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3rd c. | On Fasting, In Oppositon of the Psychics

Now, if there has been temerity in our retracing to primordial experiences the reasons for God's having laid, and our duty (for the sake of God) to lay, restrictions upon food, let us consult common conscience. 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. (Tertullian [160-ca230], On Fasting, In Opposition of the Psychics, "The Physical Tendencies of Fasting and Feeding Considered")

How unworthy, also, is the way in which you interpret to the favour of your own lust the fact that the Lord "ate and drank" promiscuously! But I think that He must have likewise "fasted" inasmuch as He has pronounced, not "the full;" but "the hungry and thirsty, blessed:" (He) who was wont to profess "food" to be, not that which His disciples had supposed, but "the thorough doing of the Father's work;" teaching "to labour for the meat which is permanent unto life eternal;" in our ordinary prayer likewise commanding us to request "bread," not the wealth of Attalus therewithal. (Tertullian [160-ca230], On Fasting, In Opposition of the Psychics, "Of the Apostle's Language Concerning Food")

He, in short, sacrifices his appetite to an idol-god; you to (the true) God will not. For to you your belly is god, and your lungs a temple, and your paunch a sacrificial altar, and your cook the priest, and your fragrant smell the Holy Spirit, and your condiments spiritual gifts, and your belching prophecy. (Tertullian [160-ca230], On Fasting, In Opposition of the Psychics, "Instances from Scripture of Divine Judgments Upon the Self-Indulgent; And Appeals to the Practices of Heathens")

To the indictment of your appetite pertains (the charge) that "double honour" is with you assigned to your presiding (elders) by double shares (of meat and drink); whereas the apostle has given them "double honour" as being both brethren and officers. Who, among you, is superior in holiness, except him who is more frequent in banqueting, more sumptuous in catering, more learned in cups? Men of soul and flesh alone as you are, justly do you reject things spiritual. If the prophets were pleasing to such, my (prophets) they were not. (Tertullian [160-ca230], On Fasting, In Opposition of the Psychics, "Conclusion")

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The treatise, which concerns us here, is his De Jejuniis : Adversus Psychicos, an essay in dietetic ethics.…The champion of the anti-materialistic diet undertakes to expose the subterfuge of the professing Christians of his time, who appealed to the authority of their Founder and his immediate followers. He…seems specially to recommend, if, indeed, not absolutely to enjoin, the vegetable diet. (Howard Williams, Ethics of Diet, "Tertullian")

J. Todd Ferrier tells us that "Tertullian, the most learned of all the Latin theologians…bold enough to proclaim his convictions…taught—that flesh-eating was not conducive to the highest life, that it violated the written and unwritten moral law, that it debased man in intellect and heart and that it closed the doors of the inner Temple of his Intuition." Ferrier continues, "It is quite evident Tertullian had the same arguments to meet from the lovers of flesh-meats as we have to-day. And the fact that they tried to place Christ amongst the flesh-eaters and wine-bibbers in order to find an excuse for gratifying their own low tastes.…Thus [Tertullian] reproaches those who defended gross living, comparing them to Esau, the merely animal man; and that like him too they would even sell their birth-right for a mess of pottage, sacrificing their souls for the life of flesh. And then we have [Tertullian's] scathing indictment—"(J. Todd Ferrier, On Behalf of the Creatures, "Tertullian's Writings").

Your belly is your God, your liver is your temple, your paunch is your altar, the cook is your priest.…It is in the cooking pots that your love is inflamed—it is in the kitchen that your faith grows fervid—it is in the flesh dishes that all your hope lies hid.…Who is held in so much esteem with you as the frequent giver of dinners, as the sumptuous entertainer ?…Consistently do you men of flesh reject the things of the Spirit. But if your prophets are complacent toward such persons, they are not my prophets. (Tertullian, On Fasting, as qtd. in J. Todd Ferrier, On Behalf of the Creatures, "Tertullian's Writings")

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Tertullian [160-ca230], On Fasting. In Opposition of the Psychics, [De Jeiuniis: Adversus Psychios,] by Rev. S. Thelwall in Fathers of the Third Century Vol. 4 in Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325 edited by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson in 10 vols., ([Originally Written by Tertullian 160-ca230; Print Basis: 1885-96 American reprint of the 1866-72 Edinburgh edition; Online Edition] Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 2004)

1883 | Howard Williams, "Tertullian" in The Ethics of Diet [First Edition: London & Manchester, 1883] 2nd ed. (London & Manchester, 1896; Online at Animal Rights History, 2006).

1903 | J. Todd Ferrier, On Behalf of the Creatures, A Plea Historical, Scientific, Economic, Dynamic, Humane & Religious [Originally published as letters to the press and Concerning Human Carnivorism, London, 1903] (London: Order of the Cross, 1926; Online at Animal Rights History, 2006)

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