游斯丁護教辭與對話 第 3-20 章

Moreover, He commanded you to abstain from certain foods, so that even in eating and drinking you might keep God before your eyes, since you are prone and ready to fall away from the knowledge of Him; as Moses also says: 'The people ate and drank and rose up to play.' And again: 'Jacob ate and was filled, and the beloved grew fat and kicked; he grew fat, he became thick, he became broad, and he forsook God who made him.' For that it was permitted by God to Noah, being a righteous man, to eat every living thing except flesh with the blood in it—that is, what dies of itself—was recorded for you through Moses in the book of Genesis.

And as he was about to say, 'as the green herb,' I anticipated him: 'When God said "as the green herb," will you not understand it thus—that as God had made the herbs for man's food, so too He had given the animals for the eating of flesh? But since there are certain herbs we do not eat, you say that in like manner a distinction was at that time laid down for Noah.'

One must not believe it as you expound it. For first, that every herb of the field can also be said and maintained to be edible—on this point I will not dwell. But even if we do distinguish among the herbs of the field, not eating them all, it is not because they are common or unclean that we refrain from them, but rather because they are bitter, or deadly, or thorny; whereas of all that are sweet and most nourishing and finest, both of the sea and of the land, we desire and partake.

So too God commanded you, through Moses, to abstain from things unclean and unjust and lawless, since even while eating the manna in the wilderness and beholding all the wonders God wrought for you, you made the golden calf and worshipped it. Wherefore He justly cries out forever: 'They are foolish sons, in whom there is no faith.'