[The following article by Keith Akers was published in The Ark, No. 234, Autumn/Winter 2016 issue. The Ark is the publication of the Catholic Concern for Animals.]
Is vegetarianism part of Christianity, or are they incompatible? Christianity and vegetarianism don’t have to be in competition, but in practice they are. While many become vegetarians for health reasons, the heart of vegetarianism is its ethical component — the practice of not eating meat out of concern for the suffering of animals.
People who become vegetarians often speak of their “conversion” to vegetarianism, precisely because of this ethical component in their dietary practice. They come to realize that animals have feelings and that we should not kill them unnecessarily. Communicating this ethical concern to the outside world, though, is often difficult. Christian vegetarians find themselves in the odd position of sharing a central part of their lives with the Buddhist, or Jewish, or secular vegetarian, that they don’t share with their own religious community.
Christianity, beginning with Paul, has largely rejected the idea that it is wrong to eat meat, and regarded ethical vegetarianism as a competing idea. If I, as a Christian, become vegetarian because I feel it is wrong to kill animals or eat meat, what incentive do I have to continue supporting a Christian community which, at best, is going to have grudging tolerance for my vegetarianism, and at worst, will be actively hostile to an ethical precept which is central to my life?
Early Christian Vegetarians
It was not always this way. Early church writers such as Jerome, Basil the Great, Origen, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria were all vegetarians; all the apostles abstained from meat and wine (Eusebius, Proof of the Gospel 3.5), and vegetarians were “without number” in the early church (St. Augustine, Of the Morals of the Catholic Church 33).
Paul’s influence against vegetarianism
Motivation is critical here. Ethical vegetarianism is the very first heresy, and Paul’s words have been quoted ever since then against “heretical” vegetarians: “the weak man [weak in faith, that is] eats only vegetables” (Romans 14:2). St. Augustine condemned the vegetarian Manicheans, and in the Middle Ages the Albigensian crusade specifically targeted vegetarians; suspected heretics would be given an animal to kill, and if they refused, they were judged to be heretics.
The example of Jesus is critical here. If Jesus ate meat, then while we are not obligated to eat meat, it cannot be wrong to eat meat. And this means that ethical vegetarianism — the idea that eating meat is wrong — is a heresy. Is there a way to avoid this conflict?
Both sides in this dispute seem to have influenced the writing of the gospels. Jesus distributes bread and fish to the multitudes, or even eats fish; but Jesus also advocates kindness to animals and attacks the animal sacrifice business in the temple.
We can gain some insight by going back to the original controversy concerning ethical vegetarianism described in Paul’s letters, which are decades earlier than any of the gospels. Paul is in a dispute with vegetarians in the early church and believes that it is perfectly all right to eat meat.
Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. (I Corinthians 10:25)
At the same time Paul counsels diplomacy in dealing with the vegetarians who think otherwise, and taking care not to offend them:
I [Paul] will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall. (I Corinthians 8:13)
It is right not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother stumble (Romans 14:21).
Jesus and James were vegetarians
This controversy makes no sense at all unless Jesus was a vegetarian. At the time that Paul wrote, many were still alive who had known the earthly Jesus, including James, Peter, and the other apostles and disciples. If Jesus had eaten meat, all Paul would have had to say was “it cannot be wrong to eat meat, since Christ himself ate meat.” But he doesn’t say this. In fact, to keep the peace, he becomes vegetarian himself. Why? Undoubtedly because it was well known that Jesus was a vegetarian, just like the apostles and James his brother.
The early Christian vegetarians that Paul talked about clearly were offended by the thought that other believers might sacrifice animals or eat meat; they believed that all followers of Jesus should be vegetarians. So who are these trouble-making vegetarians who must not be offended? Comparing the disputes over vegetarianism and animal sacrifice in Romans 14 and I Corinthians 8–10 with the murky food dispute in Galatians 2, it appears that these trouble-making vegetarians were the leaders of the early church — James, Peter, and John.
Paul interpreted the controversy over vegetarianism and animal sacrifice as being about Jewish laws or traditions. But the Jewish Christians — those early Christians who followed both Jesus and the Jewish law, as interpreted by Jesus — rejected this explanation. For the Jewish Christians, Jesus himself was a vegetarian and opposed animal sacrifice. God never wanted animals to be killed and so did not order the animal sacrifices (Homilies 3.45). The Jewish Christians were just as much against the Jewish orthodoxy that sacrificed animals in the temple, as they were against the emerging Christian orthodoxy which counseled that we eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience.
James the brother of Jesus, the first leader of the Jerusalem church after Jesus’ departure, was universally acknowledged to be a strict vegetarian, and in fact was raised as a vegetarian (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.23.5–6). Why would Jesus’ family raise James as a vegetarian, but not Jesus? The natural conclusion is that Jesus’ parents raised Jesus and James as vegetarians and that this was part of the original gospel message.
