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But Jesus Ate Fish!
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| "But Jesus ate fish!"
is a common protest from a Christian-oriented
audience - a reaction which demonstrates, in most
cases, not only a superficial knowledge of one's
own faith but also a double standard which recurs
whenever religion is used selectively for convenience. |
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Every year on October 4, World Animal Day is observed all
over the world on the feast day of Francis of Assisi, the
great Christian saint who lived in Italy about 700 years
ago. He was an animal lover and his teachings emphasised
respect and compassion for all creatures. Because of his
great love for "our humble brethren", Saint Francis of Assisi
was chosen as the patron of animals and his feast day as
the most appropriate date on which to celebrate World Animal
Day.
Sadly, however, St Francis was an exception. Compassion
in Christianity is generally understood as pertaining only
to humans. The first commandment, 'Thou Shalt Not Kill',
is interpreted as though the deaths of animals do not count.
Meanwhile World Animal Day is marked with token events such
as the 'Blessing of the Animals', which focus on domestic
animals, while the same pet owners continue to consume products
which cause degradation, suffering and death to other animals.
In fact, when the health, economical or environmental benefits
of vegetarianism are unequivocally shown, people often defend
their meat-eating habits (and their speciesist attitude
which sees some animals as deserving protection, while others
deserve exploitation) on supposedly religious grounds. It
appears the religious aspect is, for many people, the last
obstacle to a full acceptance of vegetarianism.
"But Jesus ate fish!" is a common protest from a Christian-oriented
audience - a reaction which demonstrates, in most cases,
not only a superficial knowledge of one's own faith but
also a double standard which recurs whenever religion is
used selectively for convenience. The saying "an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth", for example, is popular
in our self-centred society, while little attention is paid
to another statement in the same Scriptures: "turn the other
cheek". Similarly, a genuine and thorough study of one's
own religious tradition, which dares to move beyond conservative
assumptions and self-interest, can yield a far greater justification
for vegetarianism than for flesh-eating.
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"Blessed are they that mourn because of all
the evil that worketh against the innocent creatures
of God."
from the 'Sermon on the Mount'
in The Gospel of the Holy Twelve
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The directive to avoid the consumption of flesh food and
the consequent promotion of a plant-based diet can be found
in the teachings of many of the world's religions. It is
primarily based on ethical grounds, that is, on the need
to do no harm to any living being in the pursuit of a state
of harmony with the rest of creation and the Divine Law.
However, this directive receives an explicit and comprehensive
treatment in the religious thought of Eastern religions,
as in the teachings of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, while
in the Western Scriptures it receives a timid and quantitatively
poor exposure. Moreover, when those few verses often viewed
as pro-vegetarian within the Judeo, Christian and Muslim
faiths, are read as part of the overall texts from which
they are drawn, a great effort is needed to interpret them
as firm injunctions against the killing and eating of animals.
Genesis 1:29, for example, may sound quite explicit in
promoting vegetarianism: "Behold, I have given you every
plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth,
and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them
for food." But when read in conjunction with the verse immediately
following it: "And to every beast of the earth, and to every
bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth,
everything that has the breath of life, I have given every
green plant for food." (Genesis 1:30), its validity is undermined
by being linked to a condition unknown in the natural world
(at least at the present stage of natural evolution), that
is, a vegetarian condition extending throughout the animal
kingdom.
Rather than stretch these meagre statements to say more
than they actually do, it seems more sensible to acknowledge
the absence of a strong ethical stand towards animals in
the basic Scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
and instead examine why this may be and whether such considerations
may nevertheless have had a place in the lives and works
of these religions' founders. For if compassion, with its
dietary implications, is indeed a universal value - and
Eastern religions indicate it is as universal as love, truth,
justice and happiness - surely it could not have gone unnoticed
in the process of formulating the Western religions.
To look beyond accepted religious thought implies, in the
first place, to move from the field of religion to the field
of spirituality, since spirituality, as the essence of religion
itself, is said to be the true repository of any universal
principle. Esoteric science offers two lines of reasoning
in relation to the conduct of humankind towards animals
and vegetarianism.
