Chapter II.  Argument.—He First of All Asserts that the Law is Spiritual; And Thence, Man’s First Food Was Only the Fruit Trees, and the Use of Flesh Was Added, that the Law that Followed Subsequently8    Which, distinguishing between meats, granted certain animals as clean, and interdicted certain others as not clean, especially as all animals were declared “very good,” and even unclean animals were reserved for offspring in Noah’s ark, although they otherwise might have been got rid of, if they ought to have been destroyed on account of their uncleanness. Was to Be Understood Spiritually.9    [The divers animals are also parables illustrating human passions and appetites. See Jones of Nayland, vol. xi. p. 1.]

Therefore, first of all, we must avail ourselves of that passage, “that the law is spiritual;”10    Rom. vii. 14. and if they deny it to be spiritual, they assuredly blaspheme; if, avoiding blasphemy, they confess it to be spiritual, let them read it spiritually. For divine things must be divinely received, and must assuredly be maintained as holy. But a grave fault is branded on those who attach earthly and human doctrine to sacred and spiritual words; and this we must beware of doing.  Moreover, we may beware, if any things enjoined by God be so treated as if they were assumed to diminish His authority, lest, in calling some things impure and unclean, their institution should dishonour their ordainer. For in reprobating what He has made, He will appear to have condemned His own works, which He had approved as good; and He will be designated as seeming capricious in both cases, as the heretics indeed would have it; either in having blessed things which were not clean, or in subsequently reprobating as not good, creatures which He had blessed as both clean and good. And of this the enormity and contradiction will remain for ever if that Jewish doctrine is persisted in, which must be got rid of with all our ability; so that whatever is irregularly delivered by them, may be taken away by us, and a suitable arrangement of His works, and an appropriate and spiritual application of the divine law, may be restored. But to begin from the beginning of things, whence it behoves me to begin; the only food for the first men was fruit and the produce of the trees. For afterwards, man’s sin transferred his need from the fruit-trees to the produce of the earth, when the very attitude of his body attested the condition of his conscience. For although innocency raised men up towards the heavens to pluck their food from the trees so long as they had a good conscience, yet sin, when committed, bent men down to the earth and to the ground to gather its grain.  Moreover, afterwards the use of flesh was added, the divine favour supplying for human necessities the kinds of meats generally fitting for suitable occasions. For while a more tender meat was needed to nourish men who were both tender and unskilled, it was still a food not prepared without toil, doubtless for their advantage, lest they should again find a pleasure in sinning, if the labour imposed upon sin did not exhort innocence. And since now it was no more a paradise to be tended, but a whole world to be cultivated, the more robust food of flesh is offered to men, that for the advantage of culture something more might be added to the vigour of the human body. All these things, as I have said, were by grace and by divine arrangement:  so that either the most vigorous food should not be given in too small quantity for men’s support, and they should be enfeebled for labour; or that the more tender meat should not be too abundant, so that, oppressed beyond the measure of their strength, they should not be able to bear it.11    This sentence is very unintelligible, but it is the nearest approach to a meaning that can be gathered from the original. But the law which followed subsequently ordained12    [Gen. ix. 3. The Noachic covenant was Catholic, and foreshadowed Acts x. 15, although clean and unclean beasts were recognised as by natural classification. Gen. vii. 2. Argue as in Gal. iii. 17.] the flesh foods with distinction: for some animals it gave and granted for use,13    Or, as some read, “for eating,” substituting “esum” for “usum.” as being clean; some it interdicted as not clean, and conveying pollution to those that eat them. Moreover, it gave this character to those that were clean, that those which chew the cud and divide the hoofs are clean; those are unclean which do neither one nor other of these things. So, in fishes also, the law said that those indeed were clean which were covered with scales and supplied with fins, but that those which were otherwise were not clean. Moreover, it established a distinction among the fowls, and laid down what was to be judged either an abomination, or clean. Thus the law ordained the exercise of very great subtlety in making a separation among those animals which the ancient appointment had gathered together into one form of blessing. What, then, are we to say? Are the animals therefore unclean? But what else is it to say that they are not clean, than that the law has separated them from the uses of food? And what, moreover, is that that we have just now said? Then God is the ordainer of things which are not clean; and the blame attached to things which are made will recoil upon their Maker, who did not produce them clean; to say which is certainly characteristic of extreme and excessive folly: it is to accuse God as having created unclean things, and to charge upon the divine majesty the guilt of having made things which are abomination, especially when they were both pronounced “very good,”14    Gen. i. 31. and as being good have obtained the blessing from God Himself “that they should increase and multiply.” Moreover also they were reserved by the command of the Creator in Noah’s ark for the sake of their offspring, that so being kept they might be proved to be needful; and being needful, they might be proved to be good, although even in that case also there is a distinction appended. But still, even then, the creation of those very creatures that were not clean might have been utterly abolished, if it had needed to be abolished on account of its own pollution.

