Self-control in food and drink in the early church

Sentences of Sextus 108Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Much food hinders chastity, and lack of self-control in food makes a man unclean.
Sentences of Sextus 109Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · The use of all living things for food is indifferent, but abstaining is more reasonable.
Sentences of Sextus 269Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Flee drunkenness as madness.
Sentences of Sextus 270Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · A man who is conquered by his belly is like a beast.
Sentences of Sextus 345Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · It is better to die of hunger than to stain the soul through lack of self-control in the belly.
Sentences of Sextus 428Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · He who does not restrain his belly and what is below it is not faithful.
Sentences of Sextus 435Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · A man who is sated with food again and does not sleep at night does not escape sexual intercourse, and is not even worthy before God.
Sentences of Sextus 438Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · A faithful man is fed by self-control.
Sentence 13 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Cast away every member of the body that persuades you not to be self-controlled; for it is better to live self-controlled without the member than with the member to your ruin.
Sentence 67 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · A self-controlled man is pure before God.
Sentence 71 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Conquer the body in everything. From love of pleasure you will not escape licentiousness.
Sentence 108 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Much food hinders purity. Intemperance in food makes one unclean.
Sentence 240 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · As soon as you master your belly, you will master sexual desire too.
Sentence 265 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · Leave off food while you still want it.
Sentence 269 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · But guard against drunkenness as you would against madness.
Sentence 270 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · A person overcome by his belly is like a beast.
Sentence 345 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · It is better to die of hunger than to darken the soul through intemperance of the belly.
Sentence 428 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · No one who does not master the belly and what is below the belly is faithful.
Sentence 438 (Greek)Anonymous · 2nd-early 3rd cent. · A faithful man is nourished by self-control.
Fragment 44 (Exhortation to Endurance, or To the Newly Baptized (Clement's precepts))Clement of Alexandria · late 2nd-early 3rd century · A set of precepts for a newly baptized Christian on quiet conduct, speech, prayer, temperance, trust in God, and endurance in illness.
The Instructor 2.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Gluttons search the world for delicacies, spending their lives around the kitchen.
The Instructor 2.1.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Gluttony has no limit; the belly will be destroyed; and those who call their lavish dinners agapai (love feasts) profane the holy name of love.
The Instructor 2.1.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The church's common meal should serve love and be plain and moderate; gluttony makes human beings like beasts, crawling on their bellies like the serpent.
The Instructor 2.1.11Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Paul and the Pythagoreans say abstaining from meat and wine is good; eating meat is not sin, but gluttonous table manners make people like pigs and dogs.
The Instructor 2.1.14Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The fish Peter caught stands for simple, God-given food and for putting away greed; not everything permitted is profitable, and God, who feeds the birds, provides our needs.
The Instructor 2.2.22Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Water should be drunk in moderation; wine may be taken sparingly in the evening, and the elderly may drink more freely, but always within the limits of a clear mind.
The Instructor 2.2.23Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wine in moderation helps health and good humor; it should be mixed with plenty of water, both being God's gifts.
The Instructor 2.2.24Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Excess wine confuses speech and sight, as in Pentheus's drunken vision of two suns, and leads to anger, folly, and every kind of fall.
The Instructor 2.2.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Drunkenness is defined and condemned; Proverbs shows the drunkard in rags, full of woes, with the livid eyes of a corpse, dead to the Word.
The Instructor 2.2.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Proverbs warns against drunkenness, likening the drunkard to a pilot lost in a storm at sea, whose mind is shipwrecked on pleasure.
The Instructor 2.2.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Seeking rare imported wines is a sign of incontinence; for the self-controlled one local wine, the gift of one God, is enough.
The Instructor 2.2.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Drunkards have their reason in their belly, like the astrologers' “headless” figure; Noah's drunkenness is recorded as a warning; enough wine is enough.
Miscellanies 7.11.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some endure martyrdom for glory, from fear, or for rewards, like children in faith; the one who knows endures out of love for God, which is chosen for its own sake, and his self-restraint likewise springs from knowledge, not from ambition, greed, or fear.
Commentary on the Song of Songs, fragment 2 (Song 1:4)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · The king's chamber is the church, and the breasts preferred to wine are the two Testaments, which make the faithful sober, unlike the wine that shamed Noah and Lot.
On the Pallium 5Tertullian · ca. 205–211 · The pallium is simple to wear, unlike the laborious toga; it withdraws from public life yet serves the public by lancing the luxury and cruelty of famous men of the toga.
