ACC ~ 1 Timothy 4 v3a

THE DANGER OF FORCED PIETY. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: It follows that celibacy is not particularly praiseworthy unless it arises through love of God. The blessed Paul says of those who show a distaste for marriage, “In the last days people will abandon the faith, attaching themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demonic powers that they should abstain from food, at the same time forbidding marriage.” Again he says, “Do not let anyone disqualify you in forced piety of self-mortification and severity to the body.” … Well? Did not the righteous of past days share gratefully in God’s creation? Some of them married and produced children without loss of self-control. STROMATA 3.51-52.

MAINTAINING VOWS. ORIGEN: The Savior then commanded, “What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” But man wishes to put asunder what God has joined together. He does this when, “falling away from the sound faith, he gives heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron, and by forbidding” them not only to commit fornication but even “to marry.” In this way he dissolves even those who before had been joined together by the providence of God. COMMENTARY ON MATTHEW 14.16.

FASTING IN THE HEART. ORIGEN: Do you still want me to show you what kind of fast it is appropriate for you to practice? Fast from every sin, take no food of malice, take no feasts of passion, do not burn with any wine of luxury. Fast from evil deeds, abstain from evil words, hold yourself from the worst evil thoughts. Do not touch the secret loaves of perverse doctrine. Do not desire the deceptive foods of philosophy which seduce you from truth. Such a fast pleases God. But “to abstain from the foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful” and to do this with those who crucified Christ cannot be acceptable to God. … However, we do not say this that we may loosen the restraints of Christian abstinence. HOMILIES ON LEVITICUS 10.2.

ASCETIC BALANCE. TERTULLIAN: The apostle set a brand upon those who were inclined entirely to forbid marriage and who were determined to lay an interdict on meats which God has created. We, however, do not do away with marriage if we disavow its repetition, nor do we condemn meats if we fast oftener than others. It is one thing to regulate but another thing to do away with altogether. ON MONOGAMY 15.

THE ERROR OF THE ENCRATITES. HIPPOLYTUS: Others, however, styling themselves Encratites, acknowledge some things concerning God and Christ consistently with the church. In respect, however, of their ascetic mode of life, they pass their days inflated with pride. They suppose that by their choice of foods they magnify themselves. They abstain from animal food, [and] being water drinkers, forbid to marry, devoting themselves during the remainder of life to habits of asceticism. But persons of this description are viewed more as cynics than as Christians, inasmuch as they do not attend to the words spoken against them by the apostle Paul. THE REFUTATION OF ALL HERESIES 8.20.

LIVE IN THE WORLD. CHRYSOSTOM: “Well,” someone says, “what do you expect us to do? To live in the mountains and become monks?” This question saddens me for this reason, that some think only monks to be truly concerned with decency and chastity. Yet surely Christ made his laws to apply to everyone. … Indeed, I do not “forbid marriage,” nor do I mean to block your access to pleasure, but I want you to have it in a chaste way, not shamefully or in a way deserving reproach and subject to endless misgivings. I do not insist that you live in the mountains and the deserts but that you be good and moderate and chaste, while dwelling in the midst of the city. HOMILIES ON MATTHEW 7.7.

DO NOT DESPISE MARRIAGE. GREGORY OF NYSSA: Let no one think … we are disregarding the institution of marriage. We are not ignorant of the fact that this also is not deprived of God’s blessing. But since there is sufficient support for it and since the common nature of man, be-stowed on all who come to birth through marriage, automatically inclines in this direction—whereas virginity somehow goes against nature—it would be superfluous to go to the trouble of writing a plea for marriage or a eulogy of it. It is pointless to emphasize its indisputable inducement, I mean pleasure, unless there should be need of such words because of some people who tamper with the teachings of the church on marriage, whom the apostle calls “those having their conscience branded.” ON VIRGINITY 7.

NOT DESPISING BUT TRANSCENDING. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM: Do not abhor meats as if they were taboo. The apostle evidently knew people like that, since he says that there are those “who forbid to marry and command to abstain from meats which God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe.” If therefore you are abstaining from these things, let it not be as from things abominated, or your reward is lost, but as good things let them be transcended, in the quest of the fairer spiritual rewards that are set before you. CATECHETICAL LECTURES 4.27.

DIFFERENT VESSELS. JEROME: Have I not, I would ask, in the very forefront of my work set the following preface: “We are no disciples of Marcion or of Manichaeus, to detract from marriage. Nor are we deceived by the error of Tatian, the chief of the Encratites, into supposing all cohabitation unclean. For he condemns and reprobates not marriage only but foods also which God has created for us to enjoy. We know that in a large house there are vessels not only of silver and of gold but of wood also and of earth. We know, too, that on the foundation of Christ which Paul the master builder has laid, some build up gold, silver and precious stones; others, on the contrary, hay, wood and stubble.” LETTERS 48.2.

AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS. AUGUSTINE: The fact that the Lord was invited and came to the wedding, even without considering the mystical meaning, was meant to affirm what he himself created. For there were going to be those, about whom the apostle spoke, who would forbid marriage and say that marriage is an evil and that the devil created it, although the same Lord in the Gospel, when asked whether a man is allowed to divorce his wife for any reason, replied that he is not allowed except in the case of fornication. TRACTATES ON JOHN 9.2.

FOOD LAWS MAY BE CONTRARY TO SOUND DOCTRINE. AUGUSTINE: The church of God, established in the midst of much chaff and much cockle, tolerates many things, yet it does not approve or accept in silence or practice those things that are contrary to faith and good living. Therefore, what you wrote of certain brothers refraining from meat because they believe it to be unclean is very clearly against faith and sound doctrine. LETTERS 55.19.35-20.36.

CONTINENCE SEEKS OUT PLAIN, WHOLESOME FOODS. BASIL THE GREAT: It should also be laid down as essential that continency is inexorably demanded of combatants for godliness, so that they may bring the body into subjection, “for every athlete exercises self-control in all things.” However, to avoid being classed with the enemies of God who are seared in their conscience and, therefore, abstain from food which God has made for the faithful to partake of with thanksgiving, we should taste each dish when occasion offers so as to indicate to those looking on that “all things are clean to the clean” and that “every creature of God is good and nothing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” The aim of continency must nevertheless be kept in mind also, to the extent that we satisfy our need with the plainer foods and those necessary to sustain life, avoiding the evil of taking our fill of them and abstaining absolutely from those foods whose sole purpose is to give delight. THE LONG RULES, Q.18.R.

1 Tim