St James
Later Jewish Christianity assumed that the vegetarian James was not just speaking for the church, but passing on the teaching of Jesus and the original Jerusalem church. In the gospel of the (Jewish Christian) Ebionites, Jesus indignantly rejects the Passover meat, teaches vegetarianism, and attacks animal sacrifice, saying “I have come to destroy the sacrifices, and unless you stop sacrificing [animals], my wrath will not cease against you” (Epiphanius, Panarion 30).
Jesus attacks Animal Sacrifices in the Temple
If Jesus had compassion for animals as part of his message, then that would explain why Jesus went into the temple and attacked what he found there.
In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” (John 2:14–16; parallels in Matthew 21:12–13, Mark 11:15–17, and Luke 19:45–46)
The animals which are being sold are sacrificial animals, and it is these dealers in animals whom Jesus attacked — chasing out the animals to be sacrificed, as well as those who were buying or selling them to be sacrificed. “Cleansing the temple” was an act of animal liberation. Jesus himself twice quoted the prophets when he said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13, 12:7, quoting Hosea 6:6).
A Gospel Message for ALL Creation
Jesus was arrested and executed after a confrontation in the temple in which he disrupted the bloody animal sacrifice business. If Christianity is to become truly universal, it must come to grips with this all-inclusive tradition of kindness which stands at the very beginning of Christian history. The simplest solution is to make vegetarianism part of the gospel message. The good news is not just for humans, but for all creation.
Thank you for this great, thought-provoking article.
For myself, I have to look at the words and actions of Jesus; and the Nature of the G-D whom He reflected in thought, word and action. If that G-D is at-one with the causing of suffering to any creature, then ‘He’ is NOT the G-d Whom we want to worship. Even a human can be sufficiently compassionate NOT to cause suffering. How much more so MUST The Great Spirit of All Life, be!!
I love the words of Pythagoras, who was said to believe in and follow “the UNCHANGEABLY COMPASSIONATE GOD..”
Therefore, in common parlance, I feel it is a ‘no-brainer’ – without question…
Thanks again, to Compassionate Spirit – Keith Akers.
What about the miracle of casting the nets and catching all the fish? And why were many of the disciples fishermen?
The post discusses this. Both sides in this dispute influenced the writing of the New Testament. See also generally “The Fish Stories in the New Testament.”
I think there is always a deeper, spiritual meaning and message behind Jesus’ words and supposed actions. e.g. I read that “fish’ could mean that He gave the people the truths which they were capable of understanding at that stage….and ‘bread’ meaning the substance of His teachings….
Or that “fish’ was a misinterpretation – really was grapes or fruit….
The Greek word for fish, roughly “ichthus,” was an acronym which stood for “Jesus Christ, son of God, Savior.” Many early Christian references to fish are clearly symbolic, e. g. in Tertullian, “We little fish, after the image of our Ichthus Jesus Christ, are born in the water [i. e. in baptism].” I discuss this in The Lost Religion of Jesus, p. 129.
Animal cruelty is reason for many to convert to vegetarianism or more thoroughly veganism but the health aspect is also important for Christianity. This is the health of the body and the health of the spirit so the cruelty is part of that darkness that inhibits spiritual connection. Vegetarianism is still cruel with the battery chickens and the dairy in which the males are killed early on so there is a big difference between veganism and vegetarianism and this is something that can be experienced spiritually (and then there is raw and organic and more). In the “Ringing Cedars” series, Anastasia suggests that food grown in ones garden can effect greater still healing from addictions and support greater mental clarity and a quickening of thought. This is the liberation of seeds from cloning so that the plant families too can be free and people can develop habitat for animals in larger garden estates. She says that creating children consciously in this nest then is how a marriage is formed and about the benefits to the child of this loving union and the advancement that such children can bring to the world.
I was actually just reading your book, Disciples, in the process typing a few things you mention into google in order to better inform myself of the historical context, and in doing so I appear to have ended up at your blog! I don’t suppose you can recommend any additional texts for me to read (I’ve already read your excellent “The Lost Religion of Jesus” in order for me to get a better idea of how to implement the Ebionite traditions into my own Christian life? Essentially I came to veganism some years ago through the ethical utilitarianism of Gary Francione, having also recently taken my first steps into the Christian world via my study of liberation theology and the life of St Francis.
This is a difficult question because very little has been written on this subject, and I’ve struggled with this problem quite a bit myself. Here are a couple of ideas.
There is the web site of the Christian Vegetarian Association, which however doesn’t have anything specifically about the Ebionites or an Ebionite approach. You might also check out the books by Carl Anders Skriver, one of which has been translated into English; see the “Books ” section of this web site. And obviously, you can look at the other info on this web site; do a site search on “Ebionites” or whatever you want to look for. (E. g. go to Google.com and type “site:compassionatespirit.com Ebionites”). Good luck and let me know what you think.
Great! I’ve ordered the book by Carl Anders Skriver, sounds very promising indeed!