Against Marcion 2.18Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The law of “eye for eye” was meant to restrain violence by the fear of immediate requital; the food laws taught self-control and prepared for fasting; and the sacrifices kept an idolatry-prone people bound to the true God.
On Fasting 1Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Tertullian attacks the “psychics,” who reject the New Prophecy because it teaches frequent fasting, and sets out their charges against its fasts, station-days, and dry diet.
On Fasting 6Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Experience shows that a full stomach dulls the mind and breeds lust and forgetfulness of God, while Moses and Elijah, fasting forty days, met God face to face.
On Fasting 9Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Dry diet and abstinence from wine have biblical precedent in Daniel, Elijah, David, Samuel, Aaron, and Timothy, so xerophagy is neither new nor vain.
On Fasting 16Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · Scripture punishes gluttony in Israel, Eli's house, and the prophet from Judah; even the heathen humble themselves by fasting, while the psychics make their belly their god.
On First Principles 3.2.2Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Many sins arise from natural bodily motions such as hunger and desire; the hostile powers then inflame these beyond measure, at times even to madness.
Eclogae on Exodus-Judges, column 397Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Leviticus 4–10: unwilling sin; the “carcass” as one dead to God; the double gain of sacrifice; priests and bishops must be sober; the sin offering must be eaten.
Fragments on Genesis, column 109Origen · ca. 220-254 · Why Canaan, not Ham, was cursed; God's mercy toward the young after the flood; Noah's drunkenness; Nimrod the hunter; “one lip” answers those who deny the Son's own hypostasis.
Homilies on Leviticus 7.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The law forbidding priests wine at the altar teaches sobriety, which the Gospel confirms; mystically, Christ the high priest drank wine with his disciples before his passion, but at the altar of the cross vowed not to drink until he drinks it new in the kingdom.
Instructions 2.36Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · The drunkard should give his excess to the poor instead, and so escape Gehenna.
Metaphrase of Ecclesiastes 2Gregory Thaumaturgus · 3rd century · Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 2: Solomon's experiment with pleasure and great works ends in emptiness; true good is wisdom from God.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 43Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Spiritually, the pregnant and nursing are souls in whom the word is still immature and who are easily seduced by heresy; the praiseworthy flight is from sexual immorality, every sin, and false doctrine, to the mountains of the Scriptures, while Christ is awake in the soul.
Commentary on Romans 9.42Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Nothing is 'common' (unclean) by nature; a man is made common by the many evil spirits that possess an alienated mind, and food is unclean only to one who thinks it so; yet freedom must yield to love so as not to destroy a weaker brother, and true observance lies in moderation and a pure mind, as the holiness of Paul's handkerchiefs and Peter's shadow shows.
Commentary on Romans 10.3Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · All things are clean by nature and become unclean only through a brother's offense or one's own judgment; the food laws once set Israel apart, but with the opening of faith to the Gentiles all foods are purified; yet abstaining from meat and wine is truly good when a brother would otherwise stumble, and abstainers must not be forced to eat.
To Quirinus 3.60Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · Christians must not give way to greed for food, since God's kingdom is not food and drink.
Letter 13.4Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Some confessors disgrace their name by drunkenness, pride, or rashly returning from exile; they must imitate the humble, silent Christ.
On Jewish Foods 6Novatian · ca. 250–258 · Freedom from food laws is not license for gluttony; Novatian points to Christ's beatitudes, Lazarus, and Paul, and denounces Christians who drink wine on an empty stomach in the morning.
Symposium 5.5Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · The Nazirite's abstinence from wine means that the virgin must shun the devil's vine, whose fruit is lust, violence, and every passion, and cling to Christ, the true vine.
Lepr. 18Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Christians have become gluttonous and quarrelsome; the true shepherd must first correct himself before reproving others.
Res. 1.59Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · Paul's 'mind of the flesh' is the flesh's impulse toward sin, not the flesh itself, which can be brought under God's law, as virginity, self-control and Paul's commands about the body show.
Against the Nations 7.30Arnobius of Sicca · ca. 297–303 · Pouring wine cannot honor the gods; wine is linked with lust and madness, and customs without reason should not govern worship.
Letter to Zenas and Serenus 5Anonymous · 4th century (disputed) · Moderation in food, contentment in want, the world regarded as alien, and avoidance of busyness and worldly talk.
Letter to Zenas and Serenus 7Anonymous · 4th century (disputed) · Even temper, honour to friends, giving and hearing reproof, moderate use of wine, and patient listening; the ref breaks off mid-sentence.
Letter to Zenas and Serenus 12Anonymous · 4th century (disputed) · Counsel on the moderate use of wine as God's gift for the body's help.
