Gluttony

Gluttony

Christine
Fletcher

GLUTTONY is the example of a sin (along with usury) which the church once recognised, in the sense of public preaching and teaching, which has disappeared from pulpits and classrooms. As a wife and mother, a large proportion of my time is taken up with food, planning what to cook, buying it, preparing it, cleaning it up. I never perceived the moral or spiritual qualities to this until a confessor made me concentrate on feeding the family – duties to the station in life. So, I became interested in the capital sin involving food. Meanwhile, in the secular world, Gluttony is the only sin that is recognised. To be fat is to be out of control, morally degenerate, probably a victim of child sexual abuse, have poor self-esteem, and poor health. This is summed up in the great cry of the cool, the chic and the trendy: No fat chicks.

Gluttony, which in the moral manuals includes drunkenness, is hounded and condemned by media outlets. One, can tell when it is the Christmas season by the increased police patrols for Driving under the Influence. When the Christmas season is finished, the magazines and newspapers turn from recipes for festive food and drinks, to the newest and best diets to lose the weight gained during all the jollifications. So, what is Gluttony? Why has it disappeared from the pulpit? What is our danger today from this sin?

Gluttony as a capital sin can be summarised as an interest in eating that is disproportionate or unreasonable. Drunkenness is included because you were drinking alcohol, certainly not water, with the food.

In the Gospels, we read of the rich fool who, in a year of good harvest, builds bigger barns and says ‘eat, drink and be merry.’ The kingdom of heaven is shown as a great banquet. And in Dives and Lazarus, a story I had always associated with the social gospel, but never taken as a reproach to individual gluttony, the text reads: ‘There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day...’

In all of these, gluttony seemed secondary to other concerns: covetousness, pride, egotism. Yet in the category of deadly sins, Gluttony is included.

Turning to Chaucer, as a representative of the middle ages, we find two sermons against the capital sins, one delivered by the Pardoner and one by the Parson. The pardoner, in the prologue to his tale says,

This echoes of Dives and Lazarus, and though the connection is not made explicit, I would think that Chaucer’s contemporaries would understand the reference without help.

After the prologue, which continues to give examples that this man is preaching words and not the rule of life he lives by, the pardoner preaches on gluttony:

O gluttony, full of wickedness
O first cause of confusion to us all
Beginning of damnation and our fall.

This connection of lust and gluttony was kept in the Catechism of the Council of Trent: ‘an overloaded stomach begets impurity’, but has almost disappeared in our time, as a comment from C. S. Lewis Screwtape Letters illustrates:

Mere excess in food is much less valuable than delicacy. Its chief use is as a kind of artillery preparation for attacks on chastity. On that, as on every other subject, keep your man in a condition of false spirituality. Never let him notice the medical aspect.

(Letter 17)

Returning to Chaucer, the second sermon on the capital sins is delivered by the parson who is described very favourably in the prologue to the tales:

His sermon on any capital sin always includes the mitigating circumstances, and remedies for fighting against the temptations to sin. Of gluttony the parson says that ‘he that is addicted to this sin may withstand no other sins.’ This explains the gospel’s citing of ‘he feasted sumptuously every day’ before going on to Dives’ neglect of the poor man at his gate.

The parson goes on to list the species of gluttony:

Here we see Gluttony of excess, from a parson of a poor parish. He goes on to quote a second authority, St. Gregory, whose typology of gluttony shows some interesting distinctions:

The Glutton, says St. Gregory, is one who

This list, in our age of dieters, brings the sin of gluttony to our attention as something present in our lives and needing attention. I would like to take a look at these points one by one.

Eating before it is time to eat
English writers and commentators enjoy pointing the finger at fat Americans, and our land’s obsession with food. Certainly, snacking keeps many American corporations humming along with grand profits. Snacking is, by definition, eating before it is time to eat. Eating has become grazing, with people munching little snacks throughout the day. The time at table for fellowship has disappeared as individuals microwave the latest snack and devour it in front of the TV – the audible wallpaper.

Family life is disrupted by the routines of sports and activities encroaching on the dinner hour. The children get home from school at 3:30, Basketball for John starts at 5:50, Jean doesn’t get in from crew till 7:30, Dad has a meeting – so what happens? Everyone microwaves something and eats alone.

This disappearance of ‘times to eat’ means a loss of manners, and of family identity. There is a school of family therapy in the US that now refuses to accept a new patient unless the family makes a commitment to eat together at least four times a week. A survey of college students reported that they wished their families had eaten together more often.

