On Imitating the Regimen of Immortality or Facing the Diet of Mortal Reality: A Brief History of Abstinence from Flesh-Eating in Christianity

摘要

Abstinence from meat has been a subject of much controversy and friction from the dawn of Christian history. Relatively widespread in the early Church, it was praised when it formed part of a temporary ascetic fasting regimen, hut condemned if it amounted to a permanent rejection of animal flesh, as it would he associated with heretical ideas found in various dissident groups, gnostic sects, and pagan philosophical schools. Nevertheless, several patristic authors put forth a number of compelling arguments in defense of a meatless diet, all of which would he revisited by future generations of Christian thinkers. Laying the emphasis upon the ethical incentives for abstaining from animal flesh, as well as upon enduring ambivalent attitudes toward vegetarian dietart/ practices, this article offers a brief overview of abstinence from meat throughout Cliristian history.