Letter to Zenas and Serenus 13Anonymous · 4th century (disputed) · Counsel against gluttony and its excuses.
Divine Institutes 2.13.5Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Noah got drunk; Ham told his brothers, who covered their father.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.14.69Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Animals exist for the completeness of creation, not to feed human gluttony.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.14.70Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The self-controlled abstain from meat; lawgivers restrain others' appetites.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.24.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Plato’s Laws on drinking parties.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.24.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Drink makes men boastful and unruly.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.24.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Wine softens the soul like iron in fire.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.24.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Laws and sober guardians must control drinking parties.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.25.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Plato’s Laws severely restrict the drinking of wine.
Preparation for the Gospel 12.25.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Moses, Solomon, and Paul restrict wine as Plato does.
Letter 1.6Antony the Great · before 356 · Antony continues with the hands, the belly, sexual desire, and the feet, which the Spirit sanctifies, so that the body already shares something of the spiritual body of the resurrection.
Tricennial Oration (In Praise of Constantine) 5.7Eusebius of Caesarea · 335–336 · Constantine regards gold and jewels as worthless though he uses them for state, and abstains from drunkenness and luxury.
Demonstration 15.2Aphrahat · 337-345 · Paul teaches that God's creatures are good and sanctified by the word of God and prayer, so scruples about Gentile food are a weak conscience.
Canon 2Anonymous · ca. 340–360 · Anyone who condemns the eating of meat (apart from blood, idol offerings and strangled animals) as a bar to salvation is anathematized.
Letter 2Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil describes to Gregory of Nazianzus the solitary life: quiet, withdrawal from the world, Scripture reading, prayer, speech, dress, food, and sleep.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.11.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The wineskin in the frost is the body cooled by self-control against the heat of vices, so that it does not forget God's justifications.
Titus of Bostra, Against the Manichees 2.58Titus of Bostra · ca. 360s · Natural appetites are good in measured, lawful use; sin lies in excess, and fasting is a voluntary training, not a rejection of nature.
Commentary on Ephesians 5.18Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Instead of drunkenness, believers are to be filled with the Spirit, which Paul presents as a matter of their own will, cleansing the soul from vice.
Oration 11.5Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory calls for spiritual rather than self-indulgent celebration of the martyrs, confesses the Trinity, and closes with a prayer for peace.
Oration 14.13Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · The lepers share our nature, the image of God, baptism, and the hope of glory; Christians who follow the compassionate Christ must not abandon them while living in luxury, fine clothes, and feasting.
Oration 38.5Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · The feast is not to be kept with decorations, feasting, finery and drunkenness, especially while others of the same nature go hungry.
Homilies 1.5Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Fasting is older than wine and meat-eating; Moses received the law through fasting, while the people's feasting led to idolatry.
Homilies 1.10Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · True fasting is abstaining from evils, and no one should prepare for the fast by getting drunk, since every passion is a kind of drunkenness.
Homilies 1.11Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Drunkenness drives away the Lord and the Spirit, while fasting brings calm to the city; Basil closes with a prayer for the coming Pascha.
Homilies 2.4Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · No one should prepare for the fast by getting drunk; fasting brings order to households and to the whole city.
Homilies 5.9Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Christians should weep only for sin, as Paul and Jeremiah did, and not use grief as an excuse for drunkenness; Basil closes his exposition of 1 Thess 5:16-18.
Homilies 14.1Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · On Easter evening women danced drunk at the martyrs' shrines; Basil, though discouraged, denounces drunkenness, which makes people more irrational than beasts and deranges body and mind.
Homilies 14.4Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Drunkenness breeds unnatural lust and ruins the body; Basil expounds Prov 23:29–30 (“who has woe?”) phrase by phrase.
Homilies 14.5Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Hungover drinkers cannot hear the Scriptures' warnings; wine dries and weakens the body and brings on the trembling of Cain's curse.
Homilies 14.6Basil of Caesarea · ca. 363-378 · Basil describes the luxurious drinking parties, with their contests and machines for equal drunkenness, and the soldier carried home dead drunk, applying Isaiah's woe on those who drink from morning to evening.
Commentary on 1 Timothy 5:23Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul’s advice to take a little wine teaches moderation in asceticism, so that excess does not weaken the body and distract the soul from God.
Commentary on Ephesians 5:18Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Sobriety gives the authority to reprove, while drunkenness leads to debauchery.
Commentary on Romans 13:13Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Believers must avoid dissolute banquets, drunkenness, sexual impurity, strife and jealousy, and put on Christ, keeping the new garment of the wedding feast.