Here in Britain, the snacking industry seems to have just as firm a hold, with newsagents doing a brisk business in candy bars, packets of crisps. Certainly the sidewalks in our city show us that many people snack, and have no compunction about littering. Eating is a throwaway activity.

Too delicate food or drink
To quote Screwtape again:

The contemptuous way in which you spoke of gluttony as a means of catching a soul, in your last letter, shows only your ignorance. One of the great achievements of the last hundred years has been to deaden the human conscience on that subject, so that by now you will hardly find a sermon preached or a conscience troubled about it in the whole length and breadth of Europe. This has largely been effected by concentrating all our efforts on the gluttony of delicacy, not gluttony of excess.

He goes on to describe a old woman who:

Is a positive terror to hostesses and servants. She is always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sigh and a smile, ‘Oh, please, please.. all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast.’ You see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognises as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others.

I would include under this head another kind of delicacy about food, which Faith Popcorn, the social trend spotter, calls ‘atmosfear’ – where we live in an atmosphere of fear about our health, and food, that is so necessary for life, becomes the carrier of disease and death.

This fear comes from people who have clean water, sewage systems, and antibiotics. One thinks not only of the beef on the bone ban, but also of the food as medicine crowd – eat soy products to stop hot flushes, eat iron supplements to prevent male pattern baldness. Drink only fruit juice and mineral water to ‘flush out the toxins.’

Food as medicine leads to the food fads: the pattern is first, the food hailed as breakthrough for current health problem. Next, five or more experts promote new cookbooks and extol the virtues of this food. Now the drug companies make a synthesis of the ‘active ingredient’ into a pill so you don’t have to actually eat the food to get the benefit. Finally, there is the debunking of the food or supplement as the next set of provisional research findings are released.

Think of oat bran, margarine vs. butter, high carbohydrate vs. high protein diets. I think the ultimate abomination of this variety of gluttony, is this process applied to red wine. The ‘goodness’ of red wine in fighting heart disease is now distilled into a pill! What would Belloc say?

Eats too much or beyond measure
This is the picture we have of gluttony, the shiny faced fat man slobbering over his food, shovelling it in with no regard to taste, just seeking quantity. Surely the secular culture has condemned this enough and it isn’t really a problem any more.

Certainly not in that image; what, however, are we to make of ‘lite’ beer and fat free brownies? We chemically alter food so we can binge on it. The low fat diet that was proclaimed as such a breakthrough is great – so long as you stick to actual, natural, unaltered food. Throw McVities Go Ahead products into the mix, though, and people can gain weight on a low fat diet.

Our eating beyond measure has another quality to it, one that Lewis illustrated very imaginatively in the sci-fi novel Perelandra, where the main character, Ransom a philologist, is sent to Venus. Ransom finds and eats a gourd, with a marvellous, indescribable taste:

As he let the empty gourd fall from his hand and was about to pluck a second one, it came into his head that he was now neither hungry nor thirsty. And yet to repeat a pleasure so intense and almost so spiritual seemed an obvious thing to do. His reason, or what we commonly take to be reason in our own world, was all in favour of tasting this miracle again. Yet something seemed opposed to this ‘reason’. It is difficult to suppose that this opposition came from desire, for what desire would turn from so much deliciousness? But for whatever cause it appeared to him better not to taste again. Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day.

As Ransom explores, he is drenched by the ‘bubble trees’

Looking at a fine cluster of the bubbles which hung above his head he thought how easy it would be to get up and plunge oneself through the whole lot of them and to feel, all at once, that magical refreshment multiplied tenfold. But he was restrained by the same sort of feeling which had restrained him overnight from tasting a second gourd. He had always disliked the people who encored a favourite air in the opera that just spoils it, had been his comment. But this now appeared to him as a principle of far wider application and deeper moment. This itch to have things over again, as if life were a film that could be unrolled twice or even made to work backwards... was it possibly the root of all evil? No; of course the love of money was called that. But money itself – perhaps one valued it chiefly as a defence against chance, a security for being able to have things over again...

The next morning he discovers breadfruits:

It turned out to be good to eat. It did not give the orgiastic and almost alarming pleasure of the gourds, but rather the specific pleasure of plain food. But the meal had its unexpected high lights. Every now and then one struck a berry which had a bright red centre, and these were so savoury, so memorable among a thousand tastes, that he would have begun to look for them and to feed on them only, but that he was once more forbidden by that same inner advisor which had already spoken to him twice since he came to Perelandra. ‘Now on earth’, thought Ransom, ‘they’d soon discover how to breed these redhearts, and they’d cost a great deal more than the others.’ Money, in fact, would provide the means of saying encore in a voice that could not be disobeyed.

