Monday, August 10, 2020

John Eck Answering Appeals to Matthew 15:11 to Negate Fasting and Abstaining from Certain Foods and Drinks

 

In a chapter defending feasts and fasts against Luther and his followers, Eck noted the following objection:

 

It is not what enters the mouth, that defiles a man [Mt 15:11]. (John Eck, Enchiridion of Commonplaces: Against Luther and Other Enemies of the Church [trans. Ford Lewis Battles; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1979], 106)

 

Interestingly, this is a “proof-text” against the “Word of Wisdom” (D&C 89) by some critics of the Church. In response to this appeal to Matt 15:11, Eck wrote:

 

Here Christ says nothing concerning fasts, but is removing the error of the Jews, who believed foods touched by unwashed hands were unclean, and one who ate this food became unclean, as is clear from Matthew and Mark. This stupidity Christ rejected, stating that foods touched by unwashed hands do not make unclean those who eat them. Otherwise, at the time of the Apostles, by eating strangled or poisoned meat knowingly, one would not become unclean. The Manichees also twisted this passage against delight in foods. See Augustine, Against Faustus [18.2ff].

 

Observe therefore, that food entering the mouth, which goes into the stomach, and is thereafter emitted, does not make man unclean. But man himself, taking food against the prohibition of God and Church, or also against the custom of the Church, and against his own vow or with the scandal of his neighbor, makes himself unclean. For this proceeds from an evil heart, that is, from the contempt of God and of the Church in its commandments.

 

Hence Augustine (DCD 14.12): “One ought not for that reason to deem light and small that sin committed in Paradise, because it was committed with respect to food, not indeed bad and harmful, except that it was forbidden,” etc. Thus wine although good in itself, would have polluted the Rechabites, if they had drunk it against the prohibition of their father, but because they abstained from it, they pleased the Lord. For this follows, “These things the Lord of Hosts o Israel said. Because you have obeyed the precept of Jonadab your father, and have kept all his commandments . . . there shall not be wanting a man of the race of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, standing before me, forever” [Jer 35:18f].

 

And concerning John the Baptist, the Angel Gabriel foretold, “He shall drink no wine or strong drink” [Lk 1:15]. Likewise: “His food was locusts and wild honey” [Mt 3:4; Mk 1:6]. [If it were not salubrious to abstain from delicacies in food and drink and to control the flesh with fasting and abstinence, these things would by no means have been written in the Gospel in commendation of Jon the Baptist.]

 

Eleazar and Maccabeus chose rather to die, than to eat pork against the prohibition of the divine law [2 Macc. 7:1fff] . . . But the disobedient Lutherans, empty speakers and seducers, “subverting all houses, teaching that they should not, for the sake of filthy gain, as . . .the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slothful bellies” [Tit 1:11f], keep no fasts of the Church, “sitting upon the fleshpots in Egypt” [Ex 16:3], loathing the heavenly manna, “overcharging their hearts with overeating and drunkenness” [Lk 21:34], having mind and conscience befouled. They boast that they are evangelicals but deny their deeds, since they are abominable and unbelieving and reprobate toward all good works [cf. Tit 3:3]. (Ibid., 107-8)