On Virginity 8Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 370–371 · Marriage is blessed by God and those who condemn it as unclean are heretics; virtue lies in the mean, and one who can use marriage with moderation, like Isaac, should not despise it, but for the weak virginity is the safer course.
On Virginity 21Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 370–371 · Since only the pure can approach God, one must wall oneself off from all sensual pleasure, especially the pleasures of food and drink, taking need, not pleasure, as the measure of eating.
On Virginity 22Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 370–371 · Self-control must avoid both excess and excessive severity; like a physician balancing the body’s elements or a charioteer managing his horses, the mind should keep the body fit for the soul’s service.
Letter 22.8Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome urges Eustochium to avoid wine as the chief kindler of lust, citing Timothy's permitted medicine and the drunkenness of Noah and Lot.
Letter 22.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome summarizes Scripture's condemnation of gluttony and commends fasting as the way back to paradise.
Letter 52.11Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome warns Nepotian against feasting with officials and against wine and all intoxicating drink, though he does not condemn wine itself.
Letter 54.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome explains, from Scripture and medicine, that rich food and wine inflame lust, which alone of the vices is rooted in nature.
Letter 54.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome prescribes water, light and cool food, and steady moderation rather than occasional long fasts.
Letter 69.9Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome continues through Paul's list, warning against drunken, violent, greedy, luxurious, and newly baptized bishops.
Letter 100.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Theophilus insists that Lent be kept without wine or meat, rebuking those who feast secretly while fasting in public, and cites Christ's warning against gluttony and drunkenness.
Letter 108.21Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome admits Paula's excessive austerity: even Epiphanius could not persuade her to take wine in sickness, and her grief for her dead children nearly killed her; he insists he writes history, not panegyric.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.4.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They feast lavishly.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.15.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They make Peter a vegetarian who bathed daily.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.15.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · They avoid meat because it comes from intercourse.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.19.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Christ's own eating refutes the Ebionite diet.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 30.19.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Jesus ate meat and drank wine; John did not.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 31.21.10Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Self-control is needed for Church members but not, they say, for the spiritual.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 45.1.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Severians abstain from wine as the dragon's venom.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 47.2.3Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Encratites cite Noah's drunkenness against wine.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 47.2.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Only excess, not wine itself, is forbidden.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 47.2.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Scripture warns against all excess, not against food and drink as such.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 47.2.7Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul warns against gluttony.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 63.3.8Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Noah’s drunkenness is excused.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 64.52.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Paul targets the flesh’s impulse, including gluttony.
On Cain and Abel 1.14Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · Pleasure is portrayed as the harlot of Proverbs and the hostess of a debauched feast, inviting all to eat, drink and enjoy life because tomorrow they die.
On Cain and Abel 1.18Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · Worldly goods punish those who cannot use them; gluttony and drunkenness ruin many, and Christ shuts out those who only ate and drank in his presence, but blesses the hungry.
On Cain and Abel 1.20Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · Unlike the sober drunkenness of grace, drunkenness with wine kindles lust, an insatiable passion from which the Apostle tells us to flee.
On Paradise 16Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · The Gihon signifies temperance or chastity, shown in the Passover eaten with girded loins, which washes away the passions of the body.
On Paradise 74Ambrose · ca. 375-378 · The serpent's going on its belly and eating dust figures delight and gluttony; God foretold rather than imposed its fate, and we should feed our souls on God's word, not on earthly things.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.4.6Anonymous · ca. 380 · Love of drink leads to destitution.
Apostolic Constitutions 5.10.1Anonymous · ca. 380 · Christians must avoid foul talk, drunkenness and excess, even in Sunday festivities.
Apostolic Constitutions 8.44.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · As rulers of the church, presbyters and deacons must avoid drunkenness.
Apostolic Constitutions 8.44.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · Wine is permitted, but not drunkenness.
On Virgins 3.2Ambrose · ca. 377 · Youth must be restrained by moderate wine, fasting, and sparing food; Ambrose mocks the pagan fable of Hippolytus, Diana, Neptune, and Aesculapius, and warns virgins against heating foods, banquets, and social calls.
On Noah 29Ambrose · ca. 378-384 · Without moderation in eating, the passions overflow like a flood and damage the body, as the injuries of the intestines show.
On Noah 111Ambrose · ca. 378-384 · Noah drank 'of' the wine, a portion; there is a bodily drunkenness and a sober drunkenness of the Spirit, and Noah was uncovered only within his own house.
On Noah 118Ambrose · ca. 378-384 · Noah's mind remained sober even in his drunkenness, while Ham, who mocked him, was the one truly drunk and blind.