Dorothy Sayers in her essay ‘The Other six deadly sins’ makes a similar link between gluttony and our economy. She comments, ‘It is the great curse of gluttony that it ends by destroying all sense of the precious, the unique, the irreplaceable.’ She goes on to link our greed to the continued existence of the consumer society of mass production, and advertising to create artificial needs. Her comment, the consumer society would end tomorrow is we conquered our greed/gluttony.

The point that both Lewis and Sayers raise is that our desire to have the pleasure again, to make it available, mass-producing the redhearts, results in the deadening of our taste. We find this throughout our food industry. To someone who eats primarily food prepared commercially, the taste of ‘plain or home cooked’ food is bland, dull, unexciting. Where’s the pizzazz? Look at the cereal aisle in the store, everything, except wheatabix and cornflakes, are improved, flavour-enhanced, jazzed up. Oatmeal, surely that’s a wholesome, natural food, right? Now there are oatmeal bars in London and New York, Madonna’s a big fan. However, the standard order is for Oatmeal with raisins, maple syrup and other added flavours. A far cry from the plain bowl of salted porridge.

The fast food culture certainly encourages the eating without measure: every clerk at a fast food outlet, when taking your order, is trained to say, ‘Do you want to go large?’ An unintentional pun, considering the calorie counts. It also is linked to the culture of money, of having the pleasure again – the Whopper is exactly the same whether in Moscow, the Solomon Islands or Wichita. No local varieties, nothing precious or irreplaceable.

The endless, dizzying choice and abundance of food in our societies in the first world is accompanied by a growth in ‘eating disorders’ primarily anorexia and bulimia. Bulimia, the gorging and vomiting, certainly falls under the category of gluttony as eating without measure. But both disorders show another side, where gluttony is linked with pride.

This insight, by the way, comes from the Woman’s Hour on BBC 4. I was listening to a discussion on clothes, sizes and eating disorders and a speaker made the point that we value what is rare. Of course, when food is scarce, voluptuousness is prized (Yes, I love Rubens). Now that food is abundant, what is difficult is staying slim. So our media exaggerates and the ideal woman is Kate Moss on a diet. Impossible for most of us to attain, the rare and therefore the valuable.

But this sort of gluttony is also linked to lechery – in that many anorexics have sexual abuse in the background. Not all, but a significant proportion. The anorexia makes the physical signs of womanhood disappear.

At the other end of the scale are eating disorders which lead to obesity. We’re read of the tragedy of the young girl who died in her California home, her mother was to be tried for abuse because she fed her. We have discovered Prader-Willies syndrome, where the patients will literally eat themselves to death if not controlled. The University of Pennsylvania has specialised in investigating the genetic background to weight loss and body shape and is now willing to acknowledge that we are not all the same. Imagine being one of the morbidly obese in the society of Kate Moss? A vicious cycle of despair can result.

Dieting itself leads to weight gain, especially the very low calorie restricted programs (yes the ones with the protein drinks that several people die from each year. Opti-fast, etc.) The body can recognize a famine from the days in the cave, and keeps the metabolism shut down for months after the diet has stopped, so people are eating 1000 calories a day (a reducing diet for normal people) and GAINING weight. We have no measure, we go after the excess in dieting and in eating!

Is too fastidious, (with great attention paid to the preparation and dressing of food.)
We can all recognise this in our lives, although now we call it the Delia effect. (Thankfully she is teaching plain cooking, so it is not really fair to pick on her). We are inundated with cooking shows and with chefs who aren’t in the kitchen cooking but working the media. The River Café Cookbook sets a new standard for rare ingredients and fussy directions. (In the States it was the Silver Dollar Cookbook from San Francisco.)

Lewis comments, again from Screwtape

Now your patient is his mother’s son. While working your hardest, quite rightly, on other fronts, you must not neglect a little quiet infiltration in respect of gluttony. Being a male, he is not as likely to be caught by the ‘all I want’ camouflage. Males are best turned into gluttons with the help of their vanity... to think themselves very knowing about food, to pique themselves on having found the only restaurant in town where steaks are really ‘properly’ cooked.