The first relates to humanity's duty towards nature and
the esoteric concepts of karma, transmutation and evolution,
as explained in the following statements:
"Part of [the vegetable kingdom's] karma has lain in
the providing of food for man; this has resulted in needed
transmutation of the life of the kingdom into the higher
stage (the animal) which is its goal. The transmutation
of vegetable life takes place necessarily on the physical
plane. Hence its availability as food. The transmutation
of the life of the animal into the human kingdom takes
place on kama-manasic [emotional and mental] levels. Hence
the non-availability, esoterically understood, of the
animal as food for the human. This is an argument for
vegetarian living which needs due consideration."
- Alice Bailey, from Ponder on This
"The man who ranges himself on the side of evolution…
knows that, just as he is here in this physical body in
order that he may learn the lessons in this plane, so
is the animal occupying his body for the same reason,
that through it he may gain experience at his lower stage….
We can have no sort of right to take their lives for the
gratification of our perverted tastes."
- C.W. Leadbeater, Vegetarianism and Occultism
Failing in our duty towards nature by consuming flesh foods
brings consequences for the human race on account of the
Law of Karma, the law of cause and effect. The suffering
inflicted by us on animals accumulates at a metaphysical
level and affects not only our physical lives, through diseases
and natural calamities, but also our inner lives, through
emotional breakdowns and mental instability. The second
esoteric argument for vegetarianism relates to the effect
of animal foods on the consumer. Flesh foods are understood
to be responsible for increasing the animal passions in
the eater, thus impairing communion with the higher self:
"It is clear that a man's duty with regard to himself
is to develop all his different vehicles as far as possible,
in order to make them finished instruments for the use
of the soul.... The physical matter in man is in close
touch with the astral and mental matter - so much so that
each is to a great extent a counterpart of the other….
We all know that on the physical plane the effect of over-indulgence
in dead flesh is to produce a coarse, gross appearance
in the man… it means also that those parts of the man
which are invisible to our ordinary sight, the astral
and the mental bodies, are not in good condition either….
Any one who adopts a vegetarian diet will speedily begin
to notice that his sense of taste or of smell is far keener
than it was when he fed upon flesh…. The same thing is
true to a still greater extent with regard to the higher
bodies."
- C.W. Leadbeater, Vegetarianism and Occultism
Consideration for animals and its dietary implementation,
inspired by the explicit or intuitive knowledge of esoteric
concepts, was demonstrated by those mystics and saints who,
as historically reported, were animal lovers and practising
vegetarians - the Christian Saint Jerome, the Muslim mystic
Hazrat Rabia Basri, and the Jewish philosopher Nachmanides,
for example. Is it possible then that great spiritual teachers
such as Moses, Jesus and Mohammed were insensible to such
universal truths?
The Essene brotherhood was a religious sect that flourished
in Palestine from 200 B.C. to the second century A.D., living
in strictly organised communities. They were great healers,
scholars, teachers, prophets and agriculturists, and some
of them, especially the ones known as the Nazarenes, were
vegetarians. Much evidence of Jesus' association with the
Essenes has been gathered, and there is even some evidence
that the brotherhood was started with the task of preparing
the most ideal environment for the coming Christ.
The Essene Gospel of Peace, a third century Aramaic
text discovered in 1926 in the archives of the Roman Catholic
Church in the Vatican, records the healing work of Jesus,
in which some of his teachings exhort his followers to avoid
the killing of animals for food:
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"And the flesh of slain beasts in his own body
will become his own tomb. For I tell you truly,
he who kills, kills himself, and whoso eats
the flesh of slain beasts, eats the body of
death."
- The Essene Gospel of Peace
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According to historians, some of Jesus' closest disciples
were vegetarians. Eusebius (265-340 A.D.), Bishop of Caesarea,
recorded in his Historia Ecclesiae that, according
to Hegessipus (writer of second century), James, Jesus'
brother, was vegetarian, for "he neither ate flesh of any
living thing". According to Clement (150-215 A.D.), Bishop
of Alexandria, in his Miscellaneous Studies, "the
apostle Matthew partook of seeds and nuts and vegetables
without flesh, and John the Baptist, who carried temperance
to the extreme, ate locusts and wild honey", the 'locusts'
in this case being the carob beans, also known as St John's
Bread.
Saint John Chrysostom (345-407 A.D.) wrote in his Homilies:
"We (the Christian leaders) practice abstinence from the
flesh of animals to subdue our bodies…. the unnatural eating
of flesh meat is of demoniacal origin…. the eating of flesh
is polluting." He also quoted Jesus as saying to his disciples:
"You must be humane, to be my followers."