Homily 3Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 379–394 · On Eccl 2:4–6 Gregory praises the confession of faults as a lesson for the church, and contrasts Solomon’s houses, vineyards (with the warning of Lot’s drunkenness), parks and pools with the true adornment of the soul: Scripture, the virtues and the spring of divine teaching.
On the Beatitudes 1237Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Christ accepted hunger but refused the devil’s suggestion to turn stones into bread, that is, to turn appetite toward what is unnatural; those who load their tables with silver plate and luxury beyond need are “eating stones.”
On the Beatitudes 1239Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Christ did not condemn hunger but the luxury that the devil adds to it; he himself hungered for the Father’s will, which is our salvation, so we should hunger for our own salvation; and righteousness is desired as both food and drink.
On the Lord's Prayer 1169Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · “Give us bread” asks for necessities, not for the long list of luxuries for which people mine, trade, and sail; what nature owes the body is only bread, and luxury is the enemy’s weed among the wheat.
On the Lord's Prayer 1171Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Like a serpent that cannot be drawn back once its head is in a crevice, pleasure must be stopped at its first entry; once it enters through taste, it leads to gourmandizing, luxury, and greed that ruins others.
On the Lord's Prayer 1173Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 380–394 · Gluttony ends in licentiousness; bread is enough, seasoned by a good conscience and by hunger, and earned by the toil of keeping the commandments.
Second Apology of David 18Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · Drunkenness inflames lust, as with Noah and Lot; avoid what leads to a fall.
Exposition of Psalm 118 10.43.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Paul calls us to be justly sober: sober not only from wine but from injustice.
Exposition of Psalm 118 10.43.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Sobriety must be joined to sinlessness; bad company makes one drunk with error.
Exposition of Psalm 118 11.25.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Noah, watchful through the flood, fell into drunkenness in idle security.
Letter 22.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine hopes that Aurelius and church councils can correct the disorders of the African church, especially drunkenness and strife, which are tolerated while sexual sin is punished.
Letter 22.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine complains that drunken feasts are tolerated, even held daily at the martyrs' shrines, while sexual sin is rightly punished by exclusion from communion.
Letter 29.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reminded the people that Israel feasted in drunkenness only once, before the golden calf, and urged them not to do as Christians what Israel did for an idol.
Letter 29.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine read the people Paul's lists of sins that exclude from the kingdom, including drunkenness, and his rebuke of feasting at the Lord's supper, arguing that no banquets belong in the church.
Letter 29.6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine read the people Paul's lists of the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, asking how Christians could be known by the fruit of drunkenness.
Letter 29.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine answered the example of drinking at St Peter's in Rome by reading Peter's own letter against drunkenness, and invited the people to a midday service of readings and psalms.
Letter 29.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · In the afternoon the crowd grew; Augustine contrasted their spiritual feast with the drinking in the Donatists' basilica, and the day ended with evening prayer and hymns.
Letter 36.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine says that the Roman writer's tract, by equating not fasting with drunkenness, insults the whole church and even the Romans on the days they do not fast.
Letter 144.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Even the pagan Polemo's reform by Xenocrates was God's gift, since continence comes only from God; so the Cirtans' conversion is to be credited to God, not to Augustine.
Homilies on Matthew 10.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · If John, the greatest of the prophets, lived so austerely, our luxury is inexcusable; his preaching of heaven, not of earthly wars, drew all Judea to confession; now is the time of confession for catechumens and baptized alike, for the judgment is near.
Homilies on Matthew 44.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Luxury is a thorn that chokes the soul and ruins the body more than care does; the throat was made for singing to God and prayer, not for gluttony, and the abused belly punishes the whole body.
Homilies on Matthew 57.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Fasting joined to prayer drives out demons, gives wings to the soul, and frees from avarice; luxury and drunkenness, the devil’s favorite tools, turn men into worse than swine, yet the fault is in the drunkard, not in God’s gift of wine.
Homilies on Matthew 57.5John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Wine was given for gladness and health, as Paul’s counsel to Timothy shows, but drunkenness makes men worse than animals, wrecks soul and body like a storm-tossed ship, and shuts them out of the kingdom of God.
Homilies on Matthew 70.4John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Chrysostom contrasts the monks’ simple table, where the desires of the belly and of lust lie dead, with the luxurious, unjust and degrading banquets of the rich, and urges his hearers to visit the monks and learn their peace.
On Elijah and Fasting 7Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The first law in paradise was a law of fasting, and the first sin came through eating; gluttony expelled man from paradise, abstinence recalls him.
