Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews/Book III/Part 60

by Cyprian

60.  That too great lust of food is not to be desired.

In Isaiah: “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die. This sin shall not be remitted to you even until ye die.”^[1] Also in Exodus: “And the people sate down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”^[2] Paul, in the first to the Corinthians: “Meat commendeth us not to God; neither if we eat shall we abound, nor if we eat not shall we want.”^[3] And again: “When ye come together to eat, wait one for another. If any is hungry, let him eat at home, that ye may not come together for judgment.”^[4] Also to the Romans:  “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”^[5] In the Gospel according to John: “I have meat which ye know not of. My meat is, that I should do His will who sent me, and should finish His work.”^[6]

Footnotes

1. Isa. xxii. 13, 14.
2. Ex. xxxii. 6.
3. 1 Cor. viii. 8.
4. 1 Cor. xi. 33.
5. Rom. xiv. 17.
6. John iv. 32, 34.