Among other early Christian Fathers who spoke in favour
of vegetarianism were Clement (150-215 A.D.), Bishop of
Alexandria, who wrote, "It is good neither to drink wine
nor to eat flesh, as both St Paul and the Pythagoreans acknowledge".
Among the Christian religious orders, churches and sub-groups
who, to this day, follow a vegetarian lifestyle, the most
notable are the order of the Trappist monks and the Seventh
Day Adventist Church.
Animals and vegetarianism may well have had a place in
the lives and works of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. Why then
does the directive to avoid the killing and eating of animals
not figure more explicitly and comprehensively in the teachings
of their respective faiths?
The first answer which springs to mind is a sense of priority.
Let's not forget that Eastern religions were formulated
within the context of much older and more morally advanced
societies, and could therefore explicitly treat the sacredness
of all life and the value of vegetarianism. Moses, Jesus
and Mohammed, on the other hand, had to operate within a
comparatively uncivilised social environment, which still
had to come to terms with the concept of compassion towards
fellow human beings, let alone compassion towards animals.
The people were therefore directed to concentrate on first
improving relationships between themselves, while teachings
on the ethics of a vegetarian diet - which the society at
large was not yet ready to receive - were reserved for the
closest and most advanced disciples.
The Bible describes how the Israelites, not content with
manna - a vegetarian food - asked "that we had meat to eat".
That request angered God and displeased Moses. God finally
provided meat in the form of quails, which were brought
to the camp by a wind from the sea, but his anger brought
also a great plague against those who had the craving for
meat.
Arguably, the Kosher and Halal systems in Judaism and Islam
respectively represent a compromise: recognising their societies
at large were not ready to accept vegetarianism, the founders
of these two religions introduced measures to limit and
constrain the consumption of animal products, measures which
enshrine the understanding that such foods are to be treated
with reverence and caution, and which implant within religious
practice a practical incentive to avoid animal products.
For example, the distinction between "clean" and "unclean"
foods in the Kosher system institutionalises biologically-based
distinctions which differentiate the impact of various animal
foods on human health, while Shechita, the Jewish ritual
slaughter, was introduced with the aim of making the killing
of an animal as humane as possible.
A second factor contributing to the absence of a strong
stand on vegetarianism in the Scriptures of the West, and
Christianity in particular, is the alteration (intentional
and unintentional) of the original message due to interpretation,
compilation, translation and the outright purging of those
aspects reputed too challenging for an increasingly self-indulgent
Church.
This process probably started (albeit mainly unintentionally)
in the very process of compilation of the four Christian
Gospels, given that, according to historians, they were
written long after Jesus' departure, probably between 70
and 120 A.D. Translations of the Gospels from Aramaic and
Greek would also have played a part in the transformation
of Jesus' message, as exemplified by the 19 references to
meat in the Gospels of the King James Version, often held
up as evidence that "God intended us to eat meat". The original
terms - the Greek words broma, brosimos, brosis,
prosphagion, trophe and phago - merely
mean food, nourishment and eating, and not "meat" or "flesh",
which in Greek are described by the word kreas.
A literal, as opposed to mystical, interpretation of the
Scriptures also adds to the confusion. For example, the
Greek word for fish, I-CH-TH-U-S, is made up of the initial
letters of the words Iesous Christos Theou Uios Soter,
or Jesus Christ Son of God Saviour. The symbol of the fish
is found as a Christian one in the catacombs, and the word
"fish" was a kind of password or mystery term. The Christ,
which is Greek for the Messiah, was symbolised as the great
fish. Also, at the time of Jesus' birth the sun had just
entered the sign of Pisces, and the birth of Jesus thus
heralded the Age of the Fishes. It is therefore reasonable
to suppose that the term "fish" is mostly used in the Gospels
in a mystical sense, and not to indicate Jesus' partiality
to seafood.
Lastly, geographical, historical and social factors influence
the way in which any religious founder formulates and delivers
principles and Universal Values to their followers. Tibetan
Buddhists, for example, are exempted from the vegetarian
directives taught by their religion, since the altitude
of the Tibetan mountains make the growing of crops for human
consumption difficult or impossible. So, the cattle eat
what grass there is and the humans eat the cattle. The karma,
or reaction, resulting from it is said to be lessened because
the animals are killed for a serious moral reason, that
is, for basic survival needs.