CAPUT II. In primis Legem spiritalem esse tradit; et proinde cum cibus primus hominibus, solus arborum fructus fuerit, et usus carnis accesserit: Legem postmodum subsecutam, quae cibos discernens, quaedam quasi munda concessit animalia, quaedam interdixit quasi non munda, spiritaliter esse intelligendam: praesertim cum pronuntiata sint omnia valde bona, et etiam immunda animalia ad sobolem in arca Noe reservata sint; quae alioqui possent auferri, si propter inquinamentum suum aboleri debuissent.

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Itaque in primis illud collocandum est, Legem spiritalem esse (Rom. VII, 14); quam si spiritalem negant, utique blasphemant: si devitantes blasphemiam, spiritalem confitentur; spiritaliter legant. Divina enim divine sunt recipienda, et sancta utique asserenda. Caeterum culpa gravis inuritur, si terrestris et humana sacris et spiritalibus Litteris doctrina praestatur; 0954C quod ut ne fiat cavendum est. Caveri autem potest, si quae a Deo praecepta sunt sic tractentur, ne auctoritatem ejus imminuant assumpta; ne dum quaedam impura et non munda dicuntur, institutio illorum infamem reddiderit institutorem. Videbitur enim, reprobando quae fecit, opera propria damnasse, quae quasi bona probaverat: et in utroque inconstans, quod haeretici quidem volunt, videri 0955A denotabitur; dum aut quae non erant munda benedixit, aut quae benedixerat, quia et munda et bona, postea reprobavit quasi non bona, quippe quia non munda; cujus consequenter enormitas perpetua manebit et controversia, si perseverat ista Judaica doctrina, quae omnibus viribus amputanda est: ut, dum quid enormiter ab ipsis traditur, a nobis tollatur: et operum suorum competens dispositio, et divinae Legis congruens et spiritalis illatio remittatur. Sed ut ab exordio rerum, et unde oportet incipiam; cibus primis hominibus solus arborum fuit foetus et fructus (Gen. I, 29). Nam a pomis usum postea ad fruges contulit culpa, conditionem conscientiae ipso situ corporis approbante. Nam et innocentia decerpturos alimenta ex arboribus, adhuc sibi bene 0955B conscios homines ad superna subrexit, et commissum delictum ad conquirenda frumenta homines terrae soloque dejecit. Postea etiam (Ibid. IX, 3) usus carnis accessit, divina gratia humanis necessitatibus competentia ciborum genera prorsus opportunis temporibus porrigente. Nam et teneros et rudes homimines alere debebat mollior, cibus, et non sine labore confectus, ad emendationem scilicet; ne iterum liberet delinquere, si innocentiam impositus labor non admoneret. Et quia jam non paradisus custodiendus, sed mundus totus fuerat excolendus, robustior cibus carnis offertur, ut ad emolumenta culturae plus aliquid humanorum corporum viribus adderetur. Haec omnia gratia (ut dixi) et dispositione divina, ne aut minus redderetur robustior cibus 0955C quo referti ad opera marcescerent, aut amplius tenerior, quo pro modo virium oppressi ferre non possent. Lex autem postmodum subsecuta cibos carnis cum discretione disposuit: quaedam enim ad usum, quasi munda contribuit et concessit animalia; quaedam interdixit, quasi non munda, et ipsos edentes inquinatura. Et mundorum quidem hanc formam dedit, ut quae ruminatione ruminent et ungulas findant, munda; immunda, quae neutrum horum vel alterum faciant (Levit. XI, 3, 4). Sic in piscibus quoque ea demum munda essent quae cooperta squamis et armata 0956A remigiis (Levit. IX, 10); at quae contra, haec esse non munda. Alitum quoque discrimen induxit (Ib. v. 13), quidque aut reprobum judicaretur, aut mundum. Ita Lex solertiam maximam faciendae animalium separationis instituit, quae in unam benedictionis formam constitutio antiqua contraxit. Quid igitur dicemus? immunda ne ergo animalia? Quid est enim aliud, non munda, quam quae Lex a ciborum usibus separavit? Quid enim et illud quod jam diximus? Ergo institutor non mundorum Deus, et culpa factorum in artificem redundabit, qui non munda produxit: quod utique dicere extremae summaeque dementiae est, Deum accusare quasi instituerit immunda, et divinae majestati crimen inferre, quasi fecerit reproba: praesertim cum et pronuntiata sint valde bona (Gen. 0956B I, 31), et quae bona ut crescerent et multiplicarentur, benedictionem ab ipso Deo sint consecuta. Insuper etiam (Ibid. VII, 2) in arca Noe praecepto Creatoris ipsorum ad sobolem reservata: ut et necessaria probarentur, dum custodiuntur; et bona, dum necessaria, probarentur: licet ibi quoque sit discrimen adjectum. Sed tamen vel tunc institutio istorum non mundorum funditus potuisset auferri, si propter inquinamentum suum debuisset aboleri.