On Elijah and Fasting 10Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Noah was drunk through ignorance of wine, which he had just discovered; his example teaches sobriety and wine's use as a remedy.
On Elijah and Fasting 11Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Slavery began with Noah's drunkenness and Ham's mockery; wine harms the onlookers even more than the drinker.
On Elijah and Fasting 12Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Lot's drunkenness led to incest with his daughters.
On Elijah and Fasting 14Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · John the Baptist abstained from wine; drunkenness overcame Noah and Lot, who had survived flood and fire while they fasted.
On Elijah and Fasting 15Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Moses gave the people water, not wine, and legislated about fasting, not about wine.
On Elijah and Fasting 24Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Ambrose satirizes the rich man's caterer, who runs about at dawn bidding up the prices of rare foods until his master squanders his estate.
On Elijah and Fasting 26Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Gluttony is an insatiable mistress, praising virtue when full and abandoning it when hungry, and bringing sickness.
On Elijah and Fasting 27Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The rich man of the parable, who feasted daily while Lazarus starved, now thirsts in hell; drinkers drink without ever being satisfied.
On Elijah and Fasting 28Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Drunkenness wounds the drinker, tears the garment of faith, and brings want; rulers are forbidden wine lest they forget wisdom.
On Elijah and Fasting 41Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Ambrose, hearing feasting, recalls Israel eating and playing while Moses fasted; drunkenness is the mother of faithlessness.
On Elijah and Fasting 42Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Drunkards in taverns imagine themselves rulers and benefactors, but when sober find themselves beggars.
On Elijah and Fasting 43Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Drunkenness leads to violence and self-delusion, then to maudlin tears, softening even proud hearts.
On Elijah and Fasting 44Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · In wine all feel equal, but Sirach teaches that wine, created for gladness, must be drunk in moderation.
On Elijah and Fasting 45Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Ambrose recalls the story of the drunken youth converted by a philosopher, but turns to the banquets of the powerful.
On Elijah and Fasting 46Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Ambrose describes the lavish banquets of military commanders, with gilded attendants and a horn of wine that rouses them to drinking contests.
On Elijah and Fasting 47Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Ambrose describes the drinking bouts of the powerful, which begin with small cups like skirmishers and grow into contests of who can drink most.
On Elijah and Fasting 48Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · After the meal the drinking begins in earnest, with large bowls and judged contests, until the servants tire but the drinkers do not.
On Elijah and Fasting 49Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Unlike war or wrestling, the drinking contest allows no surrender; all end drunk, to the host's glory.
On Elijah and Fasting 50Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The drunken soldiers, brave in the morning, end the evening carried out by slaves, mocked even by children.
On Elijah and Fasting 51Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · The host who forces drink on his guests is as guilty as they; wine taken to excess is poison.
On Elijah and Fasting 52Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Moses compared wine to the incurable venom of dragons and asps, and the wine of Sodom to the poison of faithlessness.
On Elijah and Fasting 53Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Isaiah, Proverbs, and the Greek Esdras pronounce woe on drunkards, who fall into lawsuits, brawls, and bloodshed they do not remember.
On Elijah and Fasting 54Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Banquets add music and women to drink to rouse lust; Romans encourage barbarians to drink so that they may be conquered; all intoxicating drink is called 'strong drink.'
On Elijah and Fasting 55Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Instead of rising early to pray, the drunkard rises to drink, preferring music and wine to hymns and psalms.
On Elijah and Fasting 58Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Drunkenness brings the trembling of Cain in the land of Nod, 'commotion,' and of those who shook their heads at the cross.
On Elijah and Fasting 59Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Drunkenness inflames lust, turns men into neighing horses, and brings disease and vomiting, as Jeremiah says.
On Elijah and Fasting 60Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Drunkards suffer illusions, vertigo, and irrational fears and cannot be roused until they sober up.
On Elijah and Fasting 61Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Jeremiah mourns the drunkard as a superfluous creature, while Paul commends the drunkenness of the Spirit, natural to those made in God's image.
On Elijah and Fasting 62Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Drinkers make toasts to emperors and armies into duties of loyalty, and some drink at martyrs' tombs, as if drunkenness honored those who learned to suffer by fasting.
On Elijah and Fasting 63Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Drunken boasts have led men to torture and death; wine extracts secrets that torture cannot.
On Elijah and Fasting 64Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Some drink wine poured down their throats through pipes and horns, though such floods destroy the body as water wears rock.
On Elijah and Fasting 65Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Even elephants drink only to quench thirst, holding nothing superfluous.
On Elijah and Fasting 67Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Wine and women each lead men from God, and still more together; Sirach calls a drunken woman a great wrath.
