Tastes of danger and pleasure in early and late antique Christianity

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the dietary teachings of Christian authors from the first century AD until the end of late antiquity. During that period, Christians had to decide how to incorporate, reject and transform Jewish dietary preferences and food taboos in a multicultural context. Religious and cultural education plays a profound role in shaping taste, and in turn, what one refuses to taste becomes a defining element in identifying oneself as obedient to God. The chapter explores how the first generation of Jewish Christians had to overcome their disgust, both at seeing people eat forbidden food and at being invited to share the same table. It pinpoints the danger involved in indulging the sense of taste, which includes the pleasure of eating and a preference for certain foods. The dangers associated with taste are true in biblical literature, since taste leads to temptation. Late antique Christians build upon this link between consumption, enjoyment and the dangers of sin.