In a passage that finally taught me the vanity of riches, Peter Mayle, in his book Acquired Tastes, writes:

I remember a fact-finding mission to a luxury hotel in Venice, a magnificent establishment with an equally magnificent chef. Impossible, I thought, to fail to enjoy dinner in such a place. But I was wrong. Sitting at the next table were four resplendent examples of old money from Milan. There were not happy. The white wine was not chilled to their taste. A finger was lifted but the waiter took longer than thirty seconds to arrive. Good grief? What was the world coming to? Throughout dinner, I could hear totally unjustified mutterings of discontent. No matter how delicious the food, how splendid the surroundings, things were not quite right. And this atmosphere – almost suspicious, poised for disappointment – pervaded the entire room. There wasn’t a jolly millionaire in sight. It was the first and only time I have ever eaten in a subdued Italian restaurant.

Our fastidiousness actually guarantees that we will be disappointed; by caring too much, we no longer have the real pleasure of enjoying the food that is unexpectedly delicious as opposed to being well prepared and good.

Eats too greedily
To see ourselves guilty of this sin, visit Burger King! Not an edifying sight.

Greedily in this context, I am taking as meaning eating with no manners or ceremony. Thomas Howard, in his book Hallowed be this House, writes of the Christian life through the separations we make in our dwellings: the hall for ceremonial greetings, the dining room for eating, the kitchen for preparations and so forth. He is concerned to defend the whole artificial construct of ritual, manners and customs against those who says ‘Down with these complicated structures, let us have honesty and simplicity and efficiency.’ Howard asks two questions: ‘Were all ages before ours out of their minds?’ And, ‘Tell us, then, about the forms of beauty, dignity and play that your new efficiency will open up to us?’

A defence of law and ceremony in Judaism by Rabbi Daniel Lapin comments on the Jewish dietary Law and those who observe it:

First: for the most part, high school girls who only eat kosher food do not get pregnant. This is not due to any mysterious contraceptive properties of chicken soup. Keeping kosher establishes the basis for self-discipline and desirable discrimination between the permitted and the prohibited in the most simple of the body’s appetites. From toddler-hood, the religiously raised Jewish youngster knows the difference between kosher candy and the other kind. This strength, learned by even the young child with the respect of food, will later stand him in good stead with respect to other, more compelling desires.

Second, The rule governing the role of the father prevents children from ever sitting in their father’s chair at the dining room table and indeed from even starting the meal until father has recited the blessing and the broken bread. These are components of a monumental system of family stability.

Rabbi Lapin comments on the claim that nature loudly and clearly calls for a male to be present in the life of a child for only about 60 seconds:

Modern life and a welfare society render the father unnecessary for the protection of mother and young child or for their economic sustenance. Not surprisingly, father bolts because a healthy male psyche rebels at feeling unneeded and unimportant. Jewish law created in the home an extensive network of need for the father that uncivilised nature never dreamed of. The result is the much-praised dedication of the Jewish husband to his wife and children. This is because, like most of us, fathers also respond best to being needed.

In the Christian life, the common, daily necessary business of eating embodies our primary principle: My life for yours. We are receiving life by chewing and swallowing the life of something else. This is a place of sacrifice, it is a place of thanksgiving, it is an echo of the Eucharist and should be surrounded by love and care, fellowship and prayer.

Equally, the preparation and cleaning up are the service of the table. And this service is so devalued in our society, we must recover our understanding of it and see that it is necessary to serve and to be served as another way of following Christ. We can’t keep such elevated thoughts at every meal, as in liturgy, is it not only words that are instructive but gestures, order of things and silence teach as well. A family dinner table becomes the heart of the communion of the family, and hospitality to others is key, even if we don’t set the place for Elijah at every meal.

Restoring the family dinner table, and respect for service and hospitality would be the first of my recommendations for us. For other practical ways to overcome gluttony, I will turn back to our Parson:

Against gluttony abstinence is the remedy, as Galen says, but I hold that it be not meritorious if he do it only for the health of his body. St Augustine will have it that abstinence should be practised for the sake of virtue and with patience.

The companions of abstinence are:

Temperance – which seeks a middle course in all things.
Shame which eschews all indecency.
Sufficiency which seeks after no rich food or drink.
Measure which restrains appetite, and
Sobriety which restrains luxurious desire to sit long and softly at meat.

It is my hope that through examining this ‘sin’, we may rediscover the worth of fasting and the joy of feasting.

Pride Sloth