JESUS WAS A VEGETARIAN

Jesus Was A Vegetarian

According to the Bible the original diet in the Garden of Eden was a vegetarian one. Adam and Eve lived happily, healthily and abundantly on a diet rich in fresh vegetarian fare. However, with the coming of the flood and the ensuing ecological destruction, a concession was made ensuring mankind’s survival, and for the first time there was a departure from the original diet intended by God.

Today of course this departure, this concession, has been transformed into the world’s biggest industry, the wholesale slaughtering of billions and billions of defenceless animals. Super efficient factory farms raise Gods creatures as meat, and high tech slaughterhouses deliver the final product. In one slaughterhouse in America they slaughter over 30,000 animals aday. That’s 210,000 a week, 1 million a month, 12 million a year, all between four walls in just one slaughterhouse. The rivers of blood spoken of in the Bible take place every day, as thousands of such slaughterhouses churn out their products, and planet earth becomes a mass production line of death.

It is an extreme departure from the simple, peaceful diet in the Garden of Eden, and many people question how spiritual institutions such as Christianity, can continually sanction such a satanic act. Walk into any supermarket and there before you is the Garden of Eden, an overwhelming array of products, hundreds of different vegetables, fruits, milk products, breads, cereals, rice, pasta, herbs, spices and much more. There is more than enough to satisfy our needs.

Yet simply pandering to our unrestrained tongues, we subject our brothers the animals to what can only be described as a holocaust. How can any spiritual institution sanction such a thing? Why should animals fear members of a spiritual institution, people who are supposed to be gradually detaching themselves from worldly things and pursuing a life of purification. We can easily understand how politicians and businessmen, who are simply lost to themselves, can sanction such an act, but a spiritual institution?

In their defence Christians point to the fact that Jesus ate meat and according to the Bible we are allowed to eat meat. However there is much evidence which contradicts this, and as members of a spiritual institution, and hence adherents to a non violent lifestyle, we present it.

The Vegetarian Apostles

Peter  “whose food was bread, olives and herbs ” (Hoer 15;cf clem. Hom. X11,6)

James “ the brother of the Lord was holy from birth. He drank no wine nor ate the flesh of animals.” Church Father Eusebius, quoting Hegesippus 160AD

Thomas “wearing a single garment, giving what he had to others and abstaining from the eating of flesh and the drinking of wine” The Apocyphal Gospels from the history of Christianity – James Vernon Bartlet.

Mathew “… lived upon seeds, nuts, fruit and vegetables without the use of flesh.(Clement of Alexandria/Clem instructor)

Mathias. His food as told by church father Clement of Alexandria was the same as Mathews.

John the Baptist according to Mathew 3:4 was abstaining from meat meals. (and his food was wild honey and wild locus.) Its difficult to imagine John chasing locusts throughout the desert, dipping them in his honey and crunching on them. The carob bean, prominent throughout that part of the world, was also known as locust bean and its more likely that this was part of his simple though nutritious diet.

Andrew and Jude. Both were originally followers of John the Baptist and there is a good case for them following the same meatless diet.

Paul says, “Destroy not the work of God for the sake of food … It is good neither to drink wine or eat flesh ” (Romans 14. 20,21) although his overall commitment seemed to diminish with time.

We have no information on what the other five disciples of Jesus ate. But if the above information is true, and we can see no reason to doubt it, then surely this not only reflects the dietary habits of the other five, but also of Jesus Himself.

Christian Saints

“Since Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the Messiah who restores all things, it is no longer permitted to divorce or eat flesh… and so I say to you if you wish to be perfect, it is good not to drink wine or eat flesh…” St Jerome who gave the Vulgate, the authorised Latin version of the Bible.

“We the Christian leaders practice abstinence from the flesh of animals to subdue our bodies. The unnatural eating of flesh is of demonic origin.” St Chrysostomos (AD340-420)

“The steam of meat darkens the light of the spirit…one hardly can have virtue when one enjoys meat meals and feasts” St Basil (AD320-79)

“Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God. They have done us no harm, they have no power of resistence…there is something so dreadful, so satanic in tormenting those who have never harmed us and cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power” Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-90)

“The unnatural eating of flesh is as polluting as the heathen’s worship of devils with its sacrifices and impure feasts, through participation in which a man becomes a fellow eater with devils” (2nd century scripture Clement Homilies)

“It is far better to be happy than have the devil dwelling within us, for happiness is found only in the practice of virtue. Accordingly the Apostle Mathew, partook of seeds, nuts and vegetables , without the use of flesh… is there not within a temperate simplicity, a wholesome variety of eatables, vegetables, roots, olives, herbs, milk, cheese, fruits.” Churchfather Clement of Alexandria

“They assemble before sun rising and speak not a word of profane matters but put up certain prayers…and sit down together each one to a single plate of one sort of innocent food.”  Joseph Flavius

Did Jesus Eat Meat?

Close study of the Greek manuscripts show that the vast majority of the words translated as “meat” are trophe and brome which simply mean food or eating in the broadest sense. For example in the Gospel (Luke 8:55) we read that Jesus raised a woman from the dead and commanded to “give her meat” The original Greek word translated as meat is “phago” which means only to eat. So what Jesus actually said was let her eat. The original Greek word for meat is kreas (flesh) and it is never used in connection with Jesus Christ.

Historical Observers on Christianity

Pliny, Governor of Bithynia (where Peter preached) refers to the early Christians in a letter to Trajan, the Roman Emperor as a “contagious superstition abstaining from flesh food”

Seneca (5BC-65AD), stoic philosopher and tutor of Nero, describes the Christians as “ a foreign cultus or superstition (under imperial suspicion) who abstain from flesh food.”

“He continually fasts and prays, wears the same garment in all weathers,  accepts nothing from anyone, gives whatever he has to others and  abstains from meat and wine” The apocryphical acts of Thomas describing  the early Christians.

“No streams of blood are among them, no dainty cookery, no heaviness of  head. Nor are horrible smells of flesh meats among them or disagreeable  fumes from the kitchen” St Chrysostomos describing the early Christians

Finally, one cannot justify being non-violent towards human beings but violent toward animals. Animals are also creatures of God, and they also have a right to live undisturbed. When fruits, grains, vegetables, and milk are abundant, a slaughterhouse is a symbol of barbarianism. The mouth that speaks of peace and non-violence but feeds on the blood and flesh of slaughtered animals is the mouth of a hypocrite or a fool.

Anyone who maintains slaughterhouses with their weekly contributions are maintaining the most evil industry on planet earth, and under such conditions how can there be any possibility for peace, what to speak of spiritual progress. If we take the statistic of 12 million animals slaughtered each year in one slaughterhouse, and we times it by the many thousands of slaughterhouses throughout the world, we can understand that each year it runs into billions and billions.

Planet earth has become planet death, and on planet death the perpetrators of these abominations make plans for peace. They are so stupid they think they can sow seeds of thorns and produce roses. This mentality is now prominent amongst so-called religious leaders who ignore their very own tenants, which clearly state “thou shalt not kill” “do unto others as you would have done unto yourself” and “as you sow so shall you reap.”