EATING OR NOT EATING
MARK 12:32 Then the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besides him there is no other'; 12:33 and 'to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength' and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself' --this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." 12:34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." After that no one dared to ask him any question.
The scribe was able to derive this wisdom from the Hebrew Scriptures, because the Prophet Hoseah wrote, that the Lord says, that “For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”
However, at the time of the question of the scribe, who asked Jesus, which one is the greatest commandment in the scriptures, there were some groups, who officially opposed the sacrifices in the Temple. One of these group was the Essenes, who collected and partially wrote the ancient Library found in the caves of Qumran.
They opposed the sacrifices at least by two driving points.
First, the leadership of the Essenes were the remnant of the supporting priesthood backing the original High Priesthood, descending from the High Priest appointed by King Salomon around 970 BCE or appr. 1000 years before this conversation between Jesus and the scribe.
From the age of King Salomon the High Priesthood went from father to son (or at least the closest male kin) through 800 years. However, in 165 BCE, during the so called Maccabee wars, when the Jews successfully revolted against the Syro-Greek occupation, the Maccabee priestly family, took the office of the High Priest themselves, dethroning the hereditary leader at that time and getting rid of the hereditary system for ever.
Thus, the Essenes, who kept supporting the hereditary system, and the rightful High Priests, opposed the sacrifices in the Temple, as they saw the Temple rites defiled by the Maccabee or on their other name the Hasmonean High Priesthood, so they saw it as a sacrilege. That is why the Essenes, though having a lot of priestly, Kohen and Levite born members, did not participate in the Temple rituals.
The other point they had against the Temple sacrifices, that made the Temple courtyards a butcher house by killing bulls, goats, sheep, doves en mass on a regular base, that the Essenes were officially vegetarians.
It is quite interesting that they had written direct and indirect support from the FIVE BOOKS of Moses as well. The most famous among them, written in the Book of Genesis, in the very first chapter, can be found at the and of the chapter:
“ Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. ”
Also in the very Biblical kosher requirements, there are same space among the lines, which can be considered as some room for vegetarian leanings.
Among them it is written in the Book of Deuteronomy, which is called the Fifth Book of Moses, likely written by the Prophet Jeremiah, as the repetition or interpretation of the Law of Moses, more than half a millennium after Moses, that :
12:23 “But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat. ”
As we know that the Germans have a meal, called the Blutwurst, in English Blood-Sausage, this prohibition makes sense, as also there are some other cultures who used to cook or bake animal blood to make meals.
It can be interpreted, that an animal should not be eaten alive, like oysters are eaten for example, or as the Noahide commandment forbids to take a limb from an animal which is still alive. It is against animal cruelty for sure, but fro those, who wants to go further than that it also may mean a little bit more.
As it is forbidden in the Old Testament to eat blood, because it is the blood which makes the flesh or body alive, it should mean that animal lives matter to the Creator. If someone would go further with the moral lines of this prohibition, it could also mean that if eating the life is prohibited, then, ergo, the spill of the blood, the very killing, destroying the life in order to eat, should be also forbidden.
It is quite interesting that the early Christian tradition, for example Eusebius and Tertullian, considered James the brother of Jesus vegetarian, moreover raised as vegetarian.
Without stating that Jesus could have been vegetarian himself and the Jerusalem congregation could have been vegetarian itself, still it should not be a great surprise that as it looks like from the Gospels, that Jesus was opposed to the sacrifices in the Temple as it is written in the Gospel John:
In the temple Jesus 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)
It looks like that in the Jerusalem congregation, at least, must have been a group, including James the brother of Jesus and the very leader of the congregation, who was vegetarian, based on the Scriptures. James even refused to wear woolen clothing, so it was not only a dietary whim, but respecting animal life.
Later, when Greeks and Romans joined the Christianity, established in Antiochia, Syria mainly around the missionary work of the Apostle Paul, and the Gentile Christians challenged the vegetarian practice of the Jerusalem leadership, Paul had to make a ruling for the Gentile congregations, as it is written in his letter to the Romans:
“Nothing is unclean of itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it is unclean . . . Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make others fall by what he eats; it is right not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother stumble.”
He also underlined it in his first letter to the Corinthians, that (8:13) “Therefore if food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forever more, that I don’t cause my brother to stumble. Nonetheless, he also states : “for God’s Kingdom is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Thus, according to Paul, the dietary regulations are almost completely irrelevant in compare to righteousness, to peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, which is the love of God and the love of the neighbor.
May the Creator of all living and non-living be praised by the Christ and the Holy Spirit. AMEN
