bible.org: Vaishnavas preach everywhere

suchandra · April 17, 2007

Looks like devotees preach everywhere (read below "ravenofheaven"), just found this article at http://forum.bible.org/viewtopic.php?p=72935#72935 where one devotee ("ravenofheaven") says,

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acarya of ISKCON (Hare Krishna Movement) concludes: "...There are many rascals who violate their own religious principles. While it clearly says according to Judeo-Christian scriptures, "Thou shalt not kill," they are giving all kinds of excuses. Even the heads of religions indulge in killing animals while trying to pass as saintly persons. This mockery and hypocrisy in human society has brought about unlimited calamities..."

posted by ravenofheaven Today, at 9:28 am

Jesus & vegetarianism

So when we talk about changing one's life, giving one's time, life, energy,

mind, resources to God and worship him with all one's heart mind soul, etc.,

well we all agree to that.

To be non violent, not to kill others (humans and animals alike, not even

for food (it is quite clear that the Early Christians were vegetarians, see

below), we all agree on that. We are citizens of the spiritual world and we

should not unnecessarily use our valuable time in mundane pursuits. Unless

we give up material life and turn with great determination towards spiritual

life our life will be a loss and end up in disappointment.

On the other side when we start taking about the resurrection of the flesh

and that Jesus died for our sins, well these are theological concepts that

were superimposed on the teachings of Jesus from Paul on and really miss the point of his actual teachings to mankind.

Quote from the book "Food for peace":

Major stumbling blocks for many Christians are the belief that Christ ate

meat and the many references to meat in the New Testament. But close study of the original Greek manuscripts shows that the vast majority of the words translated as "meat" are trophe, brome, and other words that simply mean "food" or "eating" in the broadest sense. For example, in the Gospel (Luke 8:55) we read that Jesus raised a woman from the dead and "commanded to give her meat." The original Greek word translated as "meat" is phago, which means only "to eat". So, what Christ actually said was, "Let her eat."

The original Greek word for meat is kreas ("flesh"), and it is never used in

connection with Christ. In Luke 24:41-43 the disciples offered him fish and

a honeycomb and he took it (singular, we can guess which one). Nowhere in the New Testament is there any direct reference to Jesus eating meat.

This is in line with Isaiah's famous prophecy: "Behold, a virgin shall

conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat

butter and honey, so that he may know the evil from the good." (Isaiah

7:14-15) (this itself says that meat eating destroys all good discretion in

man. It is quite typical, that the second part of the sentence is omitted in

Matthew 1:23).

Jesus rebuked strongly the pharisees with the words: "...and if you had

known what it means: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice, ...you would not

condemn the innocent," (Matthew 12:6) which clearly disapproves of the

killing of animals, as this is a verse taken from Hosea 6:6: "I desire mercy

instead of sacrifice, the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings..."

(note: again the the 2nd part of the sentence is omitted in Matthew 12:6).

He strongly opposed the custom of temple animal sacrifices, violently

driving those who were selling oxen, sheep and pigeons and the

money-changers out of the temple (John 2:13-15).

His words: "...you shall not make my father's house a house of trade (which in earlier translations always was translated as "murders' den").

We all know that according to Matthew 3:4 John the Baptist was refusing to eat meat. ("...and his food was wild locust (bean) and wild honey." (orig. Greek: enkris, oil cake and akris: locust/honey)

But we never hear of the sheer overwhelming evidence which points to Jesus being a vegetarian: No less than seven of Jesus' twelve disciples refused meat food (the rest we do not know). This naturally reflects the teachings of Jesus, as: "...a servant is not greater than his master..." (John 14:16).

The seven are:

1. Peter, "...whose food was bread, olives and herbs..." (Clem. Hom. XII,6)

2. James: Church Father Eusebius, quoting the Churchfather Hegesippus (about 160 AD) is stating:

"...But Hegesippus, who lived immediately after the apostles, gives the most accurate account in the fifth book of his memoirs. He writes as follow:

'...James, the brother of the Lord, succeeded to the government of the

Church in conjunction with the apostles. He has been called the Just by all

from the time of our savior to the present day; for there were many that

bore the name James.