Similarly, Mohammed realised the environmental limitations
in which most of his people were living, that is, an arid
landscape which could only sustain a nomadic, animal-dependent
lifestyle. As such, the teachings treating the spiritual,
ethical and health aspects of vegetarianism may have been
reserved only for his inner circle (the Companions of the
Porch), while, following on Moses' example of formulating
the Kosher system, to those who needed to kill animals for
food Mohammed gave directions on how to make the killing
as humane as possible, via his sayings which form the basis
of the Halal system:
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"Allah, Who is Blessed and Exalted, has prescribed
benevo-lence towards everything and has ordained
that everything be done the right way; so,
when you must kill a living being, do it the
proper way - when you slaughter an animal,
use the best method and sharpen your knife
so as to cause it as little pain as possible."
Hadith: Muslim, 2:156
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"If you must kill, kill without torture."
La Taqtolu bi-l-Iza'a
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We have seen how the principle of harmlessness and the
practice of vegetarianism may well have had a place in the
lives and works of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, despite a
dearth of explicit references to such principles and practices
in the Scriptures of these religions. A number of reasons
may account for this initially surprising discrepancy, namely:
- the intentional withholding of certain teachings due
to prioritising of tasks in the process of spiritual development;
the geographical, historical and social context; and the
readiness of the target society to accept and understand
the teachings;
- the intentional or unintentional alteration of the original
teachings during the processes of compilation, translation
and editing of the various "authorised" Scriptures; and
- different modes of interpretation of the Scriptures,
especially a literal versus mystical interpretation.
It remains only to be asked: can the exclusion from the
Judeo, Christian and Muslim religions of the quality of
compassion for any living being and its dietary implications
last forever? Can a truly universal value be denied recognition
within these three faiths, especially taking into account
the fact that their founders could have known of it and
could have tried to make it part of their teachings?
Already, growing numbers of Jewish, Muslim and Christian
followers are searching their souls and faiths regarding
the importance of compassion towards animals.
As science tells us more and more about the sensitivity,
emotions, and highly interactive social lives of animals,
many Christians today find it hard to believe that a gentle
soul like Jesus would not have included animals in his message
of love, kindness and hope. As a result, the stereotyped
image of Jesus promoted by the Church is challenged, and
with it the doctrine which was formulated to suit, among
other preconceived notions, the Old Testament concept of
a human dominion over animals.
"Dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds
of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth"
was, according to the Bible, given to man immediately after
he was made in the image of God, a God whose main attributes
are recognised as love and compassion.
Consequently, many scholars argue, the term 'dominion'
must have originally meant anything but rule and authority
- most probably loving guardianship or caring stewardship.
Jesus' true message in this respect can be found in The
Gospel of the Holy Twelve, a Hebrew source translated
from Aramaic fragments found in a Buddhist monastery in
the mountains of Tibet, which reports Jesus as teaching:
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"Not by shedding innocent blood, but by living
a righteous life shall ye find the peace of
God…. Blessed are they who keep this law;
for God is manifested in all creatures. All
creatures live in God, and God is hid in them….
The fruit of the trees and the seeds and of
the herbs alone do I partake, and these are
changed by the spirit into my flesh and blood.
Of these alone and their like shall ye eat
who believe in me and are my disciples; for
of these, in the spirit, come life and health
and healing unto man...."
- The Gospel of the Holy Twelve
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Any move to reinterpret the Christian position on animals
and vegetarianism will necessarily come from the grass roots,
since church leadership faces too many dilemmas of doctrine
and self interest. Thus, although there have been some moves
by the Church to recognise the value of compassion to animals,
the official message remains confused and contradictory.
However, recognition of the issue in itself does represent
a radical shift in the attitude of Christian churches.
It is a shift which must be taken further by any faith
which wants to have a future in a world where lack of compassion
towards animals and consideration for their right to live
is increasingly seen as an attack not only on the dignity
of non-humans, but also as an attack on our own dignity
as beings endowed with the faculties of reasoning and of
choosing between evil and good.
© Vegetarian Action December 2007
Marco Bonincontro is Vegetarian Action's Coordinator,
a longtime vegan and scholar of theosophy and comparative
religion. Based on a lecture entitled 'Vegetarianism and
World Religions,' presented by Marco at the Theosophical
Society for World Animal Day, 2002.
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