Hexameron (Exameron) 3.72Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · God created the vine; Noah only planted it, and its abuse is man's fault, while its fruit serves salvation in the Eucharist.
Hexameron (Exameron) 6.10Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Animals are bent toward the earth and the belly; man, made upright, should not live like them in gluttony, lust, or cruelty.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 1.19Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · Temperance restrains the desires that turn us from God; it means stripping off the old man, Adam, and putting on the new, as both Paul and the Psalms teach.
On the Catholic Way of Life and the Manichaean Way of Life 2.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 387–389 · The worth of abstinence depends on its end; Augustine contrasts a frugal man who takes a little lard and wine with a Manichaean Elect who feasts on costly vegetarian delicacies, showing the absurdity of judging holiness by meat and wine alone.
On Genesis against the Manichaeans 1.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 388–390 · Augustine reads man's dominion over animals also spiritually, as reason ruling the soul's animal-like impulses, and notes that plants given as food to carnivores show the passage is not meant only literally.
Sermon 16.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The "good days" of the Psalm are not the feasting days for which flatterers lie, but the days of the land of the living, for which one keeps from deceit even under threat of death.
Sermon 17.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Habitual sins such as drunkenness deaden the conscience; the Church is slow to excommunicate, but God, silent now while Christ is in heaven, will not keep silent when he comes to judge.
Sermon 51.23Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Eating and marriage sustain the human race; the wise come down to both out of duty, as Elijah ate to live, while the lustful fall into them; a man who marries only for children would welcome children without intercourse.
Sermon 149.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The command “Kill and eat” did not command gluttony; sin lies only in immoderate use of God’s gifts.
Sermon 151.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · A baptized drunkard has his past sins forgiven but must still fight the habit; refusing consent weakens it daily, and so long as it is not obeyed the desire of the flesh is not “fulfilled.”
Sermon 207.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Lenten abstinence, including from marital relations, should reduce pleasures, not exchange ordinary luxuries for unusual ones; Esau and David show that the fault lies in craving, not in the food.
Sermon 210.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine rebukes those who keep Lent as gourmets, avoiding meat-pots as unclean while feasting on costlier foods.
Sermon 210.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Abstaining from wine only to enjoy finer fruit drinks defeats Lent; it is better to drink a little ordinary wine if necessary.
Sermon 225.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The newly baptized, made light and day, must avoid drunkenness and be filled instead with the Holy Spirit, the fountain of life and light.
Sermon 230.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The day the Lord has made is the light of his word in believers' hearts; those who spend Easter in drunkenness and quarrels are darkness, not that day.
Sermon 252.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The forty days of Lent are kept in labor and fasting, the fifty of Easter in gladness that signifies eternal rest; but Easter must not be kept with drunkenness, for living well is better than understanding much.
Against Jovinianus 2.5Jerome · 393 · Jerome sets out Jovinian's third proposition on food: everything was created for human use, and Christ and the apostles ate and drank.
Against Jovinianus 2.7Jerome · 393 · Jerome argues that diets vary by nation and custom, not by a law of nature, and that Christians, reborn to God, should subdue the flesh.
Against Jovinianus 2.8Jerome · 393 · Jerome describes how the five senses serve as gates for vices to enter the soul.
Against Jovinianus 2.10Jerome · 393 · Jerome argues that reason must govern the senses and especially eating, and that simple food is healthier than rich food.
Against Jovinianus 2.11Jerome · 393 · Jerome cites physicians and philosophers (Hippocrates, Galen, Diogenes, Epicurus) for the health and freedom of a simple diet.
Against Jovinianus 2.13Jerome · 393 · Jerome cites Dicaearchus, Xenophon, and Chaeremon for the simple diet of the golden age, the Persians, the Spartans, and the Egyptian priests.
Against Jovinianus 2.15Jerome · 393 · Jerome traces fasting through Scripture from Adam's fast in paradise to Moses, Elijah, Daniel, John the Baptist, Christ, and Paul.
Against Adimantus, a Disciple of Mani 14Augustine of Hippo · ca. 394 · Augustine answers the claim that Deuteronomy's permission to eat meat contradicts the New Testament: the law permits moderate eating, Paul's “good not to eat meat” concerns not offending the weak, and Manichaean abstention from meat as unclean is what 1 Tim 4:3 condemns.
Life of Saint Martin 20Sulpicius Severus · ca. 396–397 · At the court of the usurper Maximus Martin alone refuses flattery, passes the emperor's cup to his presbyter, and foretells Maximus's fall.
Confessions 9.18Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · As a girl Monica fell into a habit of sipping wine, and was cured by a servant's taunt.
