Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts

Romans 14:21

There are 11 footnotes for this reference.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 240, footnote 6 (Image)

Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria (HTML)

The Instructor (HTML)

Book II (HTML)
Chap. I.—On Eating. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1333 (In-Text, Margin)

... Christ died; and they that wound the conscience of the weak brethren sin against Christ.” Thus the apostle, in his solicitude for us, discriminates in the case of entertainments, saying, that “if any one called a brother be found a fornicator, or an adulterer, or an idolater, with such an one not to eat;” neither in discourse or food are we to join, looking with suspicion on the pollution thence proceeding, as on the tables of the demons. “It is good, then, neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine,”[Romans 14:21] as both he and the Pythagoreans acknowledge. For this is rather characteristic of a beast; and the fumes arising from them being dense, darken the soul. If one partakes of them, he does not sin. Only let him partake temperately, not dependent on ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 2, page 397, footnote 7 (Image)

Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria (HTML)

The Stromata, or Miscellanies (HTML)

Book III (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2589 (In-Text, Margin)

... habentium conscientiam, et prohibentium nubere, abstinere a cibis quos Deus creavit ad participationem cum gratiarum actione fidelibus, et qui agnoverunt veritatem, quod omnis creatura Dei bona est, et nihil est rejiciendum quod sumitur cure gratiarum actione. Sanctificatur enim per verburn Dei et orationem?” Omnino igitur non est prohibendum jungi matrimonio, neque carnibus vesci, aut vinum bibere. Scriptum est enim: “Bonum est carnero non coinedere, nec vinum bibere, si quis comedat per offendiculum.”[Romans 14:21] Et: “Bonum est manere sicut ego.” Sed et qui utitur, “cum gratiarum actione,” et qui rursus non utitur, ipse quoque “cure gratiarum actione,” et cure moderata ac temperanti vivat perceptione, logo seu rationi convenienter. Et, ut in summa dicam, ...

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 4, page 650, footnote 4 (Image)

Tertullian (IV), Minucius Felix, Commodian, Origen

Origen. (HTML)

Origen Against Celsus. (HTML)

Book VIII (HTML)
Chapter XXVIII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4894 (In-Text, Margin)

... nature?” Here I would observe that I cannot see how those whom he speaks of as abstaining from certain victims, in accordance with the traditions of their fathers, are consequently bound to abstain from the flesh of all animals. We do not indeed deny that the divine word does seem to command something similar to this, when to raise us to a higher and purer life it says, “It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak;”[Romans 14:21] and again, “Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died;” and again, “If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.”

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 61, footnote 5 (Image)

Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings

Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)

On the Morals of the Catholic Church. (HTML)

Another Kind of Men Living Together in Cities.  Fasts of Three Days. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 147 (In-Text, Margin)

... thinketh anything to be common, to him it is common." Could he have shown better that it is not in the things we eat, but in the mind, that there is a power able to pollute it, and therefore that even those who are fit to think lightly of these things, and know perfectly that they are not polluted if they take any food in mental superiority, without being gluttons, should still have regard to charity? See what he adds: "For if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably."[Romans 14:2-21]

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 4, page 77, footnote 1 (Image)

Augustine: The Anti-Manichaean Writings, The Anti-Donatist Writings

Writings in Connection with the Manichæan Controversy. (HTML)

On the Morals of the Manichæans. (HTML)

Three Good Reasons for Abstaining from Certain Kinds of Food. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 172 (In-Text, Margin)

31. But, you reply, the apostle says, "It is good, brethren, neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine."[Romans 14:21] No one denies that this is good, provided that it is for the end already mentioned, of which it is said, "Make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof;" or for the ends pointed out by the apostle, namely, either to check the appetite, which is apt to go to a more wild and uncontrollable excess in these things than in others, or lest a brother should be offended, or lest the weak should hold fellowship with an idol. For at the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 25, footnote 5 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)

To Eustochium. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 396 (In-Text, Margin)

... should indulge ourselves too much on the score of our ailments, he commands that but little shall be taken; advising rather as a physician than as an apostle (though, indeed, an apostle is a spiritual physician). He evidently feared that Timothy might succumb to weakness, and might prove unequal to the constant moving to and fro involved in preaching the Gospel. Besides, he remembered that he had spoken of “wine wherein is excess,” and had said, “it is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine.”[Romans 14:21] Noah drank wine and became intoxicated; but living as he did in the rude age after the flood, when the vine was first planted, perhaps he did not know its power of inebriation. And to let you see the hidden meaning of Scripture in all its fulness ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 105, footnote 14 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)

To Furia. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1579 (In-Text, Margin)

... early womanhood, take only water to drink, for this is by nature of all drinks the most cooling. This, if your stomach is strong enough to bear it; but if your digestion is weak, hear what the apostle says to Timothy: “use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.” Then as regards your food you must avoid all heating dishes. I do not speak of flesh dishes only (although of these the chosen vessel declares his mind thus: “it is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine”[Romans 14:21]) but of vegetables as well. Everything provocative or indigestible is to be refused. Be assured that nothing is so good for young Christians as the eating of herbs. Accordingly in another place he says: “another who is weak eateth herbs.” Thus the ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 166, footnote 17 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)

To Salvina. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2451 (In-Text, Margin)

... Ionia, or any of those birds so expensive that they fly away with the largest properties. And do not fancy that you eschew meat diet when you reject pork, hare, and venison and the savoury flesh of other quadrupeds. It is not the number of feet that makes the difference but delicacy of flavour. I know that the apostle has said: “every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving.” But the same apostle says: “it is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine,”[Romans 14:21] and in another place: “be not drunk with wine wherein is excess.” “Every creature of God is good”—the precept is intended for those who are careful how they may please their husbands. Let those feed on flesh who serve the flesh, whose bodies boil ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 196, footnote 7 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

The Letters of St. Jerome. (HTML)

To Eustochium. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 2740 (In-Text, Margin)

... not.” She would frequently exclaim: “I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner as all my fathers were,” and again, I desire “to depart and to be with Christ.” As often too as she was troubled with bodily weakness (brought on by incredible abstinence and by redoubled fastings), she would be heard to say: “I keep under my body and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway;” and “It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine;”[Romans 14:21] and “I humbled my soul with fasting;” and “thou wilt make all” my “bed in” my “sickness;” and “Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” And when the pain which she bore with such wonderful patience darted ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 360, footnote 6 (Image)

Jerome: Letters and Select Works

Treatises. (HTML)

Against Jovinianus. (HTML)

Book I (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4357 (In-Text, Margin)

... reached the deluge. But after the deluge, together with the giving of the law which no one could fulfil, 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, nor are we circumcised, nor do we eat flesh, for the Apostle says,[Romans 14:21] “It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine.” For wine as well as flesh was consecrated after the deluge.

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 8, page 128, footnote 21 (Image)

Basil: Letters and Select Works

The Letters. (HTML)

Without address.  On the Perfection of the Life of Solitaries. (HTML)

CCEL Footnote 1938 (In-Text, Margin)

... words be suggested to them by those who are entrusted with the duty of carefully dispensing the word to the building up of the faith, lest God’s Holy Spirit be grieved. Any one who comes in ought not to be able, of his own free will, to accost or speak to any of the brothers, before those to whom the responsibility of general discipline is committed have approved of it as pleasing to God, with a view to the common good. The Christian ought not to be enslaved by wine; nor to be eager for flesh meat,[Romans 14:21] and as a general rule ought not to be a lover of pleasure in eating or drinking, “for every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.” The Christian ought to regard all the things that are given him for his use, not as his to ...

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