“And even if he has handed over to you the keys of the slaughter-house or butcher’s shop (_Macelli_) in permitting you to eat all things, excepting sacrifices to idols, at least he has not made the kingdom of heaven to consist in _butchery_; ‘for,’ says he, ‘eating and drinking is not the kingdom of God, and food commends us not to God.’ You are not to suppose it said of vegetable, but of gross and luxurious, food, since he adds, ‘Neither if we eat have we anything the more, nor if we eat not have we anything the less.’[59] How unworthily, too, 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 (not as His disciples understood it) the completion of His Father’s will, I think that He was wont to abstain--instructing them to labour for that ‘meat’ which lasts to eternal life, and enjoining in their common prayers petition, not for rich and gross food, but for bread only. “And if there be One who prefers the works of justice, not, however, without sacrifice--that is to say, a spirit exercised by abstinence--it is surely that God to whom neither a gluttonous people nor priest was acceptable--monuments of whose concupiscence remain to this day, where was buried [a large proportion of] a people greedy and clamorous for flesh-meats, gorging quails even to the point of inducing jaundice.[60] “Your belly is your god,” [thus he indignantly reproaches the apologists of kreophagy,] “your liver is your temple, your paunch is your altar, the cook is your priest, and the fat steam is your Holy Spirit; the seasonings and the sauces are your chrisms, and your eructations are your prophesyings. I ever,” continues Tertullian with bitter irony, “recognise Esau the hunter as a man of taste (_sapere_), and as his were so are your whole skill and interest given to hunting and trapping--just like him you come in ‘from the field’ of your licentious chase. Were I to offer you ‘a mess of pottage,’ you would, doubtless, straightway sell all your ‘birthright.’ It is in the cooking-pots that your love is inflamed--it is in the kitchen that your faith grows fervid--it is in the flesh dishes that all your hope lies hid.... Who is held in so much esteem with you as the frequent giver of dinners, as the sumptuous entertainer, as the practised toaster of healths? “Consistently do you men of flesh reject the things of the spirit. But if your prophets are complacent towards such persons, they are not _my_ prophets. Why preach _you_ not constantly, ‘Let us eat and drink, _for_ to-morrow we die,’ just as _we_ preach, ‘Let us abstain, brothers and sisters, _lest_ to-morrow, perchance, we die’?