Confessions 10.43Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Eating and drinking are necessary, but their pleasure must be fought daily by fasting.
Confessions 10.44Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · The pleasure of eating slips in behind the need for health and disguises itself as necessity.
Confessions 10.45Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Augustine is free of drunkenness but not always of overeating; continence is God's gift, as Scripture shows.
Confessions 10.46Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · No food is unclean; what defiles is desire, as the examples of Scripture show.
Confessions 10.47Augustine of Hippo · ca. 397–401 · Eating cannot be given up like sex, only moderated; Augustine relies on Christ's intercession.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 15.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine asks what promises the Manichaeans have seen fulfilled, and says that they were foretold by Paul's prophecy of those who forbid marriage and abstain from foods.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.44Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine judges that Lot is to blame not for incest but for drunkenness, and considers what could have led a righteous man to become drunk.
Canon 27Anonymous · 397 · Clergy may not eat or drink in taverns except when travelling.
On the Good of Marriage 18Augustine of Hippo · 401 · Augustine compares intercourse with eating: both involve natural pleasure, both have lawful and unlawful uses, and the patriarchs used marriage as the apostles used food.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 10.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christ's cleansing of the temple, even of lawful trade, condemns much more the drunken feasting some practise in holy places.
City of God 16.37Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Jacob's obtaining Isaac's blessing was not fraud but a mystery: the blessing proclaims Christ among the nations, Isaac figuring the law and prophets.
The Institutes 5.5John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Fasting cannot follow one rule for all bodies, but all share one aim: never to eat to fullness.
The Institutes 5.6John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Overeating even plain food breeds lust, as the sin of Sodom shows; how much more meat and wine taken freely.
The Institutes 5.9John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Moderate daily eating is better than long fasts followed by excess, which weaken the mind and prayer.
The Institutes 5.11John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Lust cannot be conquered unless gluttony and the other vices are too, since the virtues form one whole and a city falls through any gate.
The Institutes 5.14John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Gluttony is overcome by fasting, vigils, reading, and compunction, until food is taken only as a burdensome necessity and the mind is fixed on heavenly things.
The Institutes 5.23John Cassian · ca. 419–426 · Gluttony has three forms; monks should eat plain common food such as bread, hide their fasting, and set it aside for the sake of guests.
Commonitorium 2.31–60Orientius of Auch · ca. 420-450 · Do not judge others while blind to one's own faults; do not lie, for the lying mouth kills the soul; restrain gluttony, which made our first parents mortal, and above all drunkenness.
The Conferences 2.16John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Humility gives discernment, which keeps the monk between the equal dangers of excessive fasting and gluttony, or excessive vigils and sleep.
The Conferences 2.17John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Moses recalls being endangered more by aversion to food and sleep than by desire for them; both must be taken at the proper time, since excessive self-denial is the more ruinous error.
The Conferences 2.26John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Moses advises keeping one biscuit for the evening to share with any visitor, so that both abstinence and hospitality are kept; Cassian closes the first two conferences.
The Conferences 5.4John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Gluttony and lust, rooted in the body, need bodily discipline and withdrawal as well as care of the soul; the spiritual vices are cured by the heart alone and are even exposed and healed by living among others.
The Conferences 5.8John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Love of money, being unnatural, is easily extinguished by true renunciation, unlike the natural vices such as gluttony, which assail even the best monks all their lives.
The Conferences 5.10John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The first six vices form a chain, each growing out of the one before, so they must be fought from the root, beginning with gluttony; vainglory and pride, by contrast, grow out of victories over the others.
The Conferences 5.19John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Unlike the other vices, the appetite for food cannot be destroyed, only restrained, as Israel was told not to abhor the Egyptian; the other seven vices must be wholly rooted out.
The Conferences 5.21John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · An elder puzzled philosophers with a riddle about a creditor who can never be paid off, meaning the belly, and they recognized him as a true moral philosopher.
The Conferences 5.25John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The unclean spirit that returns with seven worse spirits, and Proverbs' enemy with seven wickednesses, signify gluttony and the seven vices that follow if the monk relaxes after overcoming it.
The Conferences 9.5John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · The Lord names surfeiting, drunkenness, and worldly cares as what weighs down the heart; monks escape the literal forms but fall into spiritual forms of them, including acquiring more money, clothing, or cells than need requires.
The Conferences 22.3John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · Theonas gives three causes of nocturnal emissions: past overeating, a slothful mind still harboring passions, and the devil’s attempt to keep monks from communion, and warns that gluttony breeds the other vices.