest either gluttonous appetite throw the one sort off their guard, or the afflicted flesh trip up the other by elation, let the former hear this from the mouth of the Truth, And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged in surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this world ( Luke xxi. 34 ). … Let the former hear, Meat for the belly, and the belly far meats; but God shall destroy both it and them ( 1 Cor. vi. 13 ). And again, Not in rioting and drunkenness ( Rom. xiii. 13 ).
Gregory the Great, Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great 4.4.20 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 12)
But when the appetite of gluttony commits excess in food, and thereupon the receptacles of the humours are oppressed, the mind thence contracts some guilt; yet not so much as to hinder the receiving of the Holy Mystery, or celebrating Mass, when a holy day requires it, or necessity obliges the Mystery to be shown forth, because there is no other priest in the place; for if there be others who can perform the ministry, the illusion proceeding from over-eating ought not to exclude a man from receiving the sacred Mystery; but I am of opinion he ought humbly to abstain from offering the sacrifice of the Mystery, but not from receiving it, unless the mind of the person sleeping has been disturbed with some foul imagination.
Venerable Bede, Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England 1.26
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