1 Timothy 4:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Will even what has been sacrificed to idols, you ask, be cleansed in this way? Yes, when you do not know that it has been sacrificed to idols. But if you know and still eat it, you become unclean. This is not because it has been sacrificed to idols, but because, having received the commandment not to have communion with demons, you thereby entered into communion with them.

Consequently, it is not unclean by nature, but becomes so through your will and disobedience. What then? Is pork unclean? Not at all, when you eat it with thanksgiving and with the sign of the Cross. Likewise nothing else is unclean. The unclean thing is the will that does not thank God.

Therefore the realm corresponding to intelligible nature is a subtle, rational, and easily moved essence. By its supramundane lot, it has in its own nature a great kinship with the intelligible. Yet by the best providence, the intelligible is also in some way blended with sensible nature. For in creation, as the Apostle says, nothing is reprehensible or deprived of divine communion.

For this reason the mingling of the intelligible and the sensible is shown by the divine nature in man, as the book of the world's creation teaches, that is, Genesis.

There is no evil independent of the will, having its own self-subsistent being, anywhere in the whole nature of beings. "For every creation of God is good, and nothing is reprehensible"; for everything God created was very good (Gen 1:31).

But when the habit of sin entered human life by the path indicated, to man's destruction, a vast evil flowed from a small beginning. Then the God-seeing beauty of the soul, created according to the likeness of the archetype, was covered with the rust of sin, like iron. The beauty of the image belonging to the soul by nature could no longer be preserved whole, but changed into the vile form of sin.

All this is sanctified and made lawful by that original word of God by which, at man's creation, the Lord determined the kind and quality of his food. First, He appointed for food every herb yielding seed on the earth and every tree whose fruit yields seed. Second, He said that every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. "As the green herbs, I give you all things" (Gen 1:29; 9:3).

These words of God embrace all edible products of the plant and animal kingdoms. Together with the Apostle's words now being explained, other words of his come to mind which define the Christian view of food: "Nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who considers anything unclean, to him it is unclean" (Rom 14:14).

"What then? Do we forbid marriage? By no means. But those who do not wish to marry we direct toward preserving virginity, teaching that it is most honorable. In the same way, from the fact that gold is most honorable, it does not follow that silver is dishonorable. Therefore let the one who can take hold of the gold of virginity. Let the one who cannot do this receive the silver of marriage."

"They call both marriage and most foods abominable, in insult to their Creator, who created these things for use," says blessed Theodoret. "The Apostle does not reject celibacy and abstinence, but accuses those who compel others to reckon them as law."

According to St. John Chrysostom's explanation, "By the expression 'every creation of God is good,' the Apostle here designates what can be used as food. If all such things are God's creation, then they are good, for 'all things are very good' (Gen 1:31). If all are good, what does it mean that 'it is sanctified by the word and prayer'? For it is obvious that what is sanctified is regarded as unclean. These words should not be understood in that way. Here the Apostle speaks against those who considered certain foods defiled. Therefore he sets forth two chief thoughts. First, there is no creation that is defiled. Second, if something were defiled, we have a remedy against it: sign it with the sign of the Cross, give thanks, glorify God, and every impurity disappears." "The unclean thing is the will that does not thank God."

"In these words of the Apostle," says Bishop Theophan, "one sees the beginning of prayers before and after eating food, as well as of sacred readings during the meal. As for the forbidding of marriage, is this not a product of the harsh treatment of the flesh that appeared in Colossae (2:23)? It was very natural to add the forbidding of marriage to it, and the Ephesians did so."

Our new interpreter, P. Polyansky, refuting Baur's view of the heretics of the Epistle as Gnostics, finds that Gnostics are plainly not meant here. Rather, a special kind of Ephesian ascetics is in view. They came forward with their teaching on celibacy in opposition to Ephesian dissoluteness, but they did so so sharply and unskillfully that the Apostle, who in other cases praised asceticism in the Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians, had to speak disapprovingly here of its extremes.

In conclusion of his judgments about the clean and the unclean, he says: "The Apostle's speech does not at all have Gnostic truths in view. The Apostle attributes the teaching about clean and unclean to those who turned away from the truth. Through this they reached intellectual and moral dissoluteness and, having lost a pure conscience, began dividing the one creation of God into two categories, clean and unclean. Meanwhile, for those morally pure, there is nothing unclean in the use of food. The notion that something is unclean depends entirely on the impurity of the mind and conscience of the one who forms it."

The invocation of God's name and prayerful turning to God make every food received holy for the one who receives it in such a spirit. But why is there still a special sanctification, when, as was said before, every food is good and none is to be rejected?

One may answer that this only indicates how the condition is fulfilled under which, according to God's determination, nothing is rejected. It points to the offering of grateful feelings to God for the gift of foods, with a request for His blessing to receive the food set before us. Whoever receives food in this way stands among those for whom everything received as food is holy and clean.

Or St. Paul here makes, as it were, a certain concession: let us suppose that something is unclean. Even such a thing is sanctified when you invoke God's name. Thus St. Chrysostom says: "If all is good, what does it mean that it is sanctified by the word and prayer? For it is obvious that what is sanctified is regarded as unclean. These words should not be understood in that way. Here the Apostle speaks against those who considered certain foods defiled. Therefore he sets forth two chief thoughts. First, there is not a single creation that is defiled. Second, if something were defiled, you have a remedy against it: sign it with the sign of the Cross, give thanks, glorify God, and every impurity disappears. Will even what has been sacrificed to idols, you ask, be cleansed in this way? Yes, when you do not know that it has been sacrificed to idols. But if you know and still eat it, you become unclean. This is not because it has been sacrificed to idols, but because, having received the commandment not to have communion with demons, you thereby entered into communion with them. Consequently, what has been sacrificed to idols is not unclean by nature, but becomes so through your will and disobedience. What then? Is pork unclean? Not at all, when you eat it with thanksgiving and with the sign of the Cross. Likewise nothing else is unclean. The unclean thing is the will that does not thank God."

The same is found in Theophylact with Oecumenius. In these words of the Apostle one sees the beginning of prayers before and after eating food, as well as of sacred readings during the meal.