'He was holy from his mother's womb; he drank no wine, nor strong drink, nor did he eat flesh. No razor came upon his head, he did not anoint himself with oil and he did not use the bath. He alone was permitted to enter the

holy place; for he wore no woolen but linen garments. And he was in the

habit of entering alone into the temple, and was frequently found upon his

knees begging forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard like those of a camel in consequence of constantly bending them on his worship of God...'" (Eusebius, Church History II, Ch. XXIII,5-7, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Oxford, N.Y., 1890, Vol I, p.125)

It is interesting that Hegesippus is saying that James, the brother of

Jesus, was holy from his mother's womb on which would apply that Mary was not eating meat either and that she never fed him meat as a child. That being the case one would think it to be clear that the whole family of Jesus and naturally he himself was vegetarian. In that sense the statement of Churchfather Eusebius "he was holy from his mother's womb" is most

indicative pointing towards the vegetarianism of Jesus.

3. Thomas: The apocryphal Acts of Thomas (Ch. 20), which actually were

widely in use among early Christian sects, depict this disciple of Jesus as

ascetic: "He continually fasts and prays, and abstaining from eating of

flesh and drinking wine, he eats only bread, with salt and drink and water,

and wears the same garment in fine weather and winter, and accepts nothing from anyone, and gives whatever he has to others."

4. Matthew: "It is far better to be happy than to have a demon dwelling with us. And happiness is found in the practice of virtue. Accordingly, the

apostle Matthew partook of seeds and nuts, fruits and vegetables without of flesh. And John, who carried temperance to the extreme, ate locusts and wild honey..."

(Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, II.I,16: On Eating)

(Note here the strong hint of Clement towards the vegetarianism of John the Baptist.)

5. Matthias (who filled the place of Judas - Acts 1:21-26). His food as told

by Church Father Clement of Alexandria was the same as Matthews.

(Clement/Stromata III,4,26)

6. Andrew and 7. Jude: Andrew (Peter's brother in both flesh and faith) and Jude of Bethsaida, originally two of John the Baptists' followers, must have

followed the Baptist's austere diet. (See above under Matthew)

Paul also says: "...It is good neither to drink wine or eat flesh..." (Roman

14:20-21) though his commitment altogether seems altogether somewhat less categorical.

Beyond that there are strong arguments of a similar nature by many of the

Fathers of the early Church:

"...How unworthy do you press the example of Christ as having come eating and drinking into the service of your lusts: I think that He who pronounced

not the full, but the hungry and thirsty 'Blessed,' who professed His work

to be the completion of His Father's Will, I think that he was wont to

abstain, instructing them to labor for that 'Meat' which lasts to eternal

life, and enjoying in their common prayers petition, not for flesh food but

for bread only..." - Quintus Septimius Tertullianus (AD 155).

This knowledge of Tertullianus was supported by fragments of the writings by the Apostolic Father Papias (AD 60 - 125).

"...The unnatural eating of flesh is as polluting as the heathens worship of

devils with its sacrifices and impure feasts, through participation in which

a man becomes a fellow eater with devils..." (2nd century scripture Clemente Homilies - Hom. XII)

Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer exhorts in one of his

hymns his fellow Christians "...not to pollute their hands and hearts by the

slaughter of innocent cows and sheep..."

Accordingly the Apostle Matthew, "partook of seeds, and nuts, and

vegetables, without the use of flesh... is there not within a temperate

simplicity, a wholesome variety of eatables, vegetables, roots, olives,

herbs, milk, cheese, fruits?" - Churchfather Clement of Alexandria (Titus

Flavius Clemens, AD 150 - 220)

"...We, the Christian leaders, practice abstinence from the flesh of animals

to subdue our bodies. The unnatural eating of flesh is of demonic origin."

And about the early Christians: "...No streams of blood are among them. No

dainty cookery, no heaviness of head. Nor are horrible smells of flesh meats

among them or disagreeable fumes from the kitchen.." - St. Chrysostomos (AD 347-404)

A most important purport to a controversy, much cherished and much cited by meat-eating Christians we find in the writings of the Churchfather Jerome (AD 340 - 420), who gave us the Vulgate, the authorized Latin version of the Bible still in use today.

The controversy is based on the fact that in Genesis 1:29 meat-eating is

clearly forbidden, "...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..."

However after the flood it appears that meat-eating is all of a sudden

permitted: "...The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of

the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your

hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave

you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it..." (Genesis 9:2-4)

Writing in confutation of Jovinian, a monk of Milan, who abandoned

asceticism, St. Jerome (died A.D. 440) holds up vegetarianism as the

Christian ideal and the restoration of the primeval rule of life.

St. Jerome says:

"...He (Jovinian) raises the objection that when God gave His second

blessing, permission was granted to eat flesh, which had not in the first

benediction been allowed. He should know that just as divorce according to the Saviour's word was not permitted from the beginning, but on account of the hardness of our heart was a concession of Moses to the human race,

(Matthew 9:8: "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.") ...so too the eating of flesh was unknown until the deluge. But after the deluge, like the quails given in the desert to the murmuring people, the poison of flesh-meat was offered to our teeth. The Apostle writing to the Ephesians (Eph. 1:10) teaches that God had purposed in the fullness of time to sum up and renew in Christ Jesus all things which are in heaven and in earth. Whence also the Saviour himself in the Revelation of John says (Rev. 1:8; 22:13), "I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending."

At the beginning of the human race we neither ate flesh, nor gave bills of

divorce, nor suffered circumcision for a sign. Thus we reached the deluge.

But after the deluge, together with the giving of the law which no one could fulfill, flesh was given for food, and divorce was allowed to hard-hearted men, and the knife of circumcision was applied, as though the hand of God had fashioned us with something superfluous. But once Christ has come in the end of time, and Omega passed into Alpha and turned the end into the beginning, we are no longer allowed divorce (see Matthew 19:3-9), nor are we circumcised, nor so we eat flesh, for the Apostle says (Rom. 14:21), "It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine." For wine as well as flesh was consecrated after the deluge." (Against Jovinianus, Book I,1

"The steam of meat darkens the light of the spirit... One hardly can have

virtue when one enjoys meat meals and feasts..." - St. Basil (AD 320 - 79)

Besides that contemporary heathen observers describe the early Christians as abstaining from meat:

Pliny, Governor of Bithynia (where Peter preached) referred to the early

Christians in a letter to Trajan, the Roman Emperor, as a ..."contagious

superstition abstaining from flesh food..."

Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD), stoic philosopher and tutor of Nero, describes the

Christians as "...a foreign cultus or superstition (under imperial

suspicion) who abstain from flesh food..."

And Josephus Flavius says about the early Christians: "...They assemble

before sunrising and speak not a word of profane matters but put up certain prayers... and sit down together each one to a single plate of one sort of

innocent food..."

The scholar E.M. Szekely claims to have recovered and translated from an old Aramaic scripture, "...Therefore, he who kills, kills his brother... And the

flesh of slain beasts in his body will become his own tomb. For I tell you

truly, he who kills, kills himself, and who so eats the flesh of slain

beasts, eats of the body of death... Kill neither men, nor beasts, nor the

food which goes into your mouth... For life comes from life, and from death

comes always death. For everything which kills your foods, kills your bodies

also. And your bodies become what your foods are, even as your spirits become what your thoughts are..." - E.M. Szekely, Gospel of Peace

And Albert Schweitzer says: "...Ethics has not only to do with mankind but

with the animal creation as well. This is witnessed in the purpose of St.

Francis of Assisi. Thus we shall arrive that ethics is reverence for all

life. This is the ethic of love widened universally. It is the ethic of

Jesus now recognized as a necessity of thought... Only a universal ethic

which embraces every living creature can put us in touch with the universe

and the will which is there manifest..." Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801 - 90) says: "...Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God... They have done us no harm, they have no power of resistance... there is something dreadful, so satanic in tormenting those who have never harmed us and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power..."

Tolstoy and Dukhobor (Orthodox Russian Christian) were of the opinion that

meat-eating is against the tenets of Christianity.

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acarya of

ISKCON (Hare Krishna Movement) concludes: "...There are many rascals who violate their own religious principles. While it clearly says according to

Judeo-Christian scriptures, "Thou shalt not kill," they are giving all kinds

of excuses. Even the heads of religions indulge in killing animals while

trying to pass as saintly persons. This mockery and hypocrisy in human

society has brought about unlimited calamities..."