The biography written by Anselm of Liège in a previous post ("Should Heretics be Tolerated Part 5") has some
additional information about the context in which Wazo of Liège wrote. After Anselm discusses Wazo’s
arguments against the execution of heretics (using the Wheat and Weeds
parable), he then commends the example of Martin, the bishop of Tours (ca.
371-97), who refused communion to bishops who had consented to the execution of
heretics by the Emperor Maximin.
Anselm also informs his
readers that some people in Roger’s diocese (the person who wrote Wazo for
advice about heretics) were identified as heretics simply because they had a
pale complexion (!), since it was assumed that vegetarianism both was an
indication of heresy and caused a more pale complexion. Anselm concludes that
this is an example of the wheat being uprooted with the tares/cockles: “Thus,
through error coupled with cruelty, many truly Catholic persons had been killed
in the past” (Wakefield and Evans 1991: 89-96, 670).
A more general
observation not directly connected to Wazo and Aquinas: Reading about the association between food/diet and piety is
fascinating, especially in ancient and medieval texts. The connection between
spiritual discipline and discipline in one’s diet is found not only in
discussions of gluttony—one of the seven deadly sins—but in other themes as
well.
Just one example that I
included in my James Through the
Centuries book (pp. 166-7): Peter Chrysologus has two sermons on Fasting
(Sermon 41 and 42) that encourage his hearers to win the “battles of the
flesh,” such as a battle against an “overindulgence in food” which “robs one of
vitality, sickens the stomach, poisons the blood, infects the body’s fluids, stirs up bile, and
creates the high temperature of a fever . . .”
This “sick” person can indeed
“ruin his mind”; carried away by desires, he rejects what is medicinal, seeks
the harmful, and flees from treatment. The answer, Chrysologus says, is an
abstinence that heals “what gluttony had made flare up” (Sermon 41; 2005: 163).
In a similar way, “moderate fasting” can help exercise control over the body,
regulate the mind, and clear one’s intellect with sobriety: “Just as whirlwinds
disturb the elements, so do heaps of food cause agitation” (164). Fasting
therefore can heal the wounds of sins, but the scars caused by those sins
cannot be cleansed without mercy:
May
the one who knows that he stands unsteadily in this life, who understands that
he slips as he passes through the way of the flesh, and who realizes that he is
subject to attacks from ignorance and to accidents from negligence, may he keep
his fast in such a way that he does not omit mercy. Fasting opens heaven for
us, and fasting admits us to God; but unless mercy then attends us as the
patroness of our cause, since we are unable to remain steadfast in innocence,
we shall not be secure about forgiveness, as the Lord says: “Without mercy will
judgment be rendered on the one who has shown no mercy” (166).
Using a farming illustration
somewhat similar to the Wheat and Weeds parable, Chrysologus then argues that
the one who gives bread to the hungry gives the kingdom to himself. The one who
denies water to the thirsty denies himself the fountain of life. As he
continues this theme in Sermon 42, Chrysologus declares that the one who fasts
without compassion is like a “field tilled without seeds” (169). The field can
be cleared of weeds and all other matters that would disturb the crop, but
without seeds, the field will still remain sterile; no matter how often one
tills, without seeds, the land will not yield a good crop.
In a similar way, fasting
“cultivates the soul, it prunes away vices, it eradicates offenses, it tills
the mind, it tones the body; but without mercy it does not yield the fruit of
life, it does not attain to the reward of salvation” (169). So the one who does
not show mercy takes it away from himself (he quotes James 2:13), and the one
who wants to receive mercy from God must show mercy especially to the poor:
“The one who sows mercy on the person in need will reap mercy for himself ”
(170).
I should close with a
positive connection between vegetarianism and piety to balance things out: The
traditions found in Jerome’s Lives of
Illustrious Men, for example, connect the holiness/piety of James of
Jerusalem with his diet (Chapter 2). Jerome here quotes Hegesippus:
After the apostles, James the brother of the Lord
surnamed the Just was made head of the Church at Jerusalem. Many indeed are
called James. This one was holy from his mother’s womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink,
ate no flesh, never shaved or anointed himself with ointment or bathed. He alone had the privilege of entering
the Holy of Holies, since indeed
he did not use woolen vestments but linen and went alone into the temple and
prayed in behalf of the people, insomuch
that his knees were reputed to have acquired the hardness of camels’ knees.
I
discuss this and other aspects of James of Jerusalem in chapter 1 of James Through the Centuries, but for a
more extensive discussion, I highly recommend John Painter’s Just James (the